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THE 



MODERN 



BRITISH ESSAYISTS. 



VOL. Y. 



THOMAS CARLYLE. 



PHILADELPHIA: 

CAREY AND HA R T. 

1847. 



0.»v 






I 



CRITICAL 



AND 



MISCELLANEOUS 



ESSAYS. 



BY THOMAS CARLYLE, 

AUTHOR OF THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



A NEW EDITION, 

COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME. 



PHILADELPHIA: 
CAREY & HART, 126 CHESNUT STREET. 

1848. 



3 7^^ 



^/ 



,0^ 



ADVERTISEMENT. 



The Publishers introduce the present edition of Mr. Carlyle's Essays 
^^\ the following note from the American Editor of the First Edition. 

Messrs. Carey & Hart, 

Gentlemen : — I have to signify to his American readers, Mr. Carlyle's con- 
currence in this new edition of his Essays, and his expressed satisfaction in the 
author's share of pecuniary benefit which your justice and liberality have secured 
to him in anticipation of the sale. With every hope for the success of your 
enterprise, I am your obedient servant, 

R. W. Emerson. 

Concord, June, 1845. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter 

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCI. 1827. 

State of German Literature ----------"""" 

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCII. 1827. 

- - 35 
Life and Writings of Werner 

Foreign Review. — No. I. 1828. 

Goethe's Helena -----------"""""" 

Foreign Review. — No. II. 1828. 

Foreign Review.— No. III. 1828. 

Burns ---------- 

Edinburgh Review.— No. XCVI. 1828. 

' - _ - 115 
The Life of Heyne ^ 

Foreign Review.— No. IV. 1828. V 

128 

German Playwrights 

Foreign Review.— No. V. 1829. 

142 

Voltaire ---------- 

Foreign Review.— No. VI. 1829. 

^ 167 

JNOVAI^S 

Foreign Review.— No. VII. 1829. 

187 
Signs of the Times - - ■ " " '„„" 
Edinburgh Review.-No. XCVIII. 1829. 

IQfi 

Jean Paul Friedrich Richter again 

Foreign Review.— No. IX. 1830. 

^ „ 219 

On History 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. II. No X. 1830. 

Luther's Psalm 'ooi '""'"''"' 

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. II. No. XII. 1831. 

Schiller ----------""■"""■""" 

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. III. No. XIV. 1831. 

The Nibelugen Lied ^^ 

Westminster Review. — No. XXIX. 1831. 

German Literature of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries 262 

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. XVI. 1831. 
Taylor's Historic Survey of German Poetry 282 

Edinburgh Review.-No. CV. 1831. 

Tragedy of the Night-Moth --------- ^5 

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. IV. No. XIX. 1831. 

^ 296 

Characteristics --- «. 

Edinburgh Review.— No. CVIII. 1831. 
Goethe's Portrait -------- 310 

Eraser's Magazine.— Vol. V. No. XXVI. 1832. 

Biography ------------- rfll 

Eraser's Magazine.- Vol. V. No. XXVII. 1832. 
Boswell's Life of Johnson -.-- 317 

Fraser'6 Magazine.— Vol. V. No. XXVIII. 1832. 

1* 5 



6 CONTENTS. 

Death of Goethe -- 341 

New Monthly Magazine.— Vol. XXXIV. No. CXXXVIII. 1832. 

Goethe's Works .-_. 345 

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. XIX. 1832. 

Corn-Law Rhymes ------- 365 

Edinburgh Review.— No. CX. 1832. 

Novelle : Translated from Goethe 375 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VI. No. XXXIV. 1832. 

The Tale: By Goethe 383 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VI. No. XXXIII. 1832. 

Diderot 398 

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. XXII. 1833. 

On History Again --: -.-. 422 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VII. No. XLI. 1833. 

Count Cagliostro : Flight First 436 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VIII. No. XLIII. 1833. 

Count Cagliostro : Flight Last 433 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. VIII. No. XLIV. 1833. 

Death of the Rev. Edward Irving -- 451 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. XI. No. LXI. 1835. 

The Diamond Necklace 452 

Fraser's Magazine.— Vol. XV. Nos. LXXXV. and LXXXVI. 1837. 

Memoirs of Mirabeau 478 

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. VIII. and LI. 1837. 

Parliamentary History of the French Revolution 504 

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. IX. and LII. 1837. 

Memoirs of the Life of Scott 511 

London and Westminster Review. — Nos. XII. and LV. 1838. 

Varnhagen Von Ense's Memoirs 535 

London and Westminster Review. — No. LXII. 1838. 

Petition on the Copy-Right Bill -..-. 545 

The E.\aminer.— April 7, 1839. 

Dr. Francia 547 

Foreign Quarterly Review.— No. LXII. 1843. 



CARLYLE'S 



MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH EICHTER. 



[Edinburgh Review, 1827.] 



Dr. JoHwsosr, it is said, when he first heard 
of Boswell's intention to write a life of him, 
announced, with decision enough, that, if he 
thought Boswell really meant to u-rite his life, 
he would prevent it by taking Bosweirs! That 
great authors should actually employ this pre- 
ventive against bad biographers is a thing we 
would by no means recommend; but the truth 
is, that, rich as we are in biography, a well- 
written life is almost as rare as a well-spent 
one; and there are certainly many more men 
whose history deserves to be recorded than 
persons willing and able to furnish the record. 
But great men, like the old Egyptian kings, 
must all be tried after death, before they 
can be embalmed: and what, in truth, are 
these "Sketches," "Anas," "Conversations," 
"Voices," and the like, but the votes and plead- 
ings of the ill-informed advocates, and jurors, 
and judges, i'rom whose conliict, however, we 
shall in the end have a true verdict 1 The worst 
of it is at the first; for weak eyes are precisely 
the fondest of glittering objects. And, accord- 
ingly, no sooner does a great man depart, and 
leave his character as public property, than a 
crowd of little men rushes towards it. There 
they are gathered together, blinking up to it with 
such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, 
hovering round it this way and that, each cun- 
ningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some 
reflex of it in the little mirror of himself; 
though, many times, this mirror is so twisted 
with convexities and concavities, and, indeed, 
so extremely small in size, that to expect any 
true image, or any image whatever from it, is 
out of the question. 

Richter was much better-natured than John- 
son ; and took many provoking things with the 
spirit of a humorist and philosopher; nor can 
we think that so good a man, even had he fore- 
seen this work of Doering's, would have gone 
the length of assassinating him for it. Doer- 
mg is a person we have known for several 
years, as a compiler, and translator, and ballad- 



* Jean Paul Friedrich Richler's Leben, ntbst Charac- 
terutik seiner ^VeTke; von Heinrich Doerinir. (Jenn Paul 
Friedrich Richter's Life, with a Sketch of hw Works; 
by Heinricli Uoering ) Gotha. Ilennings, 1826. 12mo. 
Pfi. S06. 



monger, whose grand enterprise, however, is 
his Galhry of Weimar Authors; a series of 
strange little biographies, beginning with Schil- 
ler, and already extending over Wieland and 
Herder, — now comprehending, probably by 
conquest, Klopstock also, and lastly, by a sort 
of droit (Vuubaiyie, Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, 
neither of whom belonged to Weimar. Au- 
thors, it must be admitted, are happier than the 
old painter with his cocks : for they write, na- 
turally and without fear of ridicule or offence, 
the name and description of their work on the 
title-page; and thenceforth the purport and 
tendency of each volume remains indisputable. 
Doering is sometimes lucky in this privilege; 
for his manner of composition, being so pecu- 
liar, might now and then occasion difficulty, 
but for this precaution. His biographies he 
works up simply enough. He first ascertains, 
from the Leipzig Convcrsalionslixiron or Jor- 
den's Poetical Lexicon, Flcjgel, or Koch, or other 
such Compcndivm or Handliock, the date and 
place of the proposed individual's birth, his 
parentage, trade, appointments, and the titles 
of his works; (the date of his death you al- 
ready know from the newspapers;) this serves 
as a foundation for the edifice. He then goes 
through his writings, and all other writings 
where he or his pursuits are treated of, and 
whenever he finds a passage with his name ia 
it, he cuts it out, and carries it away. In this 
manner a mass of materials is collected, and 
the building now proceeds apace. Stone is 
laid on the top of stone, just as it comes to 
hand ; a trowel or two of biographic mortar, if 
perfectly convenient, being perhaps spread in 
here and there, by way of cement; and so the 
strangest pile suddenly arises; amorphous, 
pointing every way but to the zenith, — here a 
block of granite, there a mass of pipe-clay; 
till the whole finishes, when the materials are 
finished, — and you leave it standing to poste- 
rity, like some miniature Stonehenge, a perfect 
architectural enigma. 

To speak without figure, this mode of life- 
writing has its disadvantages. Fur one thing, 
the composition cannot well be what the critics 
call harmonious; and, indeed, Herr Doering's 
transitions are often abrupt enough. His hero 



8 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



changes his object and occupation from page 
to page, often from sentence to sentence, in the 
most unaccountable way; a pleasure journey, 
and a sickness of fifteen years, are despatched 
with equal brevity; in a moment you find him 
married, and the father of three fine children. 
He dies no less suddenly; — he is studying as 
usual, writing poetry, receiving visits, full of 
life and business, when instantly some para- 
graph opens under him, like one of the trap- 
doors in the Visio7i of Mirza, and he drops, 
without note of preparation, into the shades 
below. Perhaps, indeed, not for ever : we have 
instances of his rising after the funeral, and 
winding up his affairs. The time has been, 
that when the brains were out the man would 
die; but Doering orders these matters dif- 
ferently. 

We beg leave to say, however, that we really 
have no private pique against Doering: on the 
contrary, we are regular purchasers of his 
ware; and it gives us true pleasure to see his 
spirits so much improved since we first met 
him. In the Life of Schiller, his state did seem 
rather unprosperous : he wore a timorous, sub- 
missive, and downcast aspect, as if like Sterne's 
Ass, he were saying, " Don't thrash me ; — but 
if you will, you may !" Now, however, com- 
forted by considerable sale, and praise from 
this and the other Literaturblatt, which has 
commended his diligence, his fidelity, and, 
strange to say, his method, he advances with 
erect countenance and firm hoof, and even re- 
calcitrates contemptuously against such as do 
him offence. GlUck auf dem Weg ! is the worst 
we wish him. 

Of his Life of Bichter, these preliminary ob- 
servations may be our excuse for saying but 
little. He brags much, in his preface, that it 
is all true and genuine ; for Kichter's widow, 
it seems, had, by public advertisement, cau- 
tioned the world against it ; another biography, 
partly by the illustrious deceased himself, part- 
ly by Otto, his oldest friend and the appointed 
editor of his works, being actually in prepara- 
tion. This rouses the indignant spirit of Doer- 
ing, and he stoutly asseverates, that, his docu- 
ments being altogether authentic, this biogra- 
phy is 7io pseudo-biography. With greater truth 
he might have asseverated that it was no bio- 
graphy at all. Well are he and Hennings of 
Gotha aware that this thing of shreds and 
patches has been vamped together for sale 
only. Except a few letters to Kunz, the Bam- 
berg bookseller, which turn mainly on the pur- 
chase of spectacles, and the journeyings and 
freightage of two boxes that used to pass and 
repass between Richter and Kunz's circulating 
library; with three or four notes of similar im- 
portance, and chiefly to other booksellers, there 
are no biographical documents here, which 
were not open to all Europe as well as to Hein- 
rich Doering. Indeed, very nearly one-half of 
the Life is occupied with a description of the 
funeral and its appendages, — how the " sixty 
torches, with a number of lanterns and pitch- 
pans," were arranged ; how this patrician or pro- 
fessor followed that, through Friedrich-street, 
Chancery-street, and other streets of Bayreuth ; 
and how at last the torches all went out, as 
Doctor Gabler and Doctor Spatzier were pero- 



rating (decidedly in bombast) over the grave. 
Then, it seems, there were meetings held in 
various parts of Germany, to solemnize the 
memory of Richter; among the rest, one in the 
Museum of Frankfort on the Maine ; where a 
Doctor Borne speaks another long speech, if 
possible in still more decided bombast. Next 
come threnodies from all the four winds, mostly 
on very splay-footed metre. Thewhole of which 
is here snatched from the kind oblivion of the 
newspapers, and " lives in Settle's numbers one 
day more." 

We have too much reverence for the name 
of Richter to think of laughing over these un- 
happy threnodies and panegyrists ; some of 
whom far exceed any thing we English can ex- 
hibit in the epicedial style. They rather tes- 
tify, however maladroitly, that the Germans 
have felt their loss, — which, indeed, is one to 
Europe at large; they even affect us with a 
certain melancholy feeling, when we consider 
how a heavenly voice must become mute, and 
nothing be heard in its stead but the whoop of 
quite earthly voices, lamenting, or pretending 
to lament. Far from us be all remembrance 
of Doering and Company, while we speak of 
Richter! But his own works give us some 
glimpses into his singular and noble nature; 
and to our readers a few words on this man, 
certainly one of the most remarkable of his 
age, will not seem thrown away. 

Except by name, Jean Paul Friedrich Rich- 
ter is little known out of Germany. The only 
thing connected with him, we think, that has 
reached this country, is his saying, imported 
by Madame de Stael, and thankfully pocketed 
by most newspaper critics : " Providence has 
given to the French the empire of the land, to 
the English that of the sea, to the Germans that 
of — the air!" Of this last element, indeed, his 
own genius might easily seem to have been a 
denizen : so fantastic, many-coloured, far-grasp- 
ing, every way perplexed and extraordinary in 
his mode of writing, that lo translate him is next 
to impossible; nay, a dictionary of his works 
has actually been in part published for the use 
of German readers ! These things have re- 
stricted his sphere of action, and may long re- 
strict it to his own country: but there, in re- 
turn, he is a favourite of the first class ; studied 
through all his intricacies with trustful admi- 
ration, and a love which tolerates much. Dur- 
ing the last forty years, he has been continually 
before the public, in various capacities, and 
growing generally in esteem w^ith all ranks of 
critics; till, at length, his gainsayers have 
been either silenced or convinced; and Jean 
Paul, at first reckoned half-mad, has long ago 
vindicated his singularities to nearly universal 
satisfaction, and now combines popularity with 
real depth of endowment, in perhaps a greater 
degree than any other writer; being second in 
the latter point to scarcely more rhan one of 
his contemporaries, and in the former second 
to none. 

The biography of go distinguished a person 
could scarcely fail to be interesting, especial- 
ly his autobiography; which, accordingly, we 
wait for, and may in time submit to our readers, 
if it seem worthy : meanwhile, the history of 
his life, so far as outward events characterize 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH FIGHTER. 



it, may be stated in few words. He was born 
at Wunsiedel in Bayreuth, in March, 1763. 
His faliier was a subaltern teacher in the Gyni- 
nasium of the place, and was afterwards pro- 
moled to be clergyman at Schwarzbach on the 
Saale. Richter's early education was of the 
scantiest sort; but his fine faculties and un- 
wearied diligence supplied every defect. Un- 
able to purchase books, he borrowed what he 
could come at, and transcribed from them, often 
great part of their contents, — a habit of ex- 
cerpting, which continued with him through 
life, and influenced, in more than one way, his 
mode of writing and study. To the last, he 
was an insatiable and universal reader; so 
that his extracts accumulated on his hands, 
"till they filled whole chests." In 1780, he 
went to the University of Leipzig ; with the 
highest character, in spite of the impediments 
which he had struggled with, for talent and ac- 
quirement. Like his father, he was destined 
for Theology ; from which, however, his va- 
grant genius soon diverged into Poetry and Phi- 
losophy, to the neglect, and, ere long, to the 
final abandonment, of his appointed profession. 
Not well knowing what to do, he now accepted 
a tutorship in some family of rank; then he 
had pupils in his own house, — which, how- 
ever, like his way of life, he often changed; for 
by this time he had become an author, and, in 
his wanderings over Germany, was putting 
forth, — now here, now there, — the strangest 
books, with the strangest titles : For instance, — 
Greenland Lawsuits ; — Biographical lienralions 
under the Cranium of a Giantess : — Selection from 
the Papers of the Devil: — and the like. In these 
indescribable performances, the splendid fa- 
culties of the writer, luxuriating as they seemed 
in utter riot, could not be disputed ; nor, with 
all its extravagance, the fundamental strength, 
honesty, and tenderness of his nature. Genius 
will reconcile men to much. By degrees, Jean 
Paul began to be considered not a strange, 
crackbrained mixture of enthusiast and buf- 
foon, but a man of infinite humour, sensibility, 
force, and penetration. His writings procured 
him friends and fame ; and at length a wife 
and a settled provision. With Caroline Mayer, 
his good spouse, and a pension (in 1802) from 
the King of Bavaria, he settled in Bayreuth, 
the capital of his native province; where he 
lived thenceforth, diligent and celebrated in 
many new departments of literature; and died 
on the 14th of November, 1825, loved as well 
as admired by all his countrymen, and most by 
those who had known him most intimately. 

A huge, irregular man, both in mind and 
person, (for his portrait is quite a physiogno- 
mical study,) full of fire, strength, and impe- 
tuosity, Richter seems, at the same time, to 
have been, in the highest degree, mild, simple- 
hearted, humane. He was fond of conversation, 
and might well shine in it: he talked, as he 
wrote, in a style of his own, full of wild strength 
and charms, to which his natural Bayreuth ac- 
cent often gave additional effect. Yet he loved 
retirement, the country, and all natural things ; 
from his youth upwards, he himself tells us, 
he may almost be said to have lived in the 
open air; it was among groves and meadows 
♦hat he studied, — often that he wrote. Even in 



the streets of Bayreuth, we have heard, he was 
seldom seen without a flower in his breast. A 
man of quiet tastes, and warm, compassionate 
aflTections ! His friends he must have loved 
as few do. Of his poor and humble mother 
he often speaks by allusion, and never without 
reverence and overflowing tenderness. "Un- 
happy is the man," says he, " for whom his own 
mother has not made all other mothers vener- 
able !" and elsewhere; — "O thou who hast 
still a father and a mother, thank God for it in 
the day when thy soul is full of joyful tears, 
and needs a bosom wherein to shed them !" — 
We quote the following sentences from Doer- 
ing, almost the only memorable thing he has 
written in this volume: — 

"Richter's studying or sitting apartment of- 
fered, about this time, (1793,) a true and beau- 
tiful emblem of his simple and noble way of 
thought, which comprehended at once the high 
and the low. Whilst his mother, who then 
lived with him, busily pursued her household 
work, occupying herself about stove and dres- 
ser, Jean Paul was sitting in a corner of the 
same room, at a simple writing-desk, with few 
or no books about him, but merely with one 
or two drawers containing excerpts and manu- 
scripts. The jingle of the household operations 
seemed not at all to disturb him, any more than 
did the cooing of the pigeons, which fluttered 
to and fro in the chamber, — a place, indeed, of 
considerable size." — P. 8. 

Our venerable Hooker, we remember, also 
enjoyed " the jingle of household operations," 
and the more questionable jingle of shrewd 
tongues to boot, while he wrote ; but the good 
thrifty mother, and the cooing pigeons, were 
wanting. Richter came afterwards to live in 
finer mansions, and had the great and learned 
for associates ; but the gentle feelings of those 
days abode with him: through life he was the 
same substantial, determinate, yet meek and 
tolerating man. It is seldom that so much 
rugged energy can be so blandly attempered; 
— that so much vehemence and so much soft- 
ness will go together. 

The expected edition of Richter's works is 
to be in sixty volumes: and they are no less 
multifarious than extensive; embracing sub- 
jects of all sorts, from the highest probi ms 
of transcendental philosophy, and the most 
passionate poetical delineations, to Gulden Hides 
for the Weather-Prophet, and instructions in the 
Jlrt of Falling Asleep. His chief productions 
are novels: the JJnsirhtlxnc Lo^e (Invisible 
Lodge); Fkgeljahre (WUd-Oals) ; Life of F,x- 
lein ; the Jubehenior (Parson in Jubilee); 
Schmelzlc's Journey to Flalz : Katzenberger's 
Journey lo the Bath; IJfe of Fibcl j with many 
lighter pieces; and twn works of a higher 
order, Hesperus and Titan, the largest and the 
best of his novels. It was the former that first 
(in 1795) introduced him into decisive and 
universal estimation with his countrymen : the 
latter he himself, with the most judicious of 
his critics, regarded as his master-piece. But 
the name Novelist, as we in England must 
understand it, would ill describe so vast and 
discursive a genius: for, with all his grotesque, 
tumultuous pleasantry, Richter is a man of a 
truly earnest, nay, high and solemn character 



10 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and seldom writes without a meaning far be- 
yond the sphere of common romancers. Hes- 
perus and Titan themselves, though in form 
nothing more than "novels of real life," as the 
Minerva Press would say, have solid metal 
enough in them to furnish whole circulating 
libaries, were it beaten into the usual filigree; 
and much which, attenuate it as we might, no 
quarterly subscriber could well carry with him. 
Amusement is often, in part almost always, a 
mean with Richter; rarely or never his high- 
est end. His thoughts, his feelings, the creations 
of his spirit, walk before us imbodied under 
wondrous shapes, in motley and ever-fluctuat- 
ing groups ; but his essential character, how- 
ever he disguise it, is that of a Philosopher and 
moral Poet, whose study has been human 
nature, whose delight and best endeavour are 
with all that is beautiful, and tender, and m3's- 
teriously sublime, in the fate or history of man. 
This is the purport of his writings, whether 
their form be that of fiction or of truth; the spirit 
that pervades and ennobles his delineations of 
common life, his wild wayward dreams, allego- 
ries, and shadowy imaginings, no less than his 
disquisitions of a nature directly scientific. 

But in this latter province also, Richter has 
accomplished much. His Vorschule der Aesthctik 
(Introduction to Esthetics*) is a work on po- 
etic art, based on principles of no ordinary 
depth and compass, abounding in noble views, 
and, notwithstanding its frolicsome exnberance, 
in sound and subtile criticism; esteemed even 
in Germany, where criticism has long been 
treated of as a science, and by such persons as 
Winkelmann, Kant, Herder, and the Schlegels. 
Of this work we could speak long, did our limits 
allow. We fear it might astonish many an 
honest brother of our craft, were he to read it ; 
and altogether perplex and dash his maturest 
counsels, if he chanced to understand it. — 
Richter has also written on education, a work 
entitled Levnna ; distinguished by keen prac- 
tical sagacity, as well as generous sentiment, 
and acertain sober magnificenceof speculation ; 
the whole presented in that singular style which 
characterizes the man. Germany is rich in 
works on Education ; richer at present than 
any other country: it is there only that some 
echo of the Lockes and MiJtons, speaking of 
this high matter, may still be heard ; and speak- 
ing of it in the language of our own time, with 
insight into the actual wants, advantages, 
perils, and prospects of this age. Among 
writers on this subject, Richter holds a high 
place ; if we look chiefly at his tendency and 
aims, perhaps the highest. — The Clavis Fichti- 
ana is a ludicrous performance, known to us 
only by report; but Richter is said to possess 
the merit, while he laughs at Fichte, of under- 
standing him; a merit among Fichte's critics, 
which seems to be one of the rarest. Report 
also, we regret to say, is all that we know of 
the Campnner Thai, a Discourse on the Immor- 
tality of the Soul; one of Richter's beloved 
topics,or rather the life of his whole philosophy, 



♦ From aia^'ivoijiat. to feel. A word invented by 
Baiimgarten, (some eighty years ago,) to express gener- 
ally the Scievce of the Fine JItIs: ; and now in universal 
use among the Germans. Perhaps we also mishl as 
well adopt it ; at least if any such scienoe should ever 
arise among us. 



glimpses of which look forth on us from almost 
every one of his writings. He died while en- 
gaged, under recent and almost total blindness, 
in enlarging and remodelling this Cavipaner 
Thai: the unfinished manuscript was borne 
upon his coffin to the burial vault; and Klop- 
stock's hymn, jluferstehen inrst du, " Thou shalt 
arise, my soul," can seldom have been sung 
with more appropriate application than over 
the grave of Jean Paul. 

We defy the most careless or prejudiced 
reader to peruse these works without an im- 
pression of something splendid, wonderful, and 
daring. But they require to be studied as well 
as read, and this with no ordinary patience, if 
the reader, especially the foreign reader, wishes 
to comprehend rightly either their truth or their 
want of truth. Tried by many an accepted 
standard, Richter would be speedily enough 
disposed of; pronounced a mystic, a German 
dreamer, a rash and presumptuous innovator; 
and so consigned, with equanimity, perhaps 
with a certain jubilee, to the Limbo appointed 
for all such wind-bags and deceptions. Ori- 
ginality is a thing we constantly clamour for, 
and constantly quarrel with ; as if, observes 
our author himself, any originality but our 
own could be expected to content us ! In fact, 
all strange things are apt, without fault of theirs, 
to estrange us at first view, and unhappily 
scarcely any thing is perfectly plain, but what 
is also perfectly common. The current coin 
of the realm passes into all hands ; and be it 
gold, silver, copper, is acceptable and of known 
value: but with new ingots, with foreign bars, 
and medals of Corinthian brass, the case is 
widely different. 

There are few writers with whom delibera- 
tion and careful distrust of first impressions 
are more necessary than with Richter. He 
is a phenomenon from the very surface ; he 
presents himself with a professed and deter- 
mined singularit}': his language itself is a stone 
of stumbling to the critic; to critics of the 
grammarian species, an unpardonable, often 
an insuperable, rock of offence. Not that he 
is ignorant of grammar, or disdains the sciences 
of spelling and parsing ; but he exercises both 
in a certain latitudinarian spirit; deals with 
astonishing liberality in parentheses, dashes, 
and subsidiary clauses; invents hundreds of 
new words, alters old ones, or by hyphen, 
chains, pairs, and packs them together into 
most jarring combination; in short, produces 
sentences of the most heterogeneous, lumber- 
ing, interminable kind. Figures without limit ; 
indeed the whole is one tissue of metaphors, 
and similes, and allusions to all the provinces 
of Earth, Sea, and Air, interlaced with epi- 
grammatic breaks, vehement bursts, or sar- 
donic turns, interjections, quips, puns, and 
even oaths ! A perfect Indian jungle it seems; 
a boundless, unparalleled imbroglio; nothing 
on all sides but darkness, dissonance, confusion 
worse confounded ! Then the style ■ of the 
whole corresponds, in perplexity and extrava- 
gance, with that of the parts. Every work, be it 
in fiction or serious treatise, is embaled in some 
fantastic wrappage, some mad narrative ac- 
counting for its appearance, and connecting it 
with the author, who generally becomes a per- 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH EICHTER. 



tl 



son of the drama himself, before all is over. 
He has a whole imaginary geography of Europe 
in his novels; the cities of Flachsenfingen, 
Haarhaar, Scheerau, and so forth, with their 
princes, and privy-councillors, and serene 
highnesses; most of whom, odd enough fel- 
lows every way, are Richter's private acquaint- 
ances, talk with him of state matters, (in the 
purest Tory dialect,) and often incite him to get 
on with his writing. No story proceeds without 
the most erratic digressions, and voluminous 
tagrags rolling after it in many a snaky twine. 
Ever and anon there occurs some "Extra-leaf," 
with its satirical petition, programme, or other 
wonderful intercalation, no mortal can foresee 
on what. It is, indeed, a mighty maze; and 
often the panting reader toils after him in vain, 
or, baffled and spent, indignantly stops short, 
and retires perhaps for ever. 

All this, we must admit, is true of Richter; 
but much more is true also. Let us not turn 
from him after the first cursory glance, and 
imagine we have settled his account by the 
words Rhapsody and Affectation. They are 
cheap words we allow, and of sovereign po- 
tency ; we should see, therefore, that they %e 
not rashly applied. Many things in Richter 
accord ill with such a theory. There are rays 
of the keenest truth, nay, steady pillars of 
scientific light rising through this chaos: Is it 
in fact a chaos, or may it be that our eyes are 
not of infinite vision, and have only missed the 
plan 1 Few rhapsodists are men of science, 
of solid learning, of rigorous study, and ac- 
curate, extensive, nay, universal knowledge ; 
as he is. With regard to affectation, also, there 
is much to be said. The essence of affecta- 
tion is that ii be assumed: the character is, as 
it were, forcibly crushed into some foreign 
mould, in the hope of being thereby reshaped 
and beautified ; the unhappy man persuades 
himself that he is in truth a new and wonder- 
fully engaging creature, and so he moves about 
with a conscious air, though every movement 
betrays not symmetry,but dislocation. This it is 
to be affected, to walk in a vain show. But the 
strangeness alone is no proof of the vanity. 
Many men that move smoothly in the old es- 
tablished railways of custom will be found 
to have their affectation ; and perhaps here 
and there some divergent genius be accused 
of it unjustly. The show, though common, may 
not cease to be vain; nor become so for being 
uncommon. Before we censure a man for 
seeming what he is not, we should be sure that 
we know what he is. As to Richter in parti- 
cular, we think it but fair to observe, that 
strange and tumultuous as he is, there is a 
certain benign composure visible in his 
writings ; a mercy, a gladness, a reverence, 
united in such harmony, as we cannot but 
think bespeaks not a false, but a genuine state 
of mind ; not a feverish and morbid, but a 
healthy and robust state. 

The secret of the matter, perhaps, is that 
Richter requires more study than most readers 
care to give ; for, as we approach more closely, 
many things grow clearer. In the man's own 
sphere there is consistency; the farther we ad- 
vance into it, we see confusion more and more 
unfold itself into order till at last, viewed 



from its proper centre, his intellectual univers?-> 
no longer a distorted, incoherent series of air- 
landscapes, coalesces into compact expansion ; 
a vast, magnificent, and variegated scene ; fully 
indeed, of wondrous products, and rude, il 
may be, and irregular; but gorgeous, and 
varied, and ample ; gay with the richest vef" 
dure and foliage, and glittering in the brightest 
and kindest sun. 

Richter has been called an intellectual Co- 
lossus; and in truth it is still somewhat in this- 
light that we view him. His faculties are all 
of gigantic mould; cumbrous, awkward in their 
movements; large and splendid rather than 
harmonious or beautiful ; yet joined in living 
union, and of force and compass altogether 
extraordinary. He has an intellect vehement, 
rugged, irresistible; crushing in pieces ther 
hardest problems; piercing into the most hid- 
den combinations of things, and grasping the 
most distant: an imagination vague, sombre, 
splendid, or appalling; brooding over the 
abysses of Being ; wandering through Infini- 
tude, and summoning before us, in its dim re- 
ligious light, shapes of brilliancy, solemnity, 
or terror : a fancy of exuberance literally un- 
exampled ; for it pours its treasures with a 
lavishness which knows no limit, hanging, like 
the sun, a jewel on every grass-blade, and' 
sowing the earth at large with orient pearl. Bat 
deeper than all these lies Humour, the ruling 
quality with Richter; as it were the central fire 
that pervades and vivifies his whole being. He 
is a humorist from his inmost soul; he thinks 
as a humorist, he feels, imagines, acts as a 
humorist : Sport is the element in which his- 
nature lives and works. A tumultuous eleme;^®- 
for such a nature, and wild work he makes in- 
it ! A Titan in his sport as in hi^ earnestness^ 
he oversteps all bound, and riots without lavir 
or measure. He heaps Pelion upon Ossa, and 
hurls the universe together and asunder like a 
case of playthings. The Moon " bombards"' ; 
the Earth, being a rebellious satellite; Mars'j 
" preaches" to the other planets very singular'' 
doctrine ; nay, we have Time and Space them-' 
selves playing fantastic tricks : it is an infinite 
masquerade; all Nature is gone forth mum-'' 
ming in the strangest guises. 

Yet the anarchy is not without its purpose ;=' 
these vizards are not mere hollow masks; but- 
there are living faces''~5eneath them, and this, 
mumming has its significance. Richter is a mac 
of mirth, but he seldom or never condescends to' 
be a merry-andrew. Nay, in spite of its extra va~- 
gance, we should say that his humour is of alS 
his gifts intrinsically the finest and most genij>- 
ine. It has such witching turns ; there is some- 
thing in it so capricious, so quaint, so heartfeJt.. 
From his Cyclopean workshop, and its fuligf— 
nous limbecs, and huge unwieldy machinery,, 
the little shrivelled, twisted figure comes forth'! 
at last, so perfect and so living, to be for ever 
laughed at and for ever loved I Wayward as 
he seems, he works not without forethought.; 
like Rubens, by a single stroke, he can change 
a laughing face into a sad one. But in his 
smile itself, a touching pathos may lie hidden:^ 
a pity too deep for tears. He is a man of feel- 
ing, in the noblest sense of that word ; for he: 
loves all living with the heart of a brother ; hiss* 



12 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Boul rushes forth, in sympath}' with gladness 
and sorrow, with goodness or grandeur, over 
all creation. Every gentle and generous affec- 
tion, every thrill of mercy, every glow of 
nobleness, awakens in his bosom a response, 
nay, strikes his spirit into harmony ;{a wild 
music as of wind-harps, floating round us in 
fitful swells, but soft sometimes, and pure and 
soul-entrancing as the song of angels !^ Aver- 
sion itself with him is not hatred; he despises 
much, but justly, with tolerance also, M'ith 
placidity, and even a sort of love. Love, in 
fact, is the atmosphere he breathes in, the me- 
dium through which he looks. His is the 
spirit which gives life and beauty to whatever 
it embraces. Inanimate Nature itself is no 
longer an insensible assemblage of colours 
and perfumes, but a mysterious Presence, with 
which he communes in unutterable sympathies. 
We might call him, as he once called Herder," a 
Priest of Nature, a mild Bramin," wandering 
amid spicy groves, and under benignant skies. 
The infinite Night with her solemn aspects. 
Day, and the sweet approach of Even and 
Morn, are full of meaning for him. He loves 
the green Earth with her streams and forests, 
her flowery leas and eternal skies ; loves her 
with a sort of passion, in all her vicissitudes 
of light and shade ; his spirit revels in her 
grandeur and charms ; expands like the breeze 
over wood and lawn, over glade and dingle, 
stealing and giving odours. 

It has sometimes been made a wonder that 
things so discordant should go together; that 
men of humour are often likewise men of sen- 
sibility. But the wonder should rather be to 
see them divided; to find true genial humour 
dwelling in a mind that was coarse or callous. 
The essence of humour is sensibility; warm, 
tender fellow-feeling with all forms of existence. 
Nay, we may say that unless seasoned and 
purified by humour, sensibility is apt to run 
wild ; will readily corrupt into disease, false- 
hood, or, in one word, sentimentality. Wit- 
ness Rousseau, Zimmermann, in some points 
also St. Pierre : to say nothing of living in- 
stances ; or of the Kotzebues, and other pale 
hosts of wobegone mourners, whose wailings, 
ilike the howl of an Irish wake, from time to 
^iine cleft the general ear. The last perfection 
pf our faculties, says Schiller with a truth far 
deeper than it seems, is that their activity, with- 
out ceasing to be sure and earnest, become s/ior/. 
True humour is sensibility, in the mostcatholic 
and deepest sense ; but it is this sport of sensi- 
bility ; wholesome and perfect therefore ; as it 
■were, the playful teasing fondness of a mother 
to her child. 

That faculty of irony, of caricature, which 
often passes by the name of humour, but con- 
sists chiefly in a certain superficial distortion 
or reversal of objects, and ends at best in 
laughter, bears no resemblance to the humour 
of Richter. A shallow endowment this ; and 
often more a habit than an endowment. It is 
but a poor fraction of humour; or rather, it is 
the body to which the soul is wanting ; any 
life it has being false, artificial, and irrational. 
True humour springs not more from the head 
than from the heart; it is not contempt, its 
f^sence is love; it issues not in laughter, 



but in still smiles, which lie far deeper. Itj' 
is a sort of inverse sublimity; exalting, as itl 
were, into our affections 'what is below us, 
while sublimity draws down into our affections J 
what is above us. The former is scarcely less 
precious or heart-affecting than the latter; per- 
haps it is still rarer, and, as a test of genius, still 
more decisive. It is, in fact, the bloom and 
perfume, the purest etfluence of a deep, fine, 
and loving nature; a nature in harmony with 
itself, reconciled to the world and its stinted- 
ness and contradiction, nay, finding in this 
very contradiction new elements of beauty as 
well as goodness. Among our own writers, 
Shakspeare in this as in all other provinces, 
must have his place: yet not the first; his 
humour is heartfelt, exuberant, warm, but sel- 
dom the tenderest or most subtile. Swift in- 
clines more to simple irony; yet he had genu- 
ine humour too, and of no unloving sort, though 
cased, like Ben Jonson's, in a most bitter and 
caustic rind. Sterne follows next; our last 
specimen of humour, and, with all his faults, 
our best; our finest, if not our strongest, for 
Yurirk, and Corporal Trim, and Umlc Toby, have 
yit no brother but in Don Quixote, far as he lies 
above them. Cervantes is indeed the purest 
of all humourists ; so gentle and genial, so full 
yet so ethereal, is his humour, and in such ac- 
cordance with itself and his whole noble na- 
ture. The Italian mind is said to abound in 
humour; yet their classics seem to give us 
no right emblem of it: except, perhaps, in 
Ariosto, there appears little in their current 
poetry that reaches the region of true humour. 
In France, since the days of Montaigne, it seems 
to be nearly extinct. Voltaire, much as he dealt 
in ridicule, never rises into humour; and even 
with Moliere, it is far more an affair of the un- 
derstanding than of the character. 

That in this point, Richter excels all German 
authors, is saying much for him, and may be 
said truly. Lessing has humour, — of a sharp, 
rigid, substantial, and on the whole, genial sort : 
yet the ruling bias of his mind is to logic. So 
likewise has Wieland, though much diluted by 
the general loijuaciiy of his nature, and impo- 
verished still farther by the influences of a 
cold, meagre, French skepticism. Among the 
Ramlers, Gellerts, Hagedorns, of Frederick the 
Second's time, we find abundance, and delicate 
in kind too, of that light matter which the 
French call pleasantry; but little or nothing 
that deserves the name of humour. In the 
present age, however, there is Goethe, with a 
rich true vein ; and this sublimated, as it were, 
to an essence, and blended in still union with 
his whole mind. Tieck also, among his many 
fine susceptibilities, is not without a warm -keen 
sense for the ridiculous ; and a humour rising, 
though by short fits, and from a much lower 
atmosphere, to be poetic. But of all these men, 
there is none that, in depth, copiousness, and 
intensity of humour, can be compared with 
Jean Paul. He alone exists in humour; lives, 
moves, and has his being in it. With him it 
is not so much united to his other qualities, of 
intellect, fancy, imagination, moral feeling, as 
these are united to it; or rather unite them- 
selves to it, and grow under its warmth, as in 
their proper temperature and climate. Not as 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



Id 



if wc meant to assert that his humour is in all 
cases perfectly natural and pure ; nay, that it 
is not often extravagant, untrue, or even ab- 
surd: but still, on the whole, the core and life of 
it are genuine, subtile, spiritual. Not without 
reason have his panegyrists named him Jean 
Paul der Einzige, — " Jean Paul the Only :" in 
one sense or the other, either as praise or cen- 
sure, his critics also must adopt this epithet ; 
for surely, in the whole circle of literature, 
we look in vain for his parallel. Unite the 
sportfulness of Rabellais, and the best sensibi- 
lity of Sterne, with the earnestness, and, even 
in slight portions, the sublimity of Milton ; and 
and let the mosaic brain of old Burton give 
forth the workings of this strange union, with 
the pen of Jeremy Bentham ! 

To say how, with so peculiar a natural en- 
dowment, Richter should have shaped his 
mind by culture, is much harder than to say 
that he has shaped it wrong. Of affectation 
we will neither altogether clear him, nor very 
loudly pronounce him guilty. That his man- 
ner of writing is singular, nay, in fact, a wild 
complicated Arabesque, no one can deny. But 
the true question is, — how nearly does this 
manner of writing represent his real manner 
of thinking and existing? With what degree 
of freedom does it allow this particular form 
of being to manifest itself; or what fetters and 
perversions does it lay on such manifestation? 
For the great law of culture is : Let each be- 
come all that he was created capable of being ; 
expand, if possible, to his full growth; resist- 
ing all impediments, casting off all foreign, 
especially all noxious adhesions ; and show 
himself at length in his own shape and stature, 
be these what they may. There is no uniform 
of excellence, either in physical or spiritual 
nature : all genuine things are what they ought 
to be. The reindeer is good and beautiful, so 
likewise is the elephant. In literature it is the 
same: "every man," says Lessing, "has his 
own style, like his own nose." True, there 
are noses of wonderful dimensions; but no 
nose can justly be amputated by the public, — 
not even the nose of Slawkenbergius himself: 
so it be a real nose, and no wooden one, put on 
for deception's sake and mere show. 

To speak in grave language, Lessing means, 
and we agree with him, that the outward style 
is to be judged of by the inward qualities of 
the spirit which it is employed to body forth ; 
that, without prejudice to critical propriety, 
well understood, the former may vary into 
many shapes as the latter varies ; that, in 
short, the grand point for a writer is not to be 
of this or that external make and fashion, but, 
in every fashion, to be genuine, vigorous, alive, 
— alive with his whole being, consciously, and 
for beneficent results. 

Tried by this test, we imagine Richter's wild 
mannerwill be found less imperfect than many 
a very tame one. To the man it may not be 
unsuitable. In that singular form, there is a 
fire, a splendour, a benign energy, which per- 
suades us into tolerance, nay into love, of much 
that might otherwise offend. Above all, this 
man, alloyed with imperfections as he may be, 
IS consistent and coherent: he is at one with 
himself; he knows his aims, and pursues them 



in sincerity of heart, joyfully, and with undi" 
vided will. Aharmoniousdevelopmentof being, 
the first and last object of all true culture, has 
therefore been attained ; if not completely, at 
least more completely than in one of a thousand 
ordinary men. Nor let us forget, that in such a 
nature, it was not of easy attainment; that 
where much was to be developed, some imper- 
fection should be forgiven. It is true, the 
beaten paths of literature lead the safeliest to 
the goal ; and the talent pleases us most, which 
submits to shine with new gracefulness through 
old forms. Nor is the noblest and most pecu- 
liar mind too noble or peculiar for working by 
prescribed laws : Sophocles, Shakspeare, Cer- 
vantes, and in Richter's own age, Goethe, how 
little did they innovate on the given forms of 
composition, how much in the spirit they 
breathed into them ! All this is true ; and 
Richter must lose of our esteem in proportion. 
Much, however, will remain; and why should 
we quarrel with the high, because it is not the 
highest? Richter's worst faults are nearly al- 
lied to his best merits ; being chiefly exuber-" 
ance of good, irregular squandering of wealth, 
a dazzling with excess of true light. These 
things may be pardoned the more readily, as 
they are little likely to be imitated. 

On the whole. Genius has privileges of its 
own ; it selects an orbit for itself; and be this 
never so eccentric, if it is indeed a celestial 
orbit, we mere star-gazers must at last com- 
pose ourselves ; must cease to cavil at it, and 
begin to observe it, and calculate its laws. 
That Richter is a new planet in the intellec- 
tual heavens, we dare not affirm ; an atmo- 
spheric meteor he is not wholly; perhaps a 
comet, that, though with long aberrations, and 
shrouded in a nebulous veil, has yet its place' 
in the empyrean. 

OfRichter's individual works, of his opinions, 
his general philosophy of life, M'e have no room 
left us to speak. Regarding his novels, we may 
say, that, except in some few instances, and 
those chiefly of the shorter class, they are not 
what, in strict language, we can term unities: 
with much callida junrtura of parts, it is rare 
that any of them leaves on us the impression 
of a perfect, homogeneous, indivisible whole. 
A true work of art requires to he fused in the 
mind of its creator, and as it were, poured forth 
(from his imagination, though not from his 
pen) at one simultaneous gush. Richter's 
works do not always bear sufficient marks of 
having been in fusion; yet neither are they 
merely riveted together : to say the least, they 
have been ireldcd. A similar remark applies 
to many of his characters; indeed, more or" 
less, to all of them, except such as are entirely 
humourous, or have a large dash of humour. In 
this latter province, certainly he is at home ; a 
true poet, a maker : his Siebenku?, his Schinclzle, 
even his Fibcl and Fixlein are living figures. 
But in heroic personages, passionate, massive, 
overpowering as he is, we have scarcely ever 
a complete ideal ; art has not attained to the 
concealment of itself. With his heroines again 
he is more successful ; they are often true he- 
roines, though perhaps with too little variety 
of character; bustling, buxom mothers and 
housewives, with all the caprices, perversities, 
B 



14 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and -warm, generous helpfulness of women ; 
or white, half-angelic creatures, meek, still, 
long-suffering, high-minded, of tenderest affec- 
tions, and hearts crushed yet uncomplaining. 
Supernatural figures he has not attempted; 
and wisely, for he cannot write without belief. 
Yet many times he exhibits an imagination of 
s. singularity, nay, on the whole, of a truth and 
grandeur,unexampled elsewhere. In his drentns 
Ihere is a mystic complexity, a gloom, and amid 
the dim, gigantic, half-ghastly shadows, gleam- 
ings of a wizard splendour, which almostrecall 
to us the visions of Ezekiel. By readers who 
•iiave studied the Dream in the New-year's Eve 
we shall not be mistaken. 

Richter's Philosophy, a matter of no ordinary 
anterest, both as it agrees with the common 
philosophy of Germany, and disagrees with it, 
must not be touched on for the present. One 
only observation we shall make: it is not me- 
chanical, or skeptical ; it springs not from the 
forum or the laboratory, but from the depths 
of the human spirit; and yields as its fairest 
product a noble system of morality, and the 
firmest conviction of religion. In this latter 
point we reckon him peculiarly worthy of 
study. To a careless reader he might seem 
the wildest of infidels; for nothing can exceed 
Ihe freedom with which he bandies to and fro the 
idogmas of religion, nay, sometimes, the highest 
objects of Christian reverence. There are pas- 
sages of this sort, which will occur to every 
areader of Richter ; but which, not to fall into the 
icrror we have already blamed in Madame de 
jStael, we shall refrain from quoting. More light 
is in the following: "Or," inquires he, in his 
Msual abrupt way, (Note to SchmelzWs Journey,) 
^' Or are all your Mosques, Episcopal Churches, 
Pagodas, Chapels of Ease, Tabernacles, and 
Pantheons, any thing else but the Ethnic Fore- 
(Court of the Invisible Temple and its Holy of 
jHolies?" Yet, independently of all dogmas, 
ViAy, perhaps in spite of many, Richter is, in 
jthe highest sense of the word, religious. A 
reverence, not a self-interested fear, but a noble 
reverence for the spirit of all goodness, forms 
the crown and glory of his culture. The fiery 
■elements of his nature have been purified 
lunder holy influences, and chastened by a 
principle of mercy and humility into peace 
and well-doing. An intense and continual 
jfaith in man's immortality and native grandeur 
accompanies him ; from amid the vortices of 
iife he looks up to a heavenly loadstar; the 
solution of what is visible and transient, he 
finds in what is invisible and eternal. He has 
-doubted, he denies, yet he believes. " When, 
in your last hour," says he, (Levana, p. 251,) 
^' when, in your last hour, (think of this,) all 
faculty in the broken spirit shall fade away 
;and die into inanity, — imagination, thought, 
<ffort, enjoyment, — then at last will the night- 
flower of Belief alone continue blooming, and 
refresh with its perfumes in the last darkness." 

To reconcile these seeming contradictions, 
to explain the grounds, the manner, the con- 
fcruity of Richter's belief, cannot be attempted 
here. We recommend him to the study, the 
tolerance, and even the praise, of all men who 
liave inquired into this highest of questions 
^ilh a right spirit ; inquired with the martyr 



fearlessness, but also with the martyr reve- 
rence, of men that love Truth, and will not ac- 
cept a lie. A frank, fearless, honest, yet truly 
spiritual faith is of all things the rarest in our 
time. 

Of writings which, thougli with many reser- 
vations, we have praised so much, our hesitat- 
ing readers may demand some specimen. To 
unbelievers, unhappily, we have none of a 
convincing sort to give. Ask us not to repre- 
sent the Peruvian forests by three twigs pluck- 
ed from them ; or the cataracts of the Nile by 
a handful of its water ! To those, meanwhile, 
who will look on twigs as mere dissevered 
twigs, and a handful of water as only so many 
drops, we present the following. It is a sum- 
mer Sunday night ; Jean Paul is taking leave 
of the Hukelum Parson and his wife ; like him 
we have long laughed at them or wept for them ; 
like him, also, we are sad to part from them. 

" We were all of us too deeply moved. We 
at last tore ourselves asunder from repeated 
embraces ; my friend retired with the soul 
whom he loves. I remained alone behind 
w-ith the Night. 

"And I walked without aim through woods, 
through valleys, and over brooks, and through 
sleeping villages, to enjoy the great Night, like 
a Day. I walked, and still looked, like the 
magnet, to the region of midnight, to strength- 
en my heart at the gleaming twilight, at this 
upstretching aurora of a morning beneath our 
feet. White night-butterflies flitted, white blos- 
soms fluttered, white stars fell, and the white 
snow-powder hung silvery in the high Shadow 
of the Earth, which reaches beyond the Moon, 
and which is our Night. Then began the 
^^olian Harp of the Creation to tremble and to 
sound, blown on from above ; and my immor- 
tal Soul was a string in this harp. — The heart 
of a brother, everlasting Man, swelled under 
the everlasting heaven, as the seas swell under 
the sun and under the moon. — The distant 
village clocks struck midnight, mingling, as it 
were, with the ever-pealing tone of ancient 
Eternity. — The limbs of my buried ones , 
touched cold on my soul, and drove away its 
blots, as dead hands heal eruptions of the skin. 
— I walked silently through little hamlets, and 
close by their outer church-yards, where crum- 
bled upcast coflin-boards were glimmering, 
while the once bright eyes that had lain in 
them were mouldered into gray ashes. Cold 
thought! clutch not like a cold spectre at my 
heart : I look up to the starry sky, and an ever- 
lasting chain stretches thither, and over, and 
below ; and all is Life and Warmth, and Light, 
and all is Godlike or God. . . 

" Towards morning, I described thy late 
lights, little city of my dwelling, which I be- 
long to on this side the grave ; I returned to 
the Earth ; and in thy steeples, behind the by- 
advanced great midnight, it struck half-past 
two : about this hour, in 1794, Mars went down 
in the west, and the Moon rose in the east; and 
my soul desired, in grief for the noble warlike 
blood which is still streaming on the blossoms 
of spring : ' Ah, retire, bloody War, like red 
Mars : and thou, still Peace, come forth like 
the mild divided Moon !' " — End of Quintus 
Fixkin. 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



15 



Such, seea through no uncoloured medium, 
but in dim remoteness, and sketched in liurried, 
transitory outline, are some features of Jean 
Paul Friedrich Richter and his works. Ger- 
many has long loved him; to England also 
he must one day become known; for a man 
of this magnitude belongs not to one people, 
but to the world. What our countrymen may 
decide of him, still more what may be his for- 
tune with posterity, we will not try to foretell. 
Time has a contracting influence on many a 
wide-spread fame ; yet of Richter we will say, 
that he may survive much. There is in him that 
which does not die; that Beauty and Earnest- 
ness of soul, that spirit of Humanity, of Love 
and mild Wisdom, over which the vicissitudes 
of mode have no sway. This is that excellence 
of the inmost nature which alone confers 



immortality on writings; that charm which 
still, under every defacement, binds us to the 
pages of our own Hookers, and Taylors, and 
Brownes, when their way of thought has long 
ceased to be ours, and the most valued of their 
merely intellectual opinions have passed away, 
as ours too inu&t do, with the circumstances 
and events in which they took their shape or 
rise. To men of a right mind, there may 
long be in Richter much that has attraction 
and value. In the moral desert of vulgar Lite- 
rature, with its sandy wastes, and parched, 
bitter, and too often poisonous shrubs, the 
writings of this man will rise in their irregular 
luxuriance, like a cluster of date-trees, with 
its greensward and well of water, to refresh 
the pilgrim, in the sultry solitude, with nou- 
rishment and shade. 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1827.] 



These two books, notwithstanding their di- 
versity of title, are properly parts of one and 
the same ; the " Outlines," though of prior date 
in regard to publication, having now assumed 
the character of sequel and conclusion to the 
larger work, — of fourth volume to the other 
three. It is designed, of course, for the home 
market; yet the foreign student also will find 
in it a safe and valuable help, and, in spite of 
its imperfections, should receive it with thatik- 
fulness and good-will. Doubtless we might 
have wished for a keener discriminative and 
descriptive talent, and perhaps tor a somewhat 
more catholic spirit, in the writer of such a 
history: but in their absence we have still 
much to praise. Horn's literary creed would, 
on the whole, we believe, be acknowledged by 
his countryman as the true one ; and this, 
though it is chiefly from one immovable station 
that he can survey his subject, he seems 
heartily anxious to apply with candour and 
tolerance. Another improvement might have 
been a deeper principle of arrangement, a 
firmer grouping into periods and schools; for, 
as it stands, the work is more a critical sketch 
of German Poets, than a history of German 
Poetry. 

Let us not quarrel, however, with our au- 
thor; his merits as a literary historian are plain, 
and by no means inconsiderable. Without 
rivalling the almost frightful laboriousness of 
Bouterwek or Eichhorn, he gives creditable 
proofs of research and general information, and 
possesses a lightness in composition, to which 
neither of these erudite persons can well pre- 
tend. Undoubtedly he has a flowins: pen, and 

* 1. Die Poesie und Beredsamkeit der Deutschen, vnv Lu- 
thers Zeit bis zur Oen-enwnrt Darcrestellt von Franz Norn. 
(The Poetry and Oratory of the Germans, from Luther's 
Time to the Present. Exhibited by Franz Horn.) Berlin, 
1822—1824. 3 vols. 8vo. 

2. Vmrisse zvr Oescliichte und Kritik der schonen 
Literatur Deutschlands jciihrend der Jahre, 1790 — 1818. 
(Outlines for the History and Criticism of Polite Litera- 
ure in Germany, durinij the years 1790—1818.) By Franz 
Horn. Berlin, 1819, 8vo. 



is at home in this province; not only a speak- 
er of the word, indeed, but a doer of the work; 
having written, besides his great variety of 
tracts and treatises, biographical, philosophi- 
cal, and critical, several very deserving works 
of a poetic sort. He is not, it must be owned, 
a very strong man, but he is nimble and or- 
derly, and goes through his work with a cer- 
tain gayety of heart ; nay, at times, with a 
frolicsome alacrity which might even require 
to be pardoned. His character seems full of 
susceptibility; perhaps too much so for its 
natural vigour. His novels, accordingly, to 
judge from the few we have read of them, 
verge towards the sentimental. In the present 
work, in like manner, he has adopted nearly 
all the best ideas of his contemporaries, but 
with something of an undue vehemence; and 
he advocates the cause of religion, integrity, 
and true poetic taste with great heartiness and 
vivacity, were it not that too often his zeal 
outruns his prudence and insight. Thus, for 
instance, he declares repeatedly, in so many 
words, that no mortal can be a poet unless he 
is a Christian. The meaning here is very good; 
but why this phraseoloCT 1 Is it not inviting 
the simple-minded (nor to speak of scoffers, 
whom Horn very justly contemns,) to ask, 
when Homer subscribed the Thirty-nine Ar- 
ticles 1 or whether Sadi and Hafiz v/ere really 
of the Bishf)p of Peterborough's opinion T 
Again, he talks too often of " representing the 
Infinite in the Finite," of expressing the un 
speakable, and such high matters. In fact 
Horn's style, though extremely readable, has 
one great fault; it is, to speak it in a single 
word, an affected style. His stream of mean- 
ing, uniformly clear and wholesome in itself 
will not flow quietly along its channel ; but is 
ever and anon spurting up into epigram and 
antithetic jets. Playful he is, and kindly, and 
we do believe, honest-hearted ; but there is a 
certain snappishness in him, a frisking abrupt 
ness ; and then his sport is more a perpetua» 



16 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



giggle, than any dignified smile, or even any- 
sufficient laugh with gravity succeeding it. 
This sentence is among the best we recollect 
of him, and will partly illustrate what we mean. 
We submit it, for the sake of its import 
likewise, to all superfine speculators on the 
Reformation, in their future contrasts of Luther 
and Erasmus. "Erasmus," says Horn, "be- 
longs to that species of writers who have all 
the desire in the world to build God Aln^ighty 
a magnificent church, — at the same time, how- 
ever, not giving the Devil any offence ; to whom, 
accordinglj% they set up a neat little chapel 
close by, where you can offer him some touch 
of sacrifice at a time, and practise a quiet 
household devotion for him without disturb- 
ance." In this style of "witty and conceited 
mirth," considerable part»of the book is written. 

But our chief business at present is not with 
Franz Horn, or his book ; of whom accordingly, 
recommending his labours to all inquisitive 
students of German, and himself to good esti- 
mation with all good men, we must here take 
leave. We have a word or two to say on that 
strange liifratiire itself; concerning which our 
readers piobably feel more curious to learn 
what it is, than with what skill it has been 
judged of. 

Above a v.entury ago, the Pere Bouhours 
propounded lo himself the pregnant question : 
Si un Allemand peut avoir ik I'esprit ? Had the 
Pere Bouhours bethought him of what country 
Kepler and Leibnitz were, or who it was that 
gave to mankind the three great elements 
of modern civilization. Gunpowder, Printing, 
and the Protestant Religion, it might have 
thrown light on his inquiry. Had he known 
the Nibehmgen Lied: and where Rcinerkc Furhs, 
and Faust, and the Ship of Fools, and four-fifths 
of all the popular mythology, humour, and 
romance, to be found in Europe in the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries, took its 
rise ; had he read a page or two of Ulrich 
Hutten, Opitz, Paul Flemming, Logau, or even 
Lohenstein andHoffmanns-waldau,allof whom 
had already lived and written in his day; had 
the Pere Bouhours taken this trouble, who 
knows but he might have found, with what- 
ever amazement, that a German could actually 
have a little esprit, or perhaps even something 
better? No such trouble was requisite for the 
Pere Bouhours. Motion in vacuo is well known 
to be speedier and surer than through a re- 
sisting medium, especially to imponderous 
bodies; and so the light Jesuit, unimpeded by 
facts or principles of any kind, failed not to 
reach his conclusion ; and, in a comfortable 
frame of mind, to decide negatively, that a Ger- 
man could not have any literary talent. 

Thus did the Pere Bouhours evince that he 
had " a pleasant wit;" but in the end he has 
paid dear for it. The French, themselves, have 
long since begun to know something of the Ger- 
mans, and something also of their own critical 
Daniel ; and now it is by this one unUme]y 
joke that the hapless Jesuit is doomed to live ; 
for the blessing of full oblivion is denied him, 
and so he hangs suspended in his own noose, 
over the dusky pool which he struggles toward, 
but for a great while will not reach. Might 
his fate but serve as a warning to kindred men 



of wit, in regard to this and so many other 
subjects ! For surely the pleasure of despising, 
at all times and in itself a dangerous luxury, 
is much safer after the toil of examining than 
before it. 

We differ from the Pere Bouhours in this 
matter, and must endeavour to discuss it dif- 
ferently. There is, in fact, much in the present 
aspect of German Literature, not onl3-deserving 
notice but deep consideration from all thinking 
men, and far too complex for being handled in 
the way of epigram. It is always advantageous 
to think justly of our neighbours ; nay, in mere- 
common honesty, it is a duty ; and, like every 
other duty, brings its own reward. Perhaps at 
the present era this duty is more essential than 
ever; an era of such promise and such threat- 
ening, when so many elements of good and evil, 
are everywhere in conflict, and human society 
is, as it were, struggling to body itself forth: 
anew, and so many coloured rays are springing 
up in this quarter and in that, which only by 
their union can produce pure light. Happily,, 
too, though still a difficult, it is no longer an 
impossible duty; for the commerce in material 
things has paved roads for commerce in things 
spiritual, and a true thought, or a noble crea- 
tion, passes lightly to us from the remotest 
countries, provided only our minds be open to 
receive it. This, indeed, is a rigorous proviso,, 
and a great obstacle lies in it; one which to 
many must be insurmountable, yet which it 
is the chief glory of social culture to surmounts 
For if a man who mistakes his own contract- 
ed individuality for the type of human nature, 
and deals with whatever contradicts him, as if 
it contradicted this, is but a pedant, and with- 
out true wisdom, be he furnished with partial 
equipments as he may, — what better shall we 
think of a nation that, in like manner, isolates 
itself from foreign influence, regards its own 
modes as so many laws of nature, and rejects 
all that is diff"erent as unworthy even of ex- 
amination] 

Of this narrow and perverted condition, the 
French, down almost to bur own times, have 
afforded a remarkable and instructive example ; 
as indeed of late they have been often enough 
upbraidingly reminded, and are now them- 
selves, in a manlier spirit, beginning to admit. 
That our countr3'men have at any time erred 
much in this point, cannot, we think, truly be 
alleged against them. Neither shall we say, 
with some passionate admirers of Germany, 
that to the Germans in particular they have 
been unjust. It is true, the literature and cha- 
racter of that country, which, within the last 
half century, have been more worthy perhaps 
than any other of our study and regard, are 
still ver)' generally unknown to us, or, what is 
worse, misknown: but for this there are not 
wanting less off"ensive reasons. That the false 
and tawdry ware, which -was in all hands, 
should reach us before the chaste and truly 
excellent, which it required some excellence 
to recognise; that Kotzebue's insanity should 
have spread faster, by some fifty years, than 
Lessing's wisdom ; that Kant's Philosophy 
should stand in the back-ground as a dreary 
and abortive dream, and Gall's Craniology be 
held out to us from every booth as a reality; — 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



17 



all this lay in the nature of the case. That 
many readers should draw conclusions from 
imperfect premises, and by the imports judge 
too hastily of the stock imported from, was like- 
wise natural. No unfair bias, no unwise in- 
disposition, that we are aware of, has ever been 
at work in the matter; perhaps, at worst, a 
degree of indolence, a blamable incuriosity to 
all products of foreign genius : for what more 
do we know of recent Spanish or Italian lite- 
rature than of German; of Grossi and Man- 
zoni, of Campomanes or Jovellanos, than of 
Tieck and Richter] Wherever German art, 
in those forms of it which need no interpreter, 
has addressed us immediately, our recognition 
of it has been prompt and hearty; from Durer 
to Mengs, from HiindeJ to Weber and Beetho- 
ven, we have welcomed the painters and mu- 
sicians of Germany, not only to our praise, but 
to our affections and beneficence. Nor, if in 
their literature we have been more backward, 
is the literature itself without blame. Two 
centuries ago, translations from the German 
were comparatively frequent in England : 
Luther's Tahk-Talk is still a venerable classic 
in our language ; nay Jacob Boehme has found 
a place among us, and this not as a dead letter, 
but as a living apostle to a still living sect of 
our religionists. In the next century, indeed, 
translation ceased ; but then it was, in a great 
measure, because there was little worth trans- 
lating. The horrors of the Thirty Years' War, 
followed by the conquests and conflagrations of 
Louis the Fourteenth, had desolated the country ; 
French influence, extending from the courts 
of princes to the closets of the learned, lay like 
a baleful incubus over the far nobler mind of 
Germany; and all true nationality vanished 
from its literature, or was heard only in faint 
tones, which lived in the hearts of the people, 
but could not reach with any effect to the ears 
of foreigners.* And now that the genius of the 



* Not that tlie Germans were idle ; or altosellier en- 
gaged, as we too loosely suppose, in the work of com- 
mentary and lexicography. On the contrary, they 
rhymed and romanced with due viiour as to quantity ; 
only the quality was had. Two facts on this head may 
deserve mention : In the year 1749. there were found, in 
the library of one virtuoso, no fewer than .SOO volumes 
of devotional pnetrv, cont^.ininp, says Horn, " a treasure 
of S3,712 German iiymns ;" and, niuch about the same 
period, one of Gottsched's scholars had auiassed as many 
as 1500 German novels, all of the 17th century. The 
hymns we understand to be much better than the novels, 
or rather, perhaps, the novels to be much worse than the 
hymns. Neither was critical study neglected, nor in- 
deed honest endeavour on all hands to attain iinprove- 
ment : witness the strange books from time to time put 
forth, and the still stranger institutions established for 
this purpose. Among the former we have the "Poeti- 
cal Funnel," (PoeHscAe Trichter.) manufactured at Nurn- 
berg in 1650, and professing, within six hours, to pour in 
the Whole essence of this difficult art into the most un- 
furnished head. Niirnber? also was the chief seat of the 
fatimu.< jMeistersanrrer and their Siivfreriivfte, or Singer- 
guilds, in which poetry was taught and practised like 
any other handicraft, and this by sober and well-mean- 
ing men, chiefly artisans, who could init understand why 
labour, which manufactured so many thinirs, should imt 
also manul'acture another. Of these tuneful puild- 
brethren, Hans Sachs, by trade a shoemaker, is preally 
the most noted and most notable. His father was a 
tailor; he himself learned the mystery of son^iinder one 
Nunnebeck, a weaver. He was an adherent of his great 
contemporary Luther, who has even deigned to acknow- 
ledge his services in the cause of Reformation : how 
diligent a labourer Sachs must have been, will appear 
from the fact, that, in his 74th year, (1508) on examin- 
ing his stock for publication, he found that he had writ- 



country has awaked in its old strength, our at- 
tention to it has certainly awakened also ; and 
if we yet know little or nothing of the Ger- 
mans, it is not because we wilfully do them 
wrong, but, in good part, because they are 
somewhat diificult to know. 

In fact prepossessions of all sorts naturally 
enough find their place here. A country which 
has no national literature, or literature too in- 
significant to force its way abroad, must always 
be, to its neighbours, at least in every important 
spiritual respect, an unknown and misestimated 
country. Its towns may figure on our maps; 
its revenues, population, manufactures, poli- 
tical connections, may be recorded in statistical 
books; but the character of the people has no 
symbol and no voice; we cannot know them 
by speech and discourse, but only mere sight 
and outward observation of their mannei-s and 
procedure. Now, if both sight and speech, if 
both travellers and native literature, are found 
but ineffectual in this respect, how incalcu- 
lably more so the former alone ! To seize 
a character, even that of one man, in its life 
and secret mechanism, requires a philospher; 
to delineate it with truth and impressiveness, 
is a work for a poet. How then shall one or 
two sleek clei-ical tutors, with here and there 
a tedium-stricken esquire, or speculative half- 
pay captain, give us views on such a subject? 
How shall a man, to whom all characters of 
individual men are like sealed books, of which 
he sees only the title and the covers, decipher 
from his four-wheeled vehicle, and depict to 
us, the character of a nation 1 He courage- 
ously depicts his own optical delusions; notes 
this to be incomprehensible, that other to be 
insignificant; much to be good, much to be 
bad, and most of all indifferent ; and so, with 
a few flowing strokes, completes a picture 
which, though it may not even reseinble any 
possible object, his countrymen are to take for 
a national portrait. Nor is the fraud so readily 
detected: for the character of a people has 
such complexity of aspect, that even the honest 
observer knows not always, not perhaps after 
long inspection, what to determine regarding 
it. From his, only accidental, point of view, 
the figure stands before him like the tracings 
on veined marble, — a mass of mere random 
lines, and tints, and entangled strokes, out of 
which a lively fancy may shape almost any 
image. But the image he brings along with 
him is always the readiest; this is tried, it 
answers as well as another; and a second 
voucher now testifies its correctness. Thus 
each, in confident tones, though it maybe with 
a secret misgiving, repeats his precursor; the 
hundred times repeated comes in the end to be 



ten 6048 poetical pieces, an)ong which were 208 tragedies 
and comedies; and this, besides having all along kept 
house, like an honest Niirnbcrg burgher, by assiduous 
and sufficient shoeniakins ! Hans is not without genius, 
and a shrewd irony ; and above all, the most gay, child- 
like, yet devout and solid character. A man neither to 
be despised nor patronized, but left standing on his own 
basis, as a singular product, and a still legible symbol, 
and clear mirror, of the time and country where he lived. 
His best piece known to us, and many are well worth 
perusing, is the Fuslvachtsspiel (Shrovetide Farce) of the 
JVarre.nscliveiden. where the Doctor cures a bloated and 
lethargic patient by cutting out half a dozen Fooln from 
his interior! 

b2 



18 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



believed; the foreign nation is now once for 
all understood, decided on, and registered ac- 
cordingly ; and dunce the thousandth writes 
of it like dunce the first. 

With the aid of literary and intellectual in- 
tercourse, much of this falsehood may, no 
doubt, be corrected : yet even here, sound 
judgment is far from easy ; and most national 
characters are still, as Hume long ago com- 
plained, the product rather of popular preju- 
dice than of philosophic insight. That the 
Germans, in particular, have by no means 
escaped such misrepresentation, nay, perhaps, 
have had more than the common share of it, 
cannot, in their circumstances, surprise us. 
From the time of Optiz and Flemming, to those 
of Klopstock and Lessing, — that is, from the 
early part of the seventeenth to the middle of 
the eighteenth century, — they had scarcely any 
literature known abroad, or deserving to be 
known: their political condition, during this 
same period, was oppressive and every way un- 
fortunate externally ; and at home, the nation, 
split into so many factions and petty states, 
had lost all feeling of itself as of a nation ; and 
its energies in arts as in arms were manifested 
only in detail, too often in collision, and always 
under foreign influence. The French, at once 
their plunderers and their scoifers, described 
them to the rest of Europe as a semi-barbarous 
people ; which comfortable fact the rest of 
Europe was willing enough to take on their 
Avord. During the greater part of the last cen- 
tury, the Germans, in our intellectual survey 
of the world, were quietly omitted; a vague 
contemptuous ignorance prevailed respecting 
them ; it was a Cimmerian land, where, if a 
few sparks did glimmer, it was but so as to 
testify their own existence, too feebly to en- 
lighten MS.* The Germans passed for appren- 
tices in all provinces of art ; and many foreign 
craftsmen scarcely allowed them so much. 

Madame de Stael's book has done away with 
this; all Europe is now aware that the Ger- 
mans are something; something independent 
and apart from others; nay, something deep, 
imposing, and, if not admirable, wonderful. 
What that something is, indeed, is still unde- 
cided ; for this gifted lady's Allemagne, in doing 
much to excite curiosity, has still done little to 
satisfy or even direct it. We can no longer 
make ignorance a boast, but we are yet far 
from having acquired right knowledge ; and 
cavillers, excluded from contemptuous nega- 
tion, have found a resource in almost as con- 
temptuous assertion. Translators are the same 
faithless and stolid race that they have ever 
been : the particle of gold they bring us over 
is hidden from all but the most patient eye, 



* So late as the year 1811, we find, from Pinkertnn's 
Geography, the sole representative of German literature 
to be Gottshed, (with his name wrong spelt,) "who first 
introduced a more refined style."— Gottsclied has been 
dead the greater part of the century ; and, for the last 
fifty years, ranks among the Germans somewhat as 
Prynne or Alexander Ross does among ourselves. A man 
of a cold, ri^'id, perseverant character, who mistook 
himself for a poet and the perfection of critics, and had 
skill to pass current during the greater part of his lite- 
rary life for such. On the strength of his Boileau and 
Batteux, he long reigned supreme : but it was like 
Night, in rayless majesty, and over a slumbering people. 
They awoke, before his death, and hurled him, perhaps 
lOo indignantly, into his native Abyss. 



among shiploads of yellow sand and sulphur. 
Gentle Dulness too, in this as in all other things, 
still loves her joke. The Germans, though 
much more attended to, are perhaps not les.s 
mistaken than before. 

Doubtless, however, there is in this increased 
attention a progress towards the truth; which 
it is only investigation and discussion that can 
help us to find. The study of German litera- 
ture has already taken such firm root among 
us, and its spreading so visibly, that by and by, 
as we believe, the true character of it must and 
will become known. A result, which is to 
bring us into closer and friendlier union with 
forty millions of civilized men, cannot surel}-- 
be otherwise than desirable. If they have pre- 
cious truth to impart, we shall receive it as the 
highest of all gifts ; if error, we shall not only re- 
ject it, but explain it and trace out its origin, 
and so help our brethren also to reject it. In 
either point of view, and for all profitable pur- 
poses of national intercourse, correct know- 
ledge is the first and indispensable preliminary. 

Meanwhile, errors of all sorts prevail on this 
subject: even among men of sense and liber- 
ality we have found so much hallucination, so 
many groundless or half-grounded objections 
to German literature, that the tone in which a 
multitude of other men speak of it cannot ap- 
pear extraordinary. To much of this, even a 
slight knowledge of the Germans would furnish 
a suflicient answer. But we have thought it 
might be useful were the chief of these objec- 
tions marshalled in distinct order, and ex- 
amined with what degree of light and fairness 
is at our disposal. In attempting this, we are 
vain enough, for reasons already stated, to 
fancy ourselves discharging what is in some 
sort a national duty. It is unworthy of one 
great people to think falsely of another; it is 
unjust, and therefore unworthy. Of the injury 
it does to ourselves we do not speak, for that 
is an inferior consideration: yet surely if the 
grand principle of free intercourse is so pro- 
fitable in material commerce, much more must 
it be in the commerce of the mind, the pro- 
ducts of which are thereby not so much trans- 
ported out of one country into another, as mul- 
tiplied over all, for the benefit of all, and 
without loss to an)^ If that man is a bene- 
factor to the world who causes two ears of corn 
to grow where only one grew before, much 
more is he a benefactor who causes two truths 
to grow up together in harmony and mutual con- 
firmation, where before only one stood solitary, 
and, on that side at least, intolerant and hostile. 

In dealing with the host of objections which 
front us on this subject, we think it may be 
convenient to range them under two principal 
heads. The first, as respects chiefly unsoundnes.s 
or imperfection of sentiment; an error which 
may in general be denominated ijH(^ I'(;s/f. The 
second, as respects chiefly a wrong condition 
of intellect; an error which may be designated 
by the general title oi Mysticism. Both of these, 
no doubt, are partly connected ; and each, in 
some degree, springs from and returns inlo the 
other: yet, for present purposes, the divisions 
maybe precise enough. 

First, then, of the first: It is objected that 
the Germans have a radically bad taste. This 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



19 



is a deep-rooted objection, which assumes 
many forms, and extends through many rami- 
fications. Among men of less acquaintance 
with the subject of German taste, or of taste in 
general, the spirit of the accusation seems to 
be somewhat as follows : That the Germans, 
with much natural susceptibility, are still in a 
rather coarse and uncultivated state of mind; 
displaying, with the energy and other virtues 
of a rude people, many of their vices also ; in 
particular, a certain wild and headlong temper, 
which seizes on all things too hastily and im- 
petuously ; weeps, storms, loves, hates, too 
fiercely and vociferously; delighting in coarse 
excitements, such as flaring contrasts, vulgar 
horrors, and all sorts of showy exaggeration. 
Their literature, in particular, is thought to 
dwell with peculiar complacency among wiz- 
ards and ruined towers, with mailed knights, 
secret tribunals, monks, spectres, and banditti ; 
on the other hand, there is an undue love of 
moonlight, and mossj' fountains, and the moral 
sublime : then we have descriptions of things 
which should not be described ;.a general want 
of tact ; nay, often hollowness, and want of 
sense. In short, the German Muse comports 
herself, it is said, like a passionate, and rather 
fascinating, but tumultuous, uninstructed, and 
but half-civilized Muse. A belle sauvage at 
best, we can only love her with a sort of su- 
percilious tolerance; often she tears a pas- 
sion to rags ; and, in her tumid vehemence, 
struts without meaning, and to the offence of 
all literary decorum. 

Now, in all this there is a certain degree of 
truth. If any man will insist upon taking 
Heinse's Ardinghello, and Miller's Sicgwart,d.nA 
the works of Veit Weber the younger, and, 
above all, the everlasting Kotzebue, as his 
specimens of German literature, he may es- 
tablish many things. Black Forests, and the 
glories of Lubberland ; sensuality and horror, 
the spectre nun, and the charmed moonshine, 
shall not be wanting. Boisterous outlaws, also, 
with huge whiskers, and the most cat-o'-moun- 
tain aspect; tear-slained sentimentalists, the 
grimmest man-haters, ghosts, and the like sus- 
picious characters, will be found in abundance. 
We are little read m this bowl-and-dagger de- 
partment; but we do understand it to have 
been at one time rather diligently cultivated ; 
though at present it seems to be mostly relin- 
quished as unproductive. Other forms of Un- 
reason have taken its place ; which in their 
turn must yield to still other forms ; for it is 
the nature of this goddess to descend in frequent 
avatars among men. Perhaps not less than 
five hundred volumes of such stuff could still 
be collected from the book-stalls of Germany. 
By which truly we may learn that there is in 
that country a class of unwise men and unwise 
women; that many readers there labour under a 
degree of ignorance and mental vacancy, and 
read not actively but passively, not to learn 
but to be amused. But is this fact so very 
new to us 1 Or what should we think of a 
German critic that selected his specimens of 
British literature from the Castle Spectre, Mr. 
Lewis's Monk, or even the Mysteries of Udolpho, 
and Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus i' Or 
would he judge rightly of our dramatic taste, 



if he took his extracts from Mr. Egan's Tom 
and Jerry : and told his readers, as he might 
truly do, that no play had ever enjoyed such 
currency on the English stage as this most 
classic performance 1 We think not. In like 
manner, till some author of acknowledged 
merit shall so write among the Germans, and 
be approved of by critics of acknowledged 
merit among them, or at least secure for him- 
self some permanency of favour among the 
million, we can prove nothing by such in- 
stances. That there is so perverse an author, 
or so blind a critic, in the whole compass of 
German literature, we have no hesitation in 
denying. 

But farther: among men of deeper views, 
and with regard to works of really standard 
character, we find, though not the same, a simi- 
lar objection repeated. Goethe's Wilheba Meis- 
ter, it is said, and J'^ows/, are full of bad taste also. 
With respect to the taste in which they are 
written, we shall have occasion to say some- 
what hereafter: meanwhile, we may be per- 
mitted to remark that the objection would have 
more force, did it seem to originate from a more 
mature consideration of the subject. We have 
heard few English criticisms of such works, 
in which the first condition of an approach to 
accuracy was complied with ; — a transposition 
of the critic into the author's point of vision, 
a survey of the author's means and objects as 
they lay before himself, and a just trial of these 
by rules of universal application. Faust, for 
instance, passes with many of us for a mere 
tale of sorcery and art-magic : but it would 
scarcel)' be more unwise to consider Hamlet 
as depending for its main interest on the ghost 
that walks in it, than to regard Faust as a pro- 
duction of this sort. For the present, therefore, 
this objection may be set aside ; or at least 
may be considered not as an assertion, but au 
inquiry, the answer to which may turn out: 
rather that the German taste is different from 
ours, than that it is worse. Nay, with regard 
even to difference, Ave should scarcely reckon 
it to be of great moment. Two nations that 
agree in estimating Shakspeare as the highest 
of all poets, can diffeuin no essential principle, 
if they understood one another, that relates to 
poetry. 

Nevertheless, this opinion of our opponents 
has attained a certain degree of consistency 
with itself; one thing is thought to throw light 
on another; nay, a quiet little theory has been 
propounded to explain the whole phenomenon. 
The cause of this bad taste, we are assured, 
lies in the condition of the German authors. 
These, it seems, are generally very poor; the 
ceremonial law of the country excludes them 
from all society with the great ; they cannot 
acquire the polish of drawing-rooms, iDut must 
live in mean houses, and therefore write and 
think in a mean style. 

Apart from the truth of these assumptions, 
and in respect of the theory itself, we confess 
there is something in the face of it that afflicts 
us. Is it then so certain that taste and riches 
are dissolubly connected 1 that truth of feelin? 
must ever be preceded by weight of purse, and 
the eyes be dim for universal and eternal 
Beauty, till they have long rested on gilt walls 



20 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ^ 



and costly furniture 1 To the great body of 
mankind this were heavy news; for, of the 
thousand, scarcely one is rich, or connected 
with the rich; nine hundred and ninety-nine 
have always been poor, and must al«'ays be 
so. We take the liberty of questioning the 
■whole postulate. We think that, for acquiring 
true poetic taste, riches, or association with the 
rich, are distinctly among the minor requisites ; 
that, in fact, they have little or no concern with 
the matter. This we shall now endeavour to 
make probable. 

Taste, if it mean any thing but a paltry con- 
noisseurship, must mean a general susceptibi- 
lity to truth and nobleness; a sense to discern, 
and a heart to love and reverence, all beauty, 
order, goodness, wheresoever, or in whatsoever 
forms and accompaniments they are lo be seen. 
This surely implies, as its chief condition, not 
any given external rank or situation, but a finely 
gifted mind, purified into harmony with itself, 
into keenness and justness of vision ; above all, 
kindled into love and generous admiration. Is 
culture of this sort found exclusively among 
the higher ranks 1 We believe it proceeds less 
from without than within, in every rank. The 
charms of Nature, the majesty of Man, the in- 
finite loveliness of Truth and Virtue, are not 
hidden from the eye of the poor; but from the 
eye of the vain, the corrupted, and self-seeking, 
be he poor or rich. In all ages, the humble 
Minstrel, a mendicant, and lord of nothing but 
his harp and his own free soul, had intimations 
of those glories, while to the proud Baron in 
his barbaiic halls they were unknown. Nor 
is there still any aristocratic monopoly of judg- 
ment more than of genius: And as to that 
Science of Negation, which is taught peculiarly 
by men of professed elegance, we confess 
we hold it rather cheap. It is a necessary, 
but decidedly a subordinate accomplishment : 
nay, if it be rated as the highest, it becomes a 
ruinous vice. This is an old truth; yet ever 
needing new application and enforcement. Let 
us know what to love, and we shall know also 
what to reject; what to affirm, and we shall 
know also what to deny : but it is dangerous to 
begin with denial, and fatal to end with it. To 
deny is easy; nothing is sooner learnt or more 
generally practised: as matters go, we need 
po man of polish to teach it; but rather, if 
possible, a hundred men of wisdom to show us 
its limits, and teach us its reverse. 

Such is our hypothesis of the case: But how 
stands it with the facts ? Are the fineness and 
truth of sense manifested by the artist found, in 
most instances, to be proportionate to his wealth 
and elevation of acquaintance 1 Are they found 
to have any perceptible relation either with the 
one or the other? We imagine not. Whose 
taste in painting, for instance, is truer and finer 
than Claude Lorraine's? And was not he a 
poor colour-grinder; outwardly, the meanest 
of menials'! Where, again, we might ask, 
'^y Shakspeare's rent-roll ; and what generous 
peer took him by the hand and unfolded to him 
the "open secret" of the Universe; teaching 
him that this was beautiful, and that not sol 
Was he not a peasant by birth, and by fortune 
.something lower; and was it not thought much, 
V'ven in theheightof his reputation, that South- 



ampton allowed him equal patronage with the 
zanies, jugglers, and bearwards of the time! 
Yet compare his taste, even as it respects the 
negative side of things; for in regard to the 
positive, and far higher side, it admits no com- 
parison with any other mortal's, — compare it, 
for instance, with the taste of Beaumont and 
Fletcher, his contemporaries, men of rank and 
education, and of fine genius like himself Tried 
even by the nice, fastidious, and in great part 
false, and artificial delicacy of modern times, 
how stands it with the two parties : with the 
gay triumphant men of fashion, and the poor 
vagrant link-boy ? Does the latter sin against, 
we shall not saj' taste, but etiquette, as the 
former do 1 For one line, for one word, which 
some Chesterfield might wish blotted from the 
first, are there not in the others whole pages 
and scenes which, with palpitating heart, he 
would hurry into deepest night? This, too, ob- 
serve, respects not their genius, but their cul- 
ture; not their appropriation of beauties, but 
their rejection of deformities, by supposition, 
the grand and peculiar result of high breeding! 
Surel}^ in such instances, even that humble 
supposition is ill borne out. 

The truth of the matter seems to be, that 
with the culture of a genuine poet, thinker, or 
other aspirant to fame, the influence of rank 
has no exclusive or even sj)ecial concern. For 
men of action, for senators, public speakers, 
political writers, the case may be different; but 
of such we speak not at present. Neither do 
we speak of imitators, and the crowd of me- 
diocre men, to whom fashionable life sometimes 
gives an external inoflensiveness, often com- 
pensated by a frigid malignity of character. 
We speak' of men, who, from amid the per- 
plexed and conflicting elements of their every- 
day existence, are to form themselves into 
harmony and wisdom, and show forth the same 
wisdom to others that exist along with them. 
To such a man, high life, as it is called, will 
be a province of human life certainly, but no- 
thing more. He will study to deal with it as 
he deals with all forms of mortal being; to do 
it justice, and to draw instruction from it : but 
his light will come from a loftier region, or he 
wanders for ever in darkness; dwindles into 
a mati of vers dc sodete, or attains at best to be 
a Walpole or aCaylus. Still less can we think 
that he is to be viewed as a hireling; that his 
excellence will be regulated by his pay. "Sufli- 
ciently jirovided for from within, he has need 
of little from without:" food and raiment, and 
an unviolated home, will be given him in the 
rudest land; and with these, while the kind 
earth is round him, and the everlasting heaven 
is over him, the world has little more that it 
can give. Is he poor? So also were Homer 
and Socrates; so was Samuel Johnson ; so was 
John Milton. Shall we reproafch him with his 
poverty, and infer that, because he is poor, he 
must likewise be worthless? God forbid tftat 
the time should ever come when he too shall 
esteem riches the synonyme of good ! The 
spirit of Mammon has a wide empire; but it 
cannot, and must not, be worshipped in the 
Holy of Holies. Nay, does not the heart of 
every genuine disciple of literature, however 
mean his sphere, instinctively deny this prin- 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



21 



ciple, as applicable either to himself or ano- 
ther? Is it not rather true, as D'Alemberthas 
said, that for every man of letters, who de- 
serves that name, the motto and the watchword 
will be FuEEDOM, Truth, and even this same 
PovEHTY ] and that if he fear the last, the two 
first can never be made sure to him 1 

We have stated these things, to bring the 
question somewhat nearer its real basis ; not 
for the sake of the Germans, who nowise need 
the admission of them. The German authors 
are not poor; neither are they excluded from 
association with the wealthy and well-born. 
On the contrar)', we scruple not to say, that, in 
both these respects, they are considerably better 
situated than our own. Their booksellers, it is 
true, caimot pay as ours do ; yet, there as here, 
a man lives by his writings ; and, to compare 
Jordcn with Johnson and D'hracU, somewhat 
better there than here. No case like our own 
noble Otway's has met ns in their biographies ; 
Boyces and Chattertons are much rarer in Ger- 
man, than in English history. But farther, and 
what is far more important: From the num- 
ber of universities, libraries, collections of art, 
museums, and other literary or scientific in- 
stitutions of a public or private nature, we 
question whether the chance, which a merito- 
rious man of letters has before him, of obtaining 
some permanent appointment, some independ- 
ent civic existence, is not a hundred to one in 
favour of the German, compared with the 
Englishman. This is a weighty item, and 
indeed the weightiest of all ; for it will be grant- 
ed, that, for the votary of literature, the rela- 
tion of entire dependence on the merchants 
of literature, is, at best, and however liberal 
the terms, a highly questionable one. It tempts 
him daily and hourly to sink from an artist into 
a manufacturer; nay, so precarious, fluctuating, 
and every way unsatisfactory must his civic 
and economic concerns become, that too many 
of his class cannot even attain the praise of 
common honesty as manufacturers. There is, 
no doubt, a spirit of martyrdom, as we have 
asserted, which can sustain this too : but ievj 
indeed have the spirit of martyrs ; and that 
state of matters is the safest which requires it 
least. The German authors, moreover, to their 
credit be it spoken, seem to set less store by 
wealth than many of ours. There have been 
prudent, quiet men among them, who actually 
appeared not to want more wealth, — whom 
wealth could not tempt, either to this hand or 
that, from their pre-appointed aims. Neither 
must we think so hardly of the German nobi- 
lity as to believe them insensible to genius, or 
of opinion that a patent from the Lion King is 
so superior to " a patent direct from Almighty 
^"■^ " A fair proportion of the German au- 



God. 



thors are themselves men of rank : we mention 
only, as of our ov/n time, and notable in other 
respects, the two Stolbergs and Novalis. Let 
us not be unjust to this class of persons. It is 
a poor error to figure them as wrapt up in 
ceremonial stateliness, avoiding the most gift- 
ed man of a lower station ; and, for their own 
supercilious triviality, themselves avoided by 
all truly gifted men. On the whole, we should 
change our notion of the German nobleman : 
that ancient, thirsty, thickheaded, sixteen-quar- 



tered Baron, who still hovers in our minds* 
never did exist in such perfection, and is now 
as extinct as our own Squire Western. His 
descendant is a man of other culture, other 
aims, and other habits. We question whether 
there is an aristocracy in Europe, which, taken 
as a whole, both in a public and private capa- 
city, more honours art and literature, and does 
more both in public and private to encourage 
them. Excluded from society ! What, we 
would ask, was Wieland's, Schiller's, Herder's, 
Johannes Miiller's society? Has not Goethe, by 
birth a Frankfort burgher,been, since his twenty- 
sixth 3'ear, the companion, not of nobles but of 
princes, and for half his life a minister of state 1 
And is not this man, unrivalled in so many far 
deeper qualities, known also and felt to be un- 
rivalled in nobleness of breeding and bearing; 
fit not to learn of princes, in this respect, but 
by the example of his daily life to teach them 1 

We hear much of the munificent spirit dis- 
played among the better classes in England; 
their high estimation of the arts, and generous 
patronage of the artist. We rejoice to hear it ; 
we hope it is true, and will become truer and 
truer. We hope that a great change has taken 
place among these classes, since the time when 
Bishop Burnet could write of them, — " They 
are for the most part the worst instructed, and 
the least knowing, of any of their rank I ever 
went among!" Nevertheless, let us arrogate 
to ourselves no exclusive praise in this par- 
ticular. Other nations can appreciate the arts, 
and cherish their cultivators, as well as we> 
Nay, while learning from us in many other 
matters, we suspect the Germans might even 
teach us somewhat in regard to this. At all 
events, the pity, which certain of our authors 
express for the civil condition of their brethren 
in that country, is, from such a quarter, a super- 
fluous feeling. Nowhere, let us rest assured, 
is genius more devoutly honoured than there, 
by all ranks of men, from peasants and burgh- 
ers up to legislators and kings. It was but 
last year that the Diet of the Empire passed an 
act in favour of one individual poet: the final 
edition of Goethe's works was guarantied to be 
protected against commercial injury in every 
state of Germany; and special assurances to 
that eflfect were sent him, in the kindest terms, 
from all the Authorities there assembled, some 
of them the highest in his country or in Europe, 
Nay, even while we write, are not the news- 
papers recording a visit from the Sovereign of 
Bavaria in person, to the same venerable man; 
a mere ceremony, perhaps, but one which al- 
most recalls to us the era of the antique Sages 
and the Grecian Kings? 

This hypothesis, therefore, it \vould seem, is 
not supported by facts, and so returns to its 
original elements. The causes it alleges are 
impossible: but, what is still more fatal, the 
effect it proposes to account for has, in reality, 
no existence. We venture to deny that the 
Germans are defective in taste ; even as a 
nation, as a public, taking one thing with ano- 
ther, we imagine they may stand comparison 
with any of their neighbours; as writers, as 
critics, they may decidedly court it. True, there 
is a mass of dulness, awkwardness, and false 
susceptibility in the lower regions of their lite-* 



22 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rature : but is not bad taste endemical in such 
regions of every literature under the sun ? Pure 
Stupidity, indeed, is of a quiet nature, and con- 
tent to be merely stupid. But seldom do we 
find it pure ; seldom unadulterated with some 
tincture of ambition, which drives it into new 
and strange metamorphoses. Here it has as- 
sumed a contemptuous trenchant air, intended 
to represent superior tact, and a sort of all- 
wisdom ; there a truculent atrabilious scowl, 
which is to stand for passionate strength: now 
we have an outpouring of tumid fervour; now 
a fruitless, asthmatic hunting after Avit and 
humour. Grave or gay, enthusiastic or de- 
risive, admiring or despising, the dull man 
would be something which he is not and can- 
not be. Shall we confess, that, of these too 
common extremes, we reckon the German 
error considerably the more harmless, and, in 
our day, by far the more curable ! Of unwise 
admiration much may be hoped, for much good 
is really in it: but unwise contempt is itself a 
negation ; nothing comes of it, for it is nothing. 
To judge of a national taste, however, we 
must raise our view from its transitory modes 
to its perennial models ; from the mass of vul- 
gar writers, who blaze out and are extinguished 
with the popular delusion which they flatter, to 
those few who are admitted to shine with a 
pure and lasting lustre; to whom, by common 
consent, the eyes of the people are turned, as 
to its lodestar and celestial luminaries. Among 
German writers of this stamp, we would ask 
any candid reader of them, let him be of what 
country or what creed he might, whether bad 
taste struck him as a prevailing characteristic. 
Was Wieland's taste uncultivated] Taste, we 
should say, and taste of the very species which 
a disciple of the Negative School would call 
the highest, formed the great object of his life; 
the perfection he unweariedly endeavoured 
after, and, more than any other perfection, has 
attained. The most fastidious Frenchman might 
read him, with admiration of his merely French 
qualities. And is not Klopstock, with his clear 
enthusiasm, his azure purity, and heavenly, if 
still somewhat cold and lunar light, a man of 
taste 1 His Messias reminds us oftener of no 
other poets than of Virgil and Racine. But it 
is to Lessing that an Englishman would 
turn with the readiest affection. We cannot 
but wonder that more of this man is not known 
among us ; or that the knowledge of him has 
not done more to remove such misconceptions. 
Among all the writers of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, we Avill not except even Diderot and 
David Hume, there is not one of a more com- 
pact and rigid intellectual structure ; who 
more distinctly knows what he is aiming at, 
or with more gracefulness, vigour, and pre- 
cision sets it forth to his readers. He thinks 
with the clearness and piercing sharpness of 
the most expert logician : but a genial fire 
pervades him, a wit, a heartiness, a general 
richness and fineness of nature, to which most 
logicians are strangers. He is a skeptic in 
many thmgs, but the noblest of skeptics ; a 
mild, manly, half-careless enthusiasm strug- 
gles through his indignant unbelief : he stands 
before us like a toilworn, but unwearied and 
lieroic champion, earning not the conquest 



but the battle; as indeed himself admits to us, 
that " it is not the finding of truth, but the hon- 
est search for it, that profits." We confess, 
we should be entirely at a loss for the literary 
creed of that man who reckoned Lessing other 
than a thoroughly cultivated Avriter; nay en- 
titled to rank, in this particular, with the most 
distinguished writers of any existing nation. 
As a poet, as a critic, philosopher, or contro- 
versialist, his style will be found precisely 
such as we of England are accustomed to 
admire most; brief, nervous, vivid ; yet quiet, 
without glitter or antithesis; idiomatic, pure 
without purism, transparent, yet full of cha- 
racter and reflex hues of meaning. "Every 
sentence," says Horn, and justly, " is like a 
phalanx ;'' not a word wrong placed, not a 
word that could be spared ; and it forms itself 
so calmy and lightly, and stands in its com- 
pleteness, so gay, yet so impregnable ! As a 
poet he contemptuously denied himself all 
merit; but his readers have not taken him at 
his word: here, too, a similar felicity of style 
attends him ; his plays, his Minna von Barn- 
helm, his Emilv: Galoth, his Nathan der Weise, 
have a genuine and graceful poetic life ; yet no 
works known to us in any language are purer 
from exaggeration, or any appearance of false- 
hood. They are pictures, we might say paint- 
ed not in colours, but in crayons; yet a strange 
attraction lies in them ; for the figures are 
grouped into the finest attitudes, and true 
and spirit-speaking in every line. It is with 
his style chiefly that we have to do here; yet 
we must add, that the matter of his works is 
not less meritorious. His Criticism and phi- 
losophic or religious Skepticism were of a 
higher mood than had yet been heard in Eu- 
rope, still more in Germany : his Dramaturgic 
first exploded the pretensions of the French 
theatre, and, with irresistible conviction, made 
Shakspeare known to his countrymen ; pre- 
paring the way for a brighter era in their lite- 
rature, the chief men of which still thankfully 
look back to Lessing as their patriarch. His 
Laocomi, with its deep glances into the philo- 
sophy of Art, his Dialogues of Frcc-masons, a 
work of far higher import than its title in- 
dicates, ma)^ yet teach many things to most of 
us, which we know not, and ought to know. 

With Lessing and Klopstock might be join- 
ed, in this respect, nearly, every one, we do 
not say of their distinguished, but even of their 
tolerated contemporaries. The two Jacobis, 
known more or less in all countries, are little 
known here, if they are accused of wanting 
literary taste These are men, whether as 
thinkers or poets, to be regarded and admired 
for their mild and lofty wisdom, the devoutness, 
the benignity and calm grandeur of their phi- 
losophical views. In such, it were strange if 
among so many high merits, this lowerone of a 
just and elegant style, which is indeed their 
natural and even necessary product, had been 
wanting. We recommend the elder Jacobi no 
less for his clearness than for his depth ;. of the 
younger, it may be enough in this point of 
view to say, that the chief praisers of his earlier 
poetiy were the French. Neither are Hamann 
and Mendelsohn, who could meditate deep 
thoughts, defective in the power of uttering 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



23 



them with propriety. The Phadon of the latter, 
in its chaste precision and simplicity of style, 
may almost remind us of Xenophon : Socrates, 
to our mind, has spoken in no modern language 
so like Socrates, as here, by the lips of this wise 
and cultivated Jew.* 

Among the poets and more popular writers 
of the time, the case is the same : Utz, Gellert, 
Cramer, Ramler, Kleist, Hagedorn, Rabener, 
Gleim, and a multitude of lesser men, whatever 
excellences they might want, certainly are not 
chargeable with bad taste. Nay, perhaps of 
all writers they are the least chargeable with 
it: a certain clear, light, unaffected elegance, 
of a higher nature than French elegance, 
it might be, yet to the exclusion of all very 
deep or genial qualities, was the excellence 
they strove after, and, for the most part, in a 
fair measure attained. They resemble Eng- 
lish writers of the same, or perhaps an earlier 
period, more than any other foreigners : apart 
from Pope, whose influence is visible enough, 
BeattiCi Logan, Wilkie, Glover, unknown per- 
haps to any of them, might otherwise have al- 
most seemed their models. Goldsmitli also 
would rank among them ; perhaps, in regard to 
true poetic genius, at their head, for none of 
them has left us a Vicar of Wakefield; though, 
in regard to judgment, knowledge, general ta- 
lent, his place would scarcely be so high. 

The same thing holds, in general, and with 
fewer drawbacks, of the somewhat later and 
more energetic race, denominated the Gottingeii 
School, in contradistinction from the Saxon, to 
which Rabener, Cramer, and Gellert directly 
belonged, and most of those others indirectly. 
Holty, Burger, the two Stolbergs, are men whom 
Bossu might measure M'ith his scale and com- 
passes as strictly as he pleased. Of Herder, 
Schiller, Goethe, we speak not here : they are 
men of another stature and form of movement, 
whom Bossu's scale and compasses could not 
measure without difficulty, or rather not at all. 
To say that such men wrote with taste of this 
sort, were saying little ; for this forms not the 
apex, but the basis, in their conception of style; 
a quality not to be paraded as an excellence, 
but to be understood as indispensable, as there 
by necessity, and like a thing of course. 

In truth, for it must be spoken out, our op- 
ponents are so widely astray in this matter. 



* The history of Mendelsohn is interesting in itself, and 
full of encouragement to all lovers of self-improvement. 
At thirteen he was a wandering Jewish beggar, without 
health, without home, almost without a language, for the 
jargon of broken Hebrew and provincial German which 
he spoke could scarcely be called one. At midiUe age, 
he coiild write this Plitrrlnn; was a man of wealth and 
breeding, and ranked among the teachers of his age. 
Like Pope, he abode by his original creed, though often 
solicited to change it : indeed, the grand problem of his 
life was to better the inward and outward condition of 
his own ill-fated people ; for whom he actually accom- 
plished much benefit. He was a mild, shrewd, and 
worthy man ; and might well love Pheedon and Socrates, 
for his own character was Socratic. He was a friend 
«f Lessing's : indeed a pupil ; for Lessing having acci- 
dentally met him at chess, recognised the spirit that lay 
struggling under such incumbrances, and generously un- 
dertook to help him. By teaching the poor .lew a little 
Greek he disenchanted him from the Talmud and the 
Rabbins. The two were afterwards co-labourers in 
Nicolai's Deutsche Bibliothe!;, the first German Review 
of any character ; which, however, in the hands of 
Nicolai himself, it subsequently lost. Mendelsohn's 
Works have mostly been translated into French. 



that their views of it are not only dim and per- 
plexed, but altogether imaginary and delusive. 
It is proposed to School the Germans in the 
Alphabet of taste; and the Germans are al- 
ready busied with their Accidence ! Far from 
being behind other nations in the practice or 
science of Criticism, it is a fact, for which we 
fearlessly refer to all competent judges, that 
they are distinctly, and even considerably, in 
advance. We state what is already known to 
a great part of Europe to be true. Criticism 
has assumed a hgw form in Germany ; it pro- 
ceeds on other principles, and proposes to itself 
a higher aim. The grand question is not now a 
question concerning the qualities of diction, the 
coherence of metaphors, the fitness of senti- 
ments, the general logical truth, in a work of 
art, as it was some half century ago among 
most critics. Neither is it a question mainl}' of 
a psychological sort, to be answered by discover- 
ing and delineating the peculiar nature of the 
poet from his poetry, as is usual with the best 
of our own critics at present; but it is, not in- 
deed exclusively, but inclusively of those two 
other questions, properly and ultimately a 
question on the essence and peculiar life of 
the poetry itself. The first of these questions, 
as we see it answered, for instance, in the 
criticisms of Johnson and Kames, relates, 
strictly speaking, to the garment of poetry; the 
second, indeed, to its body and material exist- 
ence, a much higher point; but only the last 
to its soul and spiritual existence, by which 
alone can the bodj', in its movements and 
phases, be hifornicd with significance and 
rational life. The problem is not now to 
determine by what mechanism Addison com- 
posed sentences, and s4ruck out similitudes, 
but by what far finer and more mysterious 
mechanism Shakspeare organized his dramas, 
and gave life and individuality to his Ariel and 
his Hamlet. Wherein lies that life ; how have 
they attained that shape and individuality 1 
Whence comes that einpyrean fire, which ir- 
radiates their whole being, and pierces, at 
least in starry gleams, like a liviner thing, 
into all hearts ? Are these dramas of his not 
verisimilar only, but true; naj-, truer than 
reality itself, since the essence of unmixed 
reality is bodied forth in them under more ex- 
pressive symbols'? What is this unity of theirs ; 
and can our deeper inspection discern it to be 
indivisible, and existing by necessity, because 
each work springs, as it were, from the general 
elements of all Thought, and grows up there- 
from, into form and expansion, by its own 
gro^vth ? Not only who was the poet, and 
how did he compose; but what and how was 
the poem, and why was it a poem and not 
rhymed eloquence, creation and not figured 
passion 1 These are the questions for the 
critic. Criticism stands like an interpreter 
between the inspired and the uninspired; be- 
tween the prophet and those who hear the 
melody of his words, and catch some glimpse 
of their material meaning, but understand not 
their deeper import. She pretends to open for 
us this deeper import ; to clear our sense that 
it may discern the pure brightness of this eter- 
nal Beauty, and recognise it as heavenly, under 
all forms where it fooks forth, and reject, as 



24 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of the earth earthy, all forms, be their mate- 
rial splendour what ii may, where no gleaming 
of that other shines through. 

This is the task of Criticism, as the Germans 
understand it. And how do they accomplish 
this task? By a vague declamation clothed in 
gorgeous mystic phraseology 1 By vehement 
tumultuous anthems to the poet and his poetry ; 
by epithets and laudatory similitudes drawn 
from Tartarus and Elysium, and all intermedi- 
ate terrors and glories ; whereby, in truth, it is 
rendered clear both that the poet is an ex- 
tremely great poet, and also that the critic's 
allotment of understanding, overflowed by these 
Pythian raptures, has unhappily melted intode- 
liquium? Nowise in this manner do the Ger- 
mans proceed: but by rigorous scientific in- 
quiry ; by appeal to principles which, whether 
correct or not, have been deduced patiently, 
and by long investigation, from the highest and 
calmest regions of Philosophy. For this finer 
portion of their Criticism is now also embo- 
died in systems ; and standing, so far as these 
reach, coherent, distinct, and methodical, no 
less than, on their much shallower foundation, 
the systems of Boileau and Blair. That this 
new Criticism is a complete, much more a cer- 
tain science, we are far from meaning to afhrm : 
the (esthetic theories of Kant, Herder, Schiller, 
Goethe, Richter, vary in external aspect, ac- 
cording to the varied habits of the individual ; 
and can at best only be regarded as approxima^- 
tions to the truth, or modifications of it; each 
critic representing it as it harmonizes more or 
less perfectly with the other intellectual per- 
suasions of his own mind, and of diff"erent 
classes of minds that resemble his. Nor can 
we here undertake to inquire what degree of 
such approximation to the truth there is in 
each or all of these writers ; or in Tieck and 
the two Schlegels, who, especially the latter, 
have laboured so meritoriously in reconciling 
these various opinions ; and so successfully in 
impressing and diffusing the best spirit of them, 
first in their own country, and now also in 
several others. Thus much, however, we will 
say: That we reckon the mere circumstance 
of such a science being in existence, a ground 
of the highest consideration, and worthy the 
best attention of all inquiring men. For we 
should err widely, if we thought that this new 
tendency of critical science pertains to Ger- 
many alone. It is a European tendency, and 
springs from the general condition of intellect 
in Europe. We ourselves have all, for the last 
thirty years, more or less distinctly felt the ne- 
cessity of such a science: witness the neglect 
into which our Blairs and Bossus have silently 
fallen ; our increased and increasing admira- 
tion, not only of Shakspeare, but of all his con- 
temporaries, and of all who breathe any por- 
tion of his spirit; our controversy whether 
Pope was a poet; and so much vague effort 
on the part of our best critics, everywhere, to 
express some still unexpressed idea concerning 
the nature of true poetry ; as if they felt in 
their hearts that a pure glory, nay, a divine- 
ness, belonged to it, for which they had as yet 
no name, and no intellectual form. But in 
Italy too, in France itself, the same thing is 
visible. Their grand controversy, so hotly 



urged, between the Classicists and the Roman- 
ticists, in which the Schlegels are assumed, 
much too loosely, on all hands, as the patrons 
and generalissimos of the latter, shows us 
sufficiently what spirit is at work in that long 
stagnant literature. Doubtless this turbid 
fermentation of the elements will at length 
settle into clearness, both there, and here, as 
in Germany it has already in a great measure 
done; and perhaps a more serene and genial 
poetic day is everywhere to be expected with 
some confidence. How much the example of 
the Germans may have to teach us in this 
particular, needs no farther exposition. 

The authors and first promulgators of this 
new critical doctrine, were at one time con- 
temptuously named the Netv School; nor was it 
till alter a war of all the few good heads in the 
nation, with all the man}' bad ones, had ended 
as such wars must ever do,* that these critical 
principles were generally adopted; and their 
assertors found to be no School or new hereti- 
cal Sect, but the ancient primitive Catholic 
Communion, of which all sects that had anj"- 
living light in them were but members and 
subordinate modes. It is, indeed, the most 
sacred article of this creed to preach and prac- ■ 
tise universal tolerance. Every literature of 
the world has been cultivated by the Germans ; 
and to every literature the)' have studied to give 
due honour. Shakspeare and Homer, no doubt, 
occupy alone the loftiest station in the poetical 
Olympus ; but there is space for all true Sing- 
ers, out of every age and clime. Ferdusi and 
the primeval Mythologists of Hindostan, live 
in brotherly union with the Troubadours and 
ancient Story-tellers of the West. The way- 
ward mystic gloom of Calderon, the lurid fire 
of Dante, the auroral light of Tasso, the clear 
icy glitter of Racine, all are acknowledged and 
reverenced: nay, in the celestial fore-court an 
abode has been appointed for the Cressets and 
Delilles, that no spark of inspiration, no tone 
of mental music, might remain unrecognised. 
The Germans study foreign nations in a spirit 
which deserves to be oflener imitated. It is 
their honest endeavour to understand each with 
its own peculiarities, in its own special man- 
ner of existing; not that they may praise it, or 
censure it, or attempt to alter it, but simply 
that they may see this manner of existing as 
the nation itself sees it, and so participate in 
whatever worth or beauty it has brought into 
being. Of all lite.atures, accordingly, the 
German has the best as well as the most trans- 
lations ; men like Goethe, Schiller, Wieland, 
Schlegel, Tieck, have not disdained this task. 
Of Shakspeare there are three entire versions 
admitted to be good; and we know not how 



* It began in Scliiller's Musenalmanch for 1793. The 
Xenien, (a series of philosopliic epigrams jointly by 
i?eliiller and Goetlie,) descended there unexpectedly, 
like a flood of ethereal fire, on the German literary world ; 
quickenins all that was noble into new life, but visiting 
the ancient empire of Dulness with astonishment and 
unknown pangs. The agitation was extreme : scarcely 
since the age of Luther, has there been such stir and 
strife in the intellect of Germany ; indeed, scarcely since 
that age, has there been a controversy, if we consider its 
ultimate bearings on the best and noblest interests of 
mankind, so important as this, which, for the time, 
seemed only to turn on metaphysical subtilties, and 
matters of mere elgance. Its farther applications be- 
came apparent by degrees. 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE, 



25 



many partial, or considered as bad. In iheir 
criticisms of him we ourselves have long ago 
admitted, that no such clear judgment or hearty 
appreciation of his merits had ever been exhi- 
bited by any critic of our own. 

To attempt stating in separate aphorisms 
the doctrines of this- new poetical sysiem, 
would, in such space as is now allowed us, be 
to ensure them of misapprehension. The 
science of Criticism, as the Germans practise 
it, is no study of an hour; for it springs from 
the depths of thought, and remotely or imme- 
diately connects itself with the subtilest prob- 
lems of all philosophy. One charaeterisiic of 
it we may state, the obvious parent of many 
others. Poetic beauty, in its pure essence, is 
not, by this theory, as by all our theories, from 
Hume's to Alison's, derived from any thing 
external, or of merely intellectual origin ; not 
from association, or any reflex or reminiscence 
of mere sensations ; nor from natural love, 
either of imitation, of similarity in dissimi- 
larity, of excitement by contrast, or of seeing 
difficulties overcome. On the contrary, it is 
assumed as underived ; not borrowing its ex- 
istence from such sources, but as lending to 
most of these their significance and principal 
charm for the mind. It dwells, and is born in 
the inmost Spirit of Man, united to all love of 
Virtue, to all true belief in God ; or rather, it 
is one with this love and this belief, another 
phase of the same highest principle in the 
mysterious infinitude of the human Soul. To 
apprehend this beauty of poetry, in its full and 
purest brightness, is not easy, but difficult; 
thousands on thousands eagerly read poems, 
and attain not the smallest taste of it^ yet to 
all uncorrupted hearts, "some effulgences of this 
heavenly glory are here and there revealed; 
and to apprehend it clearly and wholly, to ac- 
quire and maintain a sense and heart that 
sees and worships it, is the last perfection of 
all humane culture. With mere readers for 
amusement, therefore, this Criticism has, and 
can have, nothing to do; these find their 
amusement, in less or greater measure, and the 
nature of Poetry remains for ever hidden from 
them in the deepest concealment. On all hands, 
there is no truce given to the hypothesis, that 
the ultimate object of the poet is to please. 
Sensation, even of the finest and most rap- 
turous sort, is not the end but the means. Art 
is to be loved, not because of its effects, but 
because of itself; not because it is useful for 
spiritual pleasure, or even for moral culture, 
but because it is Art, and the highest in man, 
and the soul of all Beauty. To inquire after 
its utillhj, would be like inquiring after the 
utility of a God, or what to the Germans would 
sound stranger than it does to us, the u'ility of 
Virtue and Religion. On these particulars, the 
authenticity of which we might verify, not so 
much by citation of individual passages, as by 
reference to the scope and spirit of whole trea- 
tises, we must for the present leave our read- 
ers to their own reflections. Might we advise 
them, it would be to inquire farther, and, if pos- 
sible, to see the matter with their own eyes. 

Meanwhile, that all this must tend, among 
the Germans, to raise the general standard of 
Art, and of what an Artist ought to be in his 
4 



own esteem and that of others, will be readily 
inferred. The character of a Poet does, ac- 
cordingly, stand higher with the Germans than 
with most nations. That he is a man of in- 
tegrity as a man ; of zeal and honest diligence 
in his art, and of true manly feeling towards 
all men, is of course presupposed. Of persons 
that are not so, but employ their gifts, in rhyme 
or otherwise, for brutish or malignant pur- 
poses, it is understood that such lie w-ithout the 
limits of Criticism, being subjects not for the 
judge of Art, but for the judge of Police. But 
even with regard to the fair tradesman, who 
ofl^ers his talent in open market, to do work 
of a harmless and acceptable sort for hire, — 
with regard to this person also, their opinion 
is very low. The " Bread-artist," as they call 
him, can gain no reverence for himself from- 
these men. '• Unhappy mortal !" says the mild but 
lofty-minded Schiller, " Unhappy mortal ! that, 
with Science and Art, the noblest of all instru- 
ments, effectest and attemptest nothing more 
than the day-drudge with the meanest; that in 
the domain of perfect freedom, bearest about 
in thee the spirit of a Slave !" Nay, to the- 
genuine Poet, they deny even the privilege of 
regarding what so many cherish, under the title- 
of their " fame," as the best and highest of alL 
Hear Schiller again : 

"The Artist, it is true, is the son of his age; 
but pity for him if he is its pupil, or even its 
favourite ! Let some beneficent divinity snatch 
him, when a suckling, from the breast of his 
mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better 
time, that he may ripen to his full stature be- 
neath a distant Grecian sky. And having- 
grown to manhood, let him return a foreign 
shape, into his century; not, however, to de- 
light it by his presence, but dreadful, like the- 
son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The matter of 
his works he will take from the present, but 
their form he will derive from a nobler time ; 
nay, from beyond all time, from the absolute- 
unchanging unity of his own nature. Here, 
from the pure jsther of his spiritual essence, 
flows down the Fountain of Beauty, uncontami- 
nated by the pollutions of ages and generations, 
which roll to and fro in their turbid vortex far 
beneathit. His matter, Caprice can dishonour, 
as she has ennobled it; but the chaste form is 
withdrawn from her mutations. The Roman 
of the first century had long bent the knee be- 
fore his Ccesars, when the statues of Rome 
were still standing erect; the temples con- 
tinued holy to the eye, when their gods had 
long been a laughing-stock; and the abomina- 
tions of a Nero and a Commodus were silently 
rebuked by the style of the edifice, which lent 
them its concealment. Man has lost his 
dignity, but Art has saved it, and preserved it 
for him in expressive marbles. Truth still 
lives in fiction, and from the copy the original 
will be restored. 

"But how is the Artist to guard himself from 
the corruptions of his time, which on every side 
assail him ] By despising its decisions. Let 
him look upwards to his dignity and the law, 
not dow'iwards to his happiness and his wants. 
Free al.ke from the vain activity that longs to 
impress its traces on the fleeting instant, antl 
from the querulous spirit of enthusiasm that 
C 



26 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



measures by the scale of perfection the meagre 
product of reality, let him leave to mere Un- 
derstanding, which is here at home, the province 
of the actual ; while he strives, by uniting the 
possible with the necessary, to produce the 
ideal. This let him imprint and express in 
fiction and truth ; imprint it in the sport of his 
imagination and the earnest of his actions; 
imprint it in all sensible and spiritual forms, 
and cast it silently into everlasting time."* 

Still higher are Fichte's notions on this sub- 
ject; or rather expressed in higher terms, for 
the central principle is the same both in the 
philosopher and the poet. According to Fichte, 
there is a '' Divine Idea" pervading the visible 
Universe; which visible Universe is indeed 
but its symbol and sensible manifestation, hav- 
ing in itself no meaning, or even true existence 
independent of it. To the mass of men this 
Divine Idea of the world lies hidden : yet to 
discern it, to seize it, and live wholly in it, is 
the condition of all genuine virtue, knowledge, 
freedom ; and the end, therefore, of all spiritual 
elTort in every age. Literary Men are the ap- 
pointed interpreters of this Divine Idea; a 
perpetual priesthood, we might say, standing 
forth, generation after generation, as the dis- 
pensers and living types of God's everlasting 
■wisdom, to show it and imbody it in their 
■writings and actions, in such particular form 
as their own particular times require it in. For 
each age, by the law of its nature, is different 
"from every other age, and demands a diflerent 
representation of this Divine Idea, the essence 
of which is the same in all ; so that the lite- 
rary man of one century is only by mediation 
and re-interpretation applicable to the wants 
of another. But in every century, every man 
who labours, be it in what province he may, 
to teach others, must first have possessed him- 
self of this Divine Idea, or, at least, be with 
his whole heart and his whole soul striving 
after it. If, without possessing it or striving 
after it, he abide diligently by some material 
practical department of knowledge, he may 
indeed still be (says Fichte, in his usual rugged 
way,) a "useful hodman;" but should he at- 
tempt to deal with the Whole, and to become 
an architect, he is, in strictness of language, 
"Nothing;" — "he is an ambiguous mongrel 
between the possessor of the Idea, and the man 
who feels himself soiidh' supported and car- 
ried on by the common Reality of things; in 
his fruitless endeavour after the Idea, he has 
neglected to acquire the craft of taking part in 
this Reality ; and so hovers between tM'o 
worlds, without pertaining to either." Else- 
where he adds : 

"There is still, from another point of view, 
another division in our notion of the Literary 
Man, and one to us of immediate application. 
Namely, either the Literary Man has already 
laid hold of the whole Divine Idea, in so far 
as it can be comprehended by man, or perhaps 
of a special portion of this its comprehensible 
part, — which iruly is not possible without at 
least a clear oversight of the whole, — he has 
already laiu hold of it, penetrated, and made it 
entirely clear to himself, so that it has become 

* Ueber die Aesthetische Erziehuiur des Mensclien. (On 
the ^Esthetic Education of Man.) 



a possession recallable at all times in the same 
shape to his view, and a component part of 
his personality: m that case he is a completed 
and equipt Literary Man, a man who has 
studied. Or else, he is still struggling and 
striving to make the Idea in general, or that 
particular portion and point of it, from which 
onwards he for his part means to penetrate the 
whole, — entirely clear to himself; detached 
sparkles of light already spring forth on him 
from all sides, and disclose a higher world be- 
fore him ; but they do not yet unite themselves 
into an indivisible whole ; they vanish from his 
view as capriciously as they came; he cannot 
yet bring them under obedience to his freedom ; 
in that case he is a progressing and self-unfold- 
ing literary man, a Student. That it be ac- 
tually the Idea, which is possessed or striven 
after, is common to both. Should the striving 
aim merely at the outward form, and the letter 
of learned cultui-e, there is then produced, 
when the circle is gone round, the completed, 
when it is not gone round, the progressing. 
Bungler {Stumper). The latter is more tolera- 
ble than the former ; for there is still room to 
hope that, in continuing his travel, he may at , 
some future point be seized by the Idea; but 
of the first all hope is over."* 

From this bold and lofty principle the duties 
of the Literary man are deduced with scientific 
precision ; and stated, in all their sacredness 
and grandeur, with an austere brevity more 
impressive than any rhetoric. Fichte's meta- 
physical theory maybe called in question, and 
readily enough misapprehended ; but the sub- 
lime stoicism of his sentiments will find some 
response in many a heart. ' We must add the 
conclusion of his first Discourse, as a farther 
illustration of his manner: 

"In disquisitions of the sort like ours of to- 
day, which all the rest, too, must resemble, the 
generality are wont to censure : First, their se- 
verity; very often on the good-natured suppo- 
sition that the speaker is not aware how much 
his rigour must displease us ; that we have but 
frankly to let him know this, and then doubtless 
he will reconsider himself, and soften his state- 
ments. Thus, we said above, that a man who, 
after literary culture, had not arrived at know- 
ledge of the Divine Idea, or did not strive to- 
wards it, was in strict speech Nothing ; and far- 
ther down, we said that he was a Bungler. This 
is in a style of those unmerciful expressions 
by which philosophers give such offence. — 
Now looking away from the present case, that 
we may front the maxim in its general shape, 
I remind you that this species of character, 
without decisive force to renounce all respect 
for Truth, seeks merely to bargain and cheap- 
en something out of her, whereby itself on 
easier terms may attain to some consideration. 
Bui truth, which once for all is as she is, and 
cannot alter aught of her nature, goes on her 
way; and there remains for her, in regard to 
those who desire her not simply because she 
is true, nothing else but to leave them stand- 
ing as if they had never addressed her. 

"Then farther, discourses ofthis sort are wont 



* Ueber das H'esen des Oelehrten ; (On the Nature of 
the Literary Man ;) a Course of Lectures delivered at 
Jena, in 1S05. 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



37 



to be censured as unintelligible. Thus I figure 
to myself, — nowise you, Gentlemen, but some 
completed Literary Man of the second species, 
whose eye the disquisition here entered upon 
chanced to meet, as coming forward, doubting 
this way and that, and at last reflectively ex- 
claiming: 'The Idea, the Divine Idea, that 
which lies at the bottom of Appearance : what 
pray may this mean V Of such a questioner I 
would inquire in turn: 'What pray may this 
question mean V — Investigate it strictly, it 
means in most cases nothing more than this, 
' Under what other names and in what other 
formulas, do I already know this same thing, 
which thou expressest by so strange and to me 
so unknown a symbolV And to this again in 
most cases the only suitable reply were, ' Thou 
knowest this thing not at all, neither under this, 
nor under any other name ; and wouldst thou 
arrive at the knowledge of it, thou must even 
now begin at the beginning to make study 
thereof; and then, most fitly, under that name 
by which it is first presented to thee !' " 

With such a notion of the Artist, it were a 
strange inconsistency did Criticism show it- 
self unscientific or lax in estimating the products 
of his Art. For light on this point, we might 
refer to the writings of almost any individual 
among the German critics : take, for instance, 
the Charnkterisliken of the two Schlegels, a work 
too of their younger years ; and say whether in 
depth, clearness, minute and patient fidelity, 
these Characters have often been surpassed, or 
the import and poetic worth of so many poets 
and poems more vividly and accurately brought 
to view. As an instance of a much higher 
kind, we might refer to Goethe's criticism of 
HnmUt in his WiUulm Mcisier. This truly is 
what may be called the poetry of criticism ; 
for it is in some sort also a creative art; aim- 
ing, at least, to reproduce under a different 
shape the existing product of the poet ; paint- 
ing to the intellect what already lay painted to 
the heart and the imagination. Nor is it over 
poetry alone that criticism watches with such 
loving strictness: the mimic, the pictorial, the 
musical arts, all modes of representing or ad- 
dressing the highest nature of man, are ac- 
knowledged as younger sisters of Poetry, and 
fostered with the like care. Winkelmann's 
History of Pin stir J}rt is known by repute to all 
readers : and of those who know it by inspec- 
tioni many may have wondered why such a 
work has not been added to our own literature, 
to instruct our own statuaries and painters. 
On this subject of the plastic arts, we cannot 
withhold the following little sketch of Goethe's, 
as a specimen of pictorial criticism in what we 
consider a superior style. It is of an imaginary 
landscape-painter, and his views of Swiss 
scenery ; it will bear to be studied minutely, 
for there is no word without its meaning: 

" He succeeds in representing the cheerful 
repose of lake prospects, where houses in 
friendly approximation, imaging themselves 
in the clear wave, seem as if bathing in its 
depths; shores encircled with green hills, be- 
hind which rise forest mountains, and icy peaks 
of glaciers. The tone of colouring in such 
scenes is gay, mirthfully clear; the distances 
as if overflowed with softening vapour, which 



from watered hollows and river valleys mounts 
up grayer and mistier, and indicates their wind- 
ings. "No less is the master's art to be praised 
in views from valleys lying nearer the high 
Alpine ranges, where declivities slope down, 
luxuriantly overgrown, and fresh streams roll 
hastily along by the foot of rocks. 

" With exquisite skill, in the deep shady trees 
of the foreground, he gives the distinctive cha- 
racter of the several species, satisfying us in 
the form of the whole, as in the structure of 
the branches, and the details of the leaves; no 
less so in the fresh green with its manifold 
shadings, where soft airs appear as if fanning 
us with benignant breath, and the lights as if 
thereby put in motion. 

"In the middle-ground, his lively green tone 
grows fainter by degrees ; and at last, on the 
more distant mountain-tops, passing into weak 
violet, weds itself with the blue of the sky. But 
our artist is above all happy in his paintings 
of high Alpine regions ; in seizing the simple 
greatness and stillness of their character; the 
wide pastures on the slopes, where dark soli- 
tary firs stand forth from the grassy carpet ; 
and from high cliffs, foaming brooks rush down. 
Whether he relieves his pasturages with graz- 
ing cattle, or the narrow winding rocky path 
wilh mules and laden pack-horses, he paints all 
with equal truth and richness ; still, iiilroduced 
in the proper place, and not in too great co- 
piousness, they decorate and enliven these 
scenes, without interrupting, without lessening 
their peaceful solitude. The execution testifies 
a master's hand ; easy, with a few sure strokes, 
and yet complete. In his later pieces, he em- 
ployed glittering English permanent-colours 
on paper: these pictures, accordingly, are of 
preeminently blooming tone; cheerful, yet, at 
the same time, strong and sated. 

" His views of deep mountain chasms, where,' 
round and round, nothing fronts us but dead 
rock, where, in the abyss, overspanned by its 
bold arch, the wild stream rages, are, indeed, 
of less attraction than the former: yet their 
truth excites us ; we admire the great effect of 
the whole, produced at so little cost, by a few 
expressive strokes, and masses of local colours. 

" With no less accuracy of character can he 
represent the regions of the topmost Alpine 
ranges, where neither tree nor shrub anymore 
appears ; but only amid the rocky teeth and 
snoM' summits, a few sunny spots clothe them- 
selves with a soft sward. Beautiful, and balmy 
and inviting as he colours these spots, he has 
here wisely forborne to introduce grazing 
herds; for these regions give food only to the 
chamois, and a perilous employment to the 
wild-hay-men."* 

We have extracted this passage from Wil- 
helm Mcistcr's Wamicrjnhrc, Goethe's last Novel. 
The perusal of his whole Works would show, 
among many other more important facts, that 
Criticism also is a science of which he is mas- 
ter ; that if ever any man had studied Art in all 
its branches and bearings, from its origin in 



* The poor wild-hay-man of tlie Rigiber?, 
Whose trade is, on the brow of the abyss. 
To mow the common L'rass from nooks and shelves, 
To which ihe cattle dare not climb. 

SciiiLLiiR's I'.'illielm Tell. 



28 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the depths of the creative spirit, to its minutest 
finish on the canvas of the painter, on the lips 
of the poet, or under the finger of the musician, 
he was that man. A nation which appreciates 
such studies, nay, requires and rewards them, 
cannot, wherever its defects may lie, be defec- 
tive in judgment of the arts. 

But a weightier question still remains. 
What has been the fruit of this its high and 
just judgment on these matters'? What has 
criticism profited it, to the bringing forth of 
good works ? How do its poems and its poets 
correspond with so lofty a standard! We an- 
swer, that on this point also, Germany may 
rather court investigation than fear it. There 
are poets in that country who belong to a no- 
bler class than most nations have to show in 
these days; a class entirely unknown to some 
nations ; and, for the last two centuries, rare 
in all. We have no hesitation in stating, that 
we see in certain of the best German poets, 
and those too of our own time, something 
which associates them, remotely or nearly we 
say not, but which does associate them with 
the Masters of Art, the Saints of Poetry, long 
since departed, and, as we thought, without 
successors, from the earth ; but canonized in 
the hearts of all generations, and yet living to 
all by the memory of what they did and were. 
Glances we do seem to find of that ethereal 
glory, which looks on us in its full brightness 
from the Tran^fguralion of Rafaelle, from the 
Tempest of Shakspeare; and in broken, but 
purest and still heart-piercing beams, strug- 
gling through the gloom of long ages, from the 
tragedies of Sophocles and the weather-worn 
sculptures of the Parthenon. This is that 
heavenly spirit, which, best seen in the aerial 
embodiment of poetry, but spreading likewise 
over all the thoughts and actions of an age, has 
given us Surreys, Sydneys, Raleighs in court 
and camp, Cecils in policy, Hookers in divinity. 
Bacons in philosophy, and Shakspeares and 
Spensers in song. All hearts that know this, 
know it to be the highest ; and that, in poetry 
or elsewhere, it alone is true and imperishable. 
In affirming that any vestige, however feeble, 
of this divine spirit, is discernible in German 
poetry, we are aware that we place it above 
the existing poetry of any other nation. 

To prove this bold assertion, logical argu- 
ments were at all times unavailing; and, in 
the present circumstances of the case, more 
than usually so. Neither will any extract or 
specimen help us ; for it is not in parts, but in 
whole poems, that the spirit of a true poet is 
to be seen. We can, therefore, only name 
such men as Tieck, Richler, Herder, Schiller, 
and, above all, Goethe ; and ask any reader 
who has learned to admire wisely our own 
literature of Queen Elizabeth's age, to peruse 
these writers also ; to study them till he feels 
that he has understood them, and justly esti- 
mated both their light and darkness ; and then 
to pronounce whether it is not, in some degree, 
as we have said. Are there not tones here of 
that old melody 1 Are there not glimpses of 
thatserenesoul, that calm harmonious strength, 
that smiling earnestness, that Love and Faith 
and Humanity of nature 1 Do these foreign 
contemporaries of ours still exhibit, in their 



characters as men, something of that sterling 
nobleness, that union of majesty with meek- 
ness, which we must ever venerate in those our 
spiritual fathers'? And do their works, in the 
new form of this century, show forth that old 
nobleness, not consistent only, with the science, 
the precision, the skepticism of these days, but 
wedded to them, incorporated with them, and 
shining through them like their life and soul T 
Might it in truth almost seem to us, in reading 
the prose of Goethe, as if we were reading that 
of Milton ; and of Milton writing with the cul- 
ture of this time; combining French clearness 
with old English depth'? And of his poetry 
may it indeed be said that it is poetry, and yet 
the poetry of our own generation ; an ideal 
world, and yet the world we even now live in? 
— These questions we must leave candid and 
studious inquirers to answer for themselves; 
premising only, that the secret is not to be 
found on the surface; that the first reply is 
likely to be in the negative, but with inquirers 
of this sort, by no means likely to be the 
final one. 

To ourselves, we confess, it has long so ap- 
peared. The poetry of Goethe, for instance, 
we reckon to be Poetry, sometimes in the very 
highest sense of that word ; yet it is no remi- 
niscence, but something actually present and 
before us ; no looking back into an antique 
Fairy-land, divided by impassable abysses from 
the real world as it lies about us and within us ; 
but a looking round upon that real world itself, 
now rendered holier to our eyes, and once 
more become a solemn temple, where the 
spirit of Beauty still dwells, and, under new 
emblems, to be worshipped as of old. With 
Goethe, the mythologies of bygone days pass 
only for what they are ; we have no witchcraft 
or magic in the common acceptation ; and 
spirits no longer bring with them airs from 
heaven or blasts from hell; for Pandemonium 
and the steadfast Empyrean have faded away, 
since the opinions which they symbolized no 
longer are. Neither does he bring his heroes 
from remote Oriental climates, or periods of 
Chivalry, or any section either of Atlantis or 
the Age of Gold 1 feeling that the reflex of 
these things is cold and faint, and only hangs 
like a cloud-picture in the distance, beautiful 
but delusive, and which even the simplest 
know to be delusion. The end of Poetry is 
higher ; she must dwell in Reality, and become 
manifest to men in the forms among which 
they live and move. And this is Avhat we prize 
in Goethe, and more or less in Schiller and 
the rest ; all of whom, each in his own way, 
are writers of a similar aim. The coldest 
skeptic, the most callous worldling, sees not 
the actual aspects of life more sharply than 
they are here delineated : the nineteenth cen- 
tury stands before us, in all its contradiction 
and perplexity; barren, mean, and baleful, as 
we have all known it ; yet here no longer mean 
or barren, but enamelled into beauty in the 
poet's spirit; for its secret significance is laid 
open, and thus, as it were, the life-giving fire 
that slumbers in it is called forth, and flowers 
and foliage, as of old, are springing on its 
bleakest wildernesses, and overmanlling its 
sternest clifis. For these men have not only 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



29 



the clear eye, but the loving heart. They have 
penetrated into the mystery of Nature ; after 
long trial they have been initiated: and, to 
■unwearied endeavour, Art has at last yielded 
her secret; and thus can the Spiritof our Age, 
imbodied in fair imaginations, look forth on 
us, earnest and full «f meaning, from their 
works. As the first and indispensable condi- 
tion of good poets, they are wise and good men: 
much they have seen and suffered, and they 
have conquered all this, and made it all their 
own ; they have known life in its heights and 
depths, and mastered it in both, and can teach 
others what it is, and how to lead it rightl}'. 
Their minds are as a mirror to us, where the 
perplexed image of our own being is reflected 
back in soft and clear interpretation. Here 
mirth and gravity are blended together ; wit 
rests on deep devout wisdom, as the green- 
sward with its flowers must rest on the rock, 
whose foundations reach downward to the 
centre. In a Avord, they are believers; but 
their faith is no sallow plant of darkness; it is 
green and flowery, for it grows in the sunlight. 
And this faith is the doctrine they have to 
teach us, the sense which, under every noble 
and graceful form, it is their endeavour to set 
forth : 

As all nature's thousanrl chanses 
But one ctianyeless Gort proclaim, 
So in Art's wide kinsrdonis ranges 
One sole rneaninir, still the same ; 
This is Truth, eternal Reason, 
Which from Beauty takes its dress, 
And, serene through time and season. 
Stands for aye in loveliness. 

Such indeed is the end of Poetry at all times; 
j^et in no recent literature known to us, except 
the German, has it been so far attained; nay, 
perhaps, so much as consciously and stead- 
fastly attempted. 

The reader feels that if this our opinion be 
in any measure true, it is a truth of no ordinary 
moment. It concerns not this writer or that ; 
but it opens to us new views on the fortune 
of spiritual culture with ourselves and all na- 
tions. Have we not heard gifted men com- 
plaining that Poetry had passed away without 
return; that creative imagination consorted 
not with vigour of intellect, and that in the 
cold light of science there was no longer room 
for faith in things unseen ? The old simplicity 
of heart was gone; earnest emotions must no 
longer be expressed in earnest symbols ; beauty 
must recede into elegance, devoutness of cha- 
racter be replaced by clearness of thought, and 
grave wisdom by shrewdness and jiersiflagc. 
Such things we have heard, but hesitated to 
believe them. If the poetry of the Germans, 
and this not by theory but by example, have 
proved, or even begun to prove, the contrary, 
it will deserve far higher encomiums than any 
we have passed upon it. 

In fact, the past and present aspect of Ger- 
man literature illustrates the literature of Eng- 
land in more than one way. Its history keeps 
pice with that of ours; for so closely are all 
European communities connected, that the 
phases of mind in any one country, so far as 
these represent its general circumstances and 
intellectual position, are but modified repeti- 
tions of its phases in every other. We hinted 
above, that the Saxon School corresponded 



with what might be called the Scotch: Cra- 
mer was not unlike our Blair; Von Cronegk 
might be compared with Michael Bruce; and 
Rabener and Gellert with Beattie and Logan. 
To this mild and cultivated period, there suc- 
ceeded, as v.nth us, a partial abandonment of 
poetry, in favour of political and philosophical 
Illumination. Then was the time, when hot 
war was declared against Prejudice of all 
sorts; Utility was set up for the universal 
measure of mental as well as material value; 
poetry, except of an economical and precep- 
torial character, was found to be the product 
of a rude age ; and religious enthusiasm was 
but derangement in the biliary organs. Then 
did the Prices and Condorcels of Germany 
indulge in da)'-dreams of perfectibility ; a new 
social order was to bring back the Saturnian 
era to the world ; and philosophers sat on 
their sunny Pisgah, looking back over dark 
savage deserts, and forward into a land flow- 
ing with milk and honey. 

This period also passed away, with its good 
and its evil; of which chiefly the latter seems 
to be remembered ; for we scarcely ever find 
the afl^air alluded to, except in terms of con- 
tempt, by the title Aufklarercy (Illumination- 
ism) ; and its partisans, in subsequent sa- 
tirical controversies, received the nickname 
of Phillstcr/i (Philistines), which the few scat- 
tered remnants of them still bear, both in writ- 
ing and speech. Poetry arose again, and in a 
new and singular shape. The Sorroiusof Wer- 
ler, Goelz von FrrUchingot, and IVic Robbers, may 
stand as patriarchs and representatives of 
three separate classes, which, commingled in 
various proportions, or separately coexisting, 
now with the preponderance of this, now of 
that, occupied the whole popular literature of 
Genuany, till near the end of the last century. 
These were the Sentimentalists, the Chivalry- 
play-writers, and other gorgeous and outrage- 
ous persons; as a whole, now pleasantly de- 
nominated the Krnpmdmicr, literally. Power- 
men. They dealt in skeptical lamentation, 
mysterious enthusiasm, frenzy and suicide: 
they recurred with fondness to the Feudal 
Ages, delineating many a battlemented keep, 
and swart buff-belted man-at-arms; for in re- 
flection as in action, they studied to be strong, 
vehement, rapidly effective; of battle-tumult, 
love-madness, heroism, and despair, there was 
no end. This literary period is called the 
Stnrn}-und-'Drniis:-7ei', the Storm-and-Stress Pe- 
riod ; for great indeed was the wo and fury 
of these Power-men. Beauty, to their mind, 
seemed synonymous with Strength. All pas- 
sion was poetical, so it were but fierce enough. 
Their head moral virtue was Pride: their beau 
ideal of manhood was some transcript of Mil- 
ton's Devil. Often they inverted Bolingbroke's 
plan, and instead of "patronizing Providence," 
did directly the opposite; raging with extreme 
animation against Fate in general, because it 
enthralled free virtue; and v/ith clenched 
hapds, or sounding shields, hurling defiance 
towards the vault of heaven. 

These Power-men are gone too; and, with 

^ew exceptions, save the three originals above 

named, their works have already followed 

them. The application of all this to our own 

c 3 



30 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



literature is too obvious to require much ex- 
position. Have we not also had our Power- 
men 7 And will not, as in Germany, to us 
likewise a milder, a clearer, and a truer time 
come round? Our Byron was, in his youth, 
but what Schiller and Goethe had been in 
theirs : yet the author of Wcrtcr wrote Iphi- 
genie and Torqunto Tasso ; and he who began 
with The Robbers ended with Wilhclm Tell. With 
longer life, all things were to have been hoped 
for from Byron : for he loved truth in his in- 
most heart, and would have discovered at last 
that his Corsairs and Harolds were not true. 
It was otherwise appointed: but with one man 
all hope does not die. If this way is the right 
one, we too shall find it. The poetry of Ger- 
many, meanwhile, we cannot but regard as 
well deserving to be studied, in this as in other 
points of view: it is distinctly an advance 
beyond any other known to us; whether on 
the right path or not, may be still uncertain ; 
but a path selected by Scliillers and Goethes, 
and vindicated by Schlegels and Tiecks, is 
surely worth serious examination. For the 
rest, need we add that it is study for self-in- 
struction, nowise for purposes of imitation, 
that we recommend? Among the deadliest 
of poetical sins is imitation ; for if every man 
must have his own way of expressing it, much 
more every nation. But of danger on that 
side, in the country of Shakspeare and Milton, 
there seems little to be feared. 

We come now to the second grand objection 
against German literature, its mysticism. In 
treating of a subject itself so vague and dim, 
it were well if we tried, in the first place, to 
settle, with mor§ accuracy, what each of the 
two contending parties really means to say or 
to contradict regarding it. Mysticism is a 
word in the mouths of all : yet, of the hun- 
dred, perhaps not one has ever asked himself 
what this opprobrious epithet properly signi- 
fied in his mind ; or where the boundary be- 
tween true Science and this Land of Chimeras 
was to be laid down. Examined strictly, mys- 
tical, in most cases, will turn out to be merely 
synonymous with not understood. Yet surely 
there may be haste and oversight here ; for it 
is well known, that, to the understanding of 
any thing, two conditions are equally required; 
intelligibility in the thing itself being no whit 
more indispensable than intelligence in the 
examiner of it. "I am bound to find you in 
reasons. Sir," said Johnson, " but not in 
brains;" a speech of the most shocking un- 
politeness, yet truly enough expressing the 
state of the case. 

It may throw some light on this question, 
if we remind our readers of the following fact. 
In the field of human investigation, there 
are objects of two sorts : First, the visible, in- 
cluding not only such as are material, and 
may be seen by the bodily eye; but all such, 
likewise, as may be represented in a shape, 
before the mind's eye, or in any way pictured 
there : And, secondly, the invisible, or such as 
are not only unseen by human eyes, but as 
cannot be seen by any eye; not objects of 
sense at all ; not capable, in short, of being 
pictured or imaged in the mind, or in any way 
represented by a shape either without the mind 



or within it. If any man shall here turn upon 
us, and assert that there are no such invisible 
objects ; that whatever cannot be so pictured 
or imagined (meaning imaged) is nothing, and 
the science that relates to it nothing; we shall 
regret the circumstance. We shall request 
him, however, to consider seriously and deeply 
within himself what he means simply by these 
two words, Gou and his own Soul ; and 
whether he finds that visible shape and true 
existence are here also one and the same? 
If he still persist in denial, we have nothing 
for it, but to wish him good speed on his own 
separate path of inquir}^ ; and he and we will 
agree to difier on this subject of mysticism, 
as on so many more important ones. 

Now, whoever has a material and visible 
object to treat, be it of natural Science, Politi- 
cal Philosophy, or any such externally and 
sensibly existing department, may represent it 
to his own mind, and convey it to the minds 
of others, as it were, by a direct diagram, more 
complex indeed than a geometrical diagram, 
but still with the same sort of precision ; and 
provided his diagram be complete, and the same 
both to himself and his reader, he may reason 
of it, and discuss it, with the clearness, and, in 
some sort, the certainty of geometry itself. If 
he do not so reason of it, this must be for want 
of comprehension to image out the ivhole of it, 
or of distinctness to convey the same whole to 
his reader : the diagrams of the two are differ- 
ent; the conclusions of the one diverge from 
those of the other, and the obscurity here, pro- 
vided the reader be a man of sound judgment 
and due attentiveness, results from incapacity 
on the part of the writer. In such a case, the- 
latter is justly regarded as a man of imperfect 
intellect; he grasps more than he can carry; 
he confuses what, with ordinary faculty, might 
be rendered clear ; he is not a mystic, but, what 
is much worse, a dunce. Another matter it is, 
however, when the object to be treated of be- 
longs to the invisible and immaterial class ; 
cannot be pictured out even by the writer him- 
self, much less, in ordinary symbols, set before 
the reader. In this case, it is evident, the diiii- 
culties of comprehension are increased an 
hundred-fold. Here it will require long, pa- 
tient, and skilful effort, both from the writer 
and the reader, before the two can so much as 
speak together; before the former can make 
known to the latter, not Aoty the matter stands, 
but even ivhat the matter is, which they have to 
investigate in concert. He must devise new 
means of explanation, describe conditions of 
mind in which this invisible idea arises, the 
false persuasions that eclipse it, the false shows 
that may be mistaken for it, the glimpses of it 
that appear elsewhere ; in short, strive by a 
thousand well-devised methods, to guide his 
reader up to the perception of it; in all which, 
moreover, the reader must faithfull}' and toil- 
somely co-operate with him, if any fruit is to 
come of their mutual endeavour. Should the 
latter take up his ground too early, and affirm 
to himself that now he has seized what he still 
has not seized; that this and nothing else is 
the thing aimed at by his teacher, the conse- 
quences are plain enough : disunion, darkness, 
and contradiction between the two; the writer 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



31 



has written for another man, and this reader, 
after long provocation, quarrels with him 
finally, and quits him as a mystic. 

Nevertheless, after all these limitations, we 
shall not hesitate to admit, that there is in the 
German mind a tendency to mysticism, pro- 
perly so called; as perhaps there is, unless 
carefully guarded against, in all minds tem- 
pered like theirs. It is a fault; but one hardly 
separable from the excellencies we admire 
most in them. A simple, tender, and devout 
nature, seized by some touch of divine Truth, 
and of this perhaps under some rude enough 
symbol, is wrapt with it into a whirlwind of 
unutterable thoughts; wild gleams of splendour 
dart to and fro in the eye of the seer, but the 
vision will not abide with him, and yet he feels 
that its light is light from heaven, and precious 
to him beyond all price. A simple nature, a 
George Fox, or a Jacob Boehme, ignorant of 
all the ways of men, of the dialect in which 
they speak, or the forms by which they think, 
is labouring with a poetic, a religious idea, 
which, like all such ideas, must express itself 
by word and act, or consume the heart it dwells 
in. Yet how shall he speak, how shall he pour 
forth into other souls, that of which his own 
soul is full even to bursting! He cannot 
speak to us ; he knows not our state, and can- 
not make known to us his own. His words 
are an inexplicable rhapsody, a speech in an 
unknown tongue. Whether there is meaning 
in it to the speaker himself, and how much or 
how true, we shall never ascertain ; for it is 
not in the language of men, but of one man 
who had not learned the language of men ; and, 
with himself, the key to its full interpretation was 
lost from amongst us. These are mystics ; men 
who either know not clearly their own mean- 
ing, or at least cannot put it forth in formulas 
of thought, whereby others, with whatever diffi- 
culty, may apprehend it. Was their meaning 
clear to themselves, gleams of it will yet 
shine through, how ignorantly and unconsci- 
ously soever it may have been delivered; was 
it still wavering and obscure, no science could 
have delivered it wisely. In either case, much 
more in the last, they merit and obtain the 
name of mystics. To scoffers they are a ready 
and cheap prey ; but sober persons understand 
that pure evil is as unknown in this lower 
Universe as pure good ; and that even in mys- 
tics, of an honest and deep-feeling heart, there 
may be much to reverence, and of the rest 
more to pity than to mock. 

But it is not to apologize for Boehme, or 
Novalis, or the school of Theosophus and 
Flood, that we have here undertaken. Neither 
is it on such persons that the charge of mys- 
ticism brought against the Germans mainly 
rests. Boehme is little known among us ; 
Novalis, much as he deserves knowing, not at 
all; nor is it understood, that, in their own 
country, these men rank higher than they do, 
or might do, with ourselves. The chief mys- 
tics in Germany, it would appear, are the 
Transcendental Philosophers, Kant, Fichte, 
and Schelling! With these is the chosen seat 
of mysticism, these are its " tenebrific constel- 
lation," from which it "doth ray out darkness" 
over the earth. Among a certain class of 



thinkers, does a frantic exaggeration in senti- 
ment, a crude fever-dream in opinion, any- 
where break forth, it is directly labelled as 
Kantism ; and the moon-struck speculator is, 
for the time, silenced and put to shame by this 
epithet. For often, in such circles, Kant's 
Philosophy is not only an absurdity, but a 
wickedness and a horror ; the pious and peace- 
ful sage of Konigsberg passes for a sort of 
Necromancer and Blackartist in Metaphysics; 
his doctrine is a region of boundless baleful 
gloom, too cunningly broken here and there by 
splendours of unholy fire ; spectres and tempt- 
ing demons people it; and, hovering over 
fathomless abysses, hang gay and gorgeous 
air-castles, into which the hapless traveller is 
seduced to enter, and so sinks to rise no more. 
If any thing in the history of Philosophy 
could surprise us, it might well be this. Per- 
haps among all the metaphysical writers of 
the eighteenth century, including Hume and 
Hartley themselves, there is not one that so 
ill meets the conditions of a mystic as this 
same Immanuel Kant. A quit, vigilant, clear- 
sighted man, who had become distinguished to 
the world in mathematics before he attempted 
philosophy; who, in his writings generally, on 
this and other subjects, is perhaps character- 
ized by no quality so much as precisely by the 
distinctness of his conceptions, and the se- 
quence and iron strictness with which he 
reasons. To our own minds, in the little that we 
know of him, he has more than once recalled 
Father Boscovich in Natural Philosophy ; so 
piercing, yet so sure ; so concise, so still, se 
simple; with such clearness and composure 
does he mould the complicacy .of his subject, 
and so firm, sharp, and definite are the results 
he evolves from it.* Right or wrong as his 
hypothesis may be, no one that knows him will 
suspect that he himself had not seen it, and 
seen over it; had not meditated it with calm- 
ness and deep thought, and studied throughout 
to expound it with scientific rigor. Neither, as 
we often hear, is there any superhuman faculty 
required to follow him. We venture to assure 
such of our readers as are in any measure 
used to metaphysical study, that the Kritik dcr 
reineii Vermcnft is by no means the hardest task 
they have tried. It is true, there is an unknown 
and forbidding terminology to be mastered ; but 
is not this the case also with Chemistry, and 
Astronomy, and all other sciences that deserve 
the name of science 1 It is true, a careless or 
unprepared reader will find Kant's writing a 
riddle; but will a reader of this sort make 
much of Newton's Principia, or D'Alembert's 
Calculus of Variations? He will make nothing 
of them; perhaps less than nothing; for if he 
trust to his own judgment, he will pronounce 
them madness. Yet if the Philosophy of Mind 
is any philosophy at all. Physics and Mathe- 
matics must be plain subjects compared with 
it. But these latter are happy, not only in the 
fixedness and simplicity of their methods, but 
also in the universal acknowledgment of their 



* We have heard that the Latin Translation of his 
works is unintelligible, the Translator himself not hav- 
ing understood it ; also that Villers is no safe guide in 
the study of liim. Neither Villers nor those Latin works 
are known to us. 



32 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



claim to that prior and continual intensity of 
application, without which all progress in any 
science is impossible ; though more than one 
may be attempted without it; and blamed, be- 
cause without it they will yield no result. 

The truth is, German Philosophy differs not 
more widely from ours in the substance of its 
doctrines, than in its manner of communicat- 
ing them. The class of disquisitions, named 
Karnin-Philosophie (Parlor-fire Philosophy) in 
Germany, is there held in little estimation. No 
right treatise on any thing, it is believed, least 
of all on the nature of the human mind, can 
be profitably read, unless the reader himself 
co-operates: the blessing of half-sleep in such 
cases is denied him; he must be alert, and 
strain every faculty, or it profits nothing. 
Philosophy, with these men, pretends to be a 
Science, nay, the living principlt; and soul of 
all Sciences, and must be treated and studied 
scientifically, or not studied and treated at all. 
Its doctrines should be present with every cul- 
tivated writer; its spirit should pervade every 
piece of composition, how slight or popular 
soever; but to treat itself popularly would be 
a degradation and an impossibility. Philoso- 
phy dwells aloft in the Temple of Science, the 
divinity of its inmost shrine : her dictates des- 
cend among men, but she herself descends not ; 
whoso would behold her, must climb with long 
and laborious effort ; nay, still linger in the 
forecourt, till manifold trial have proved him 
worthy of admission into the interior solem- 
nities. 

It is the false notion prevalent respecting the 
objects aimed at, and the purposed manner of 
attaining them, *in German Philosophy, that 
causes, in great part, this disappointment of 
our attempts to study it, and the evil report 
which the disappointed naturally enough bring 
back with them. Let the reader believe us, 
the Critical Philosophers, whatever they may 
be, are no mystics, and have no fellowship 
with mystics. What a mystic is, we have said 
above. But Kant, Fichte, and Schelling, are 
men of cool judgment, and determinate ener- 
getic character; men of science and profound 
and universal investigation; nowhere does the 
world, in all its bearings, spiritual or material, 
theoretic or practical, lie pictured in cleareror 
truer colours, than in such heads as these. 
We have heard Kant estimated as a spiritual 
brother of Boehme ; as justly might we take 
Sir Isaac Newton for a spiritual brother of 
Count Swedenborg, and Laplace's Mechanism 
of the Heavens for a peristyle to the Vision of the 
New Jerusalem. That this is no extravagant 
comparison, we appeal to any man acquainted 
with any single volume of Kant's writings. 
Neither, though Schelling's system differs still 
more widely from ours, can we reckon Schell- 
ing a mystic. He is a man evidently of deep 
insight into individual things; speaks wisely, 
and reasons with the nicest accuracy, on all 
matters where we understand his data. Fairer 
might it be in us to say that we had not yet 
appreciated his truth, and therefore could not 
appreciate his error. But above all, the mysti- 
cism of Fichte might astonish us. The cold, 
colossal, adamantine spirit, standing erect and 
clear, like a Cato Major among degenerate 



men : fit to have been the teacher of the Stoa, 
and to have discoursed of Beauty and Virtue 
in the groves of Academe! Our reader has 
seen some words of Fichte's : are these like 
words of a mystic? We state Fichte's cha- 
racter, as it is known and admitted by men of 
all parties among the Germans, when we say 
that so. robust an intellect, a soul so calm, so 
lofiy, massive, and immovable, has not mingled 
in philosophical discussion since the time of 
Luther. We figure his motionless look, had 
he heard this charge of mysticism ! For the 
man rises before us, amid contradiction and 
debate, like a granite mountain amid clouds 
and wind. Ridicule, of the best that could be 
commanded, has been already tried against 
him; but it could not avail. What was the 
wit of a thousand wits to himl The cry of a 
thousand choughs assaulting that old cliff of 
granite : seen from the summit, these, as they 
winged the midway air, showed scarce so 
gross as beetles, and their cry was seldom 
even audible. Fichte's opinions may be true 
or false ; but his character, as a thinker, can 
be slightly valued only b}' such as know it ill ; 
and as a man, approved by action and suffer- 
ing, in his life and in his death, he ranks with 
a class of men who were common only in 
better ages than ours. 

The Critical Philosophy has been regarded 
by persons of approved judgment, and nowise 
directly implicated in the furthering of it, as 
distinctly the greatest intellectual achievement 
of the century in which it came to light. Au- 
gust Wilhelm Schlegel has stated in plain terms 
his belief, that, in respect of its probable in- 
fluence on the moral culture of Europe, it stands 
on a line with the Reformation. We mention 
Schlegel as a man whose opinion has a known 
value among ourselves. But the worth of 
Kant's philosophy is not to be gathered from 
votes alone. The noble system of morality, 
the purer theology, the lofly views of man's na- 
ture derived from it; nay, perhaps, the very 
discussion of such matters, to which it gave so 
strong an impetus, have told with remarkable 
and beneficial influence on the whole spiritual 
character of Germany. No writer of any im- 
portance in that country, be he acquainted or 
not with the Critical Philosophy, but breathes 
a spirit of devoutness and elevation more or less 
directly drawn from it. Such men as Goethe 
and Schiller cannot exist without effect in any 
literature or in any century: but if one circum- 
stance more than another has contributed to 
forward their endeavours, and introduce that 
higher tone into the literature of Germany, it 
has been this philosopical system ; to which, 
in wisely believing its results, or even in wisely 
denying them, all that was lofty and )>ure in 
the genius of poetry, or the reason of man, so 
readily allied itself 

That such a system must in the end become 
known among ourselves, as it is already be- 
coming known in France and Italy, and over 
all Europe, no one acquainted in any measure 
with the character of this matter, and the cha- 
racter of England, will hesitate to predict. 
Doubtless it will be studied here, and by heads 
adequate to do it justice : it will be investigated 
duly and thoroughly, and settled in our minds 



STATE OF GERMAN LITERATURE. 



33 



•on the footing whicji belongs to it, and where 
thenceforth it must continue. Respecting the 
degrees of truth and error which will then be 
found to exist in Kant's system, or in the mo- 
difications it has since received, and is still re- 
ceiving, we desire to be understood as making 
no estimate, and little qualified to make any. 
We would have it studied and known, on ge- 
neral grounds; because even the errors of such 
men are instructive; and because, without a 
large admixture of truth, no error «/n exist un- 
der such combinations, and become diffused so 
widely. To judge of it we pretend not : we are 
still inquirers in the mere outskirts of the mat- 
ter; and it is but inquiry that we wish to see 
promoted. 

Meanwhile, as an advance or first step to- 
wards this, we may state something of what 
has most struck ourselves as characterizing 
Kant's system ; as distinguishing it from every 
other known to us ; and chiefly from the Me- 
taphysical philosophy which is taught in Bri- 
tain, or rather which was taught ; for, on look- 
ing round, we see not that there is any such 
Philosophy in existence at the present day.* 
The Kantist, in direct contradiction to Locke 
and all his followers, both of the French, and 
English or Scotch school, commences from 
within, and proceeds outwards ; instead of 
commencing from without, and, with various 
precautions and hesitations, endeavouring to 
proceed inwards. The ultimate aim of all Phi- 
losophy must be to interpret appearances, — 
from the given symbol to ascertain the thing. 
Now the first step towards this, the aim of what 
may be called Primary or Critical Philosophy, 
must be to find some indubitable principle ; to 
fix ourselves on some unchangeable basis : to 
discover what the Germans call the Urmuhr, 
the Primitive Truth, the necessarily, absolute- 
ly, and eternally True. This necessarily True, 
this absolute basis of Truth, Locke silently, 
and Reid and his followers with more tumult, 
find in a certain modified Experience, and evi- 
dence of Sense, in the universal and natural 
persuasions of all men. Not so the Germans : 
they deny that there is here any absolute Truth, 



* The name of Dug;ald Stewart is a name venerable 
to all Europe, and to none more dear and venerable than 
to ourselves. Nevertheless his writings are not a phi- 
losophy, but a making ready for one He does not enter 
on the field to till it, he only encompasses it with fences, 
invites cultivators, and drives away intruders ; often 
(fallen on evil days) he is reduced to long arguments 
with passers by, to prove that it is a field, that this so 
highly prized domain of his is, in truth, soil and sub- 
stance, not clouds and shadow. We regard his discus- 
sions on the nature of philosophic Language, and his un- 
wearied efforts to set forth and guard against its fallacies, 
as worthy of all acknowledgment; as indeed forming 
the greatest, perhaps the only true improvement, which 
Philosophy has received among us in our age. It is only 
to a superficial observer that the import of these discus- 
sions can seem trivial : rightly understood they give suf- 
ficient and final answer to Hartley's and Darwin's and 
all other possible forms of Materialism, the grand Idola- 
try, as we may rightly call it, by which, in all times, the 
true Worship, that of the invisible, has been polluted 
and withstood. Mr. Stewart has written warmly against 
Kant ; but it would surprise him to find how nluch of a 
Kantist he himself essentially is. Has not the whole 
scope of his labours been to reconcile what a Kantist 
would call his Understanding with his Reason ; a noble, 
but still too fruitless effort to overarch the chasm 
which, for all minds but his own, separates his Science 
from his Religion f We regard the assiduous study of 
his Works, as the best preparation of studying those of 
Kant. 



or that any Philosophy whatever can be built 
on such a basis ; nay, they go the length 
of asserting, that such an appeal even to the 
universal persuasions of mankind, gather them 
with what precautions you may, amounts to a 
total abdication of Philosophy, strictly so called, 
and renders not only its further progress, but 
its very existence, impossible. What, they 
would say, have the persuasions, or instinc- 
tive beliefs, or whatever they are called, of men, 
to do in this matter 1 Is it not the object of 
Philosophy to enlighten, and rectify, and many 
times directly contradict these very beliefs. 
Take, for instance, the voice of all generations 
of men on the subject of Astronomy. Will 
there, out of any age or climate, be one dissen- 
tient against the fad. of the Sun's going round 
the Earth 1 Can any evidence be clearer, is 
there any persuasion more universal, any be- 
lief more instinctive ] And yet the sun moves 
no hairsbreadth ; but stands in the centre of his 
Planets, let us vote as we please. So is it like- 
wise with our evidence for an external inde- 
pendent existence of Matter, and, in general, 
with our whole argument against Hume; 
whose reasonings, from the premises admitted 
both by him and us, the Germans affirm to be 
rigorously consistent and legitimate, and, on 
these premises, altogether uncontroverted and 
incontrovertible. British Philosophy, since the 
time of Hume, appears to them nothing more 
than a "laborious and unsuccessful striving 
to build dike after dike in front of our Churches 
and Judgment-halls, and so turn back from 
them the deluge of Skepticism, with which that 
extraordinary writer overflowed us, and still 
threatens to destroy whatever we value most." 
This is Schlegel's meaning: his words are not 
before us. 

The Germans take up the matter differently, 
and would assail Hume, not in his outworks, 
but in the centre of his citadel. They deny 
his first principle, that Sense is the only inlet 
of Knowledge, that Experience is the primary 
ground of Belief. Their Primitive Truth, 
however, they seek, not historically and by 
experiment, in the universal persuasions of 
men, but by intuition, in the deepest and purest 
nature of Man. Instead of attempting, which 
they consider vain, to prove the existence of 
God, Virtue, an immaterial Soul, by inferences 
drawn, as the conclusion of all Philosophy, 
from the world of sense, they find these things 
written as the beginning of all Philosophy, in 
obscured but ineffaceable characters, within 
our inmost being; and themselves first afford- 
ing any certainty and clear meaning to that 
very world of sense, by which we endeavour 
to demonstrate them. God i.s nay, alone is, 
for with like emphasis we cannot say that any- 
thing else is. This is the Absolute, the Primi 
tively True, which the philosopher seeks 
Endeavouring, by logical argument, to prove 
the existence of^ God, a Kantist might say, 
v/ould be like taking out a candle to look for 
the sun; nay, gaze steadily into your candle- 
light, and the sun himself may be invisible 
To open the inward eye to the sight of this 
Primitively True ; or, rather, we might call it, 
to clear off the Obscurations of sense, which 
eclipse this truth within us, so that we may 



S4 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



see it, and believe it not only to be true, but 
the foundation and essence of all other truth, 
may, in such language as we are here using, 
be said to be the problem of Critical Phi- 
losophy. 

In this point of view, Kant's system may 
be thought to have a remote affinity to those 
of Malebranche and Descartes. But if they 
in some measure agree as to their aim, there 
is the widest difference as to the means. 
We state what to ourselves has long appeared 
the grand characteristic of Kant's Philosophy, 
when we mention his distinction, seldom per- 
haps expressed so broadly, but uniformly im- 
plied, between L^nderstanding and Reason 
(Vcrstand and Venmr.fi). To most of our 
readers this may seem a distinction without a 
difference; nevertheless, to the Kantists it is 
by no means such. They believe that both 
Understanding and Reason are organs, or 
rather, we should say, modes of operation, by 
Avhich the mind discovers truth; but they 
think that their manner of proceeding is es- 
sentially different: that their provinces are 
separable and distinguishable, nay, that it is 
of the last importance to separate and distin- 
guish them. Reason, the Kantists say, is of a 
higher nature than Understanding; it works 
by more subtle methods, on higher objects, 
and requires a far finer culture for its de- 
velopment, indeed in many men it is never 
developed at all ; but its results are no less 
certain, naj', rather, they are much more so; 
for Reason discerns Truth itself, the absolutely 
and primitively True; while Understanding 
discerns only relations, and cannot decide with- 
out if. The proper province of Understand- 
ing is all, strictly speaking, real, practical, and 
material knowledge. Mathematics, Physics, 
Political Economy, the adaptation of means 
to ends in the whole business of life. In this 
province it is the strength and universal im- 
plement of the mind: an indispensable ser- 
vant, without which, indeed, existence itself 
would be impossible. Let it not step beyond 
this province, however, not usurp the province 
of Reason, which it is appointed to obey, and 
cannot rule over without ruin to the whole 
spiritual man. Should Understanding attempt 
to prove the existence of God, it ends, if 
thorough-going and consistent with itself, in 
Atheism, or a faint possible Theism, which 
scarcely differs from this : should it speculate 
of Virtue, it ends in Utility, making Prudence 
and a sufficiently cunning love of Self the 
highest good. Consult Understanding about 
the Beauty of Poetry, and it asks, where is 
this Beauty"? or discovers it at length in 
rhythms and fitnesses, and male and female 
rhymes. Witness also its everlasting para- 
doxes on Necessity and the Freedom of the 
W^ill ; its ominous silence on the end and 
meaning of man ; and the enigma which, 
under such inspection, the whole purport of 
existence becomes. 

Nevertheless, say the Kantists, there is a 
truth in these things. Virtue is Virtue, and 
not prudence; not less surely than the angle 
in a semicircle is a right angle, and no trape- 
7ium : Shakspeare is a Poet, and Boileau is 
Dune, think of it as you may: Neither is it 



more certain that I myself exist, than that God 
exists, infinite, eternal, invisible, the same 
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. To discern 
these truths is the province of Reason, which 
therefore is to be cultivated as the highest 
faculty in man. Not by logic and argument 
does it work ; yet surely and clearly may it 
be taught to work: and its domain lies in that 
higher region whither logic and argument 
cannot reach ; in that holier region, where 
Poetry, and Virtue, and Divinity abide, in 
whose presence Understanding wavers and 
recoils, dazzled into utter darkness by that 
" sea of light," at once the fountain and the 
termination of all true knowledge. 

Will the Kantists forgive us for the loose 
and popular manner in which we must here 
speak of these things, to bring them in any 
measure before the eyes of our readers 1 — It 
may illustrate this distinction still farther, if 
we say, that, in the opinion of a Kantist, the 
French are of all European nations the moGt 
gifted with Understanding, and the most desti 
tute of Reason ;* that David Hume had no 
forecast of this latter, and that Shakspeare 
and Luther dwelt perennial!)^ in its purest 
sphere. 

Of the vast, nay, in these days boundless, 
importance of this distinction, could it be 
scientifically established, we need remind no 
thinking man. For the rest, far be it from the 
reader to suppose that this same Reason is 
but a new appearance, under another name, 
of our own old " Wholesome Prejudice," so 
well known to most of us ! Prejudice, whole- 
some or unwholesome, is .a personage for 
whom the German Philosophers disclaim all 
shadow of i-espect ; nor do the vehement 
among them hide their deep disdain for all 
and sundry who fight under her flag. Truth 
is to be loved purely and solely because it is 
true. With moral, political, religious con- 
siderations, high and dear as they may other- 
wise be, the Philosopher, as such, has no con- 
cern. To look at them would but perplexhim, 
and distract his vision from the task in his 
hands. Calmly he constructs his theorem, as 
the Geometer does his, without hope or fear, 
save that he may or may not find the solution ; 
and stands in the middle, by the one, it maybe, 
accused as an Infidel, by the other as an Enthu- 
siast and a Mystic, till the tumult ceases, and 
what was true is and continues true to the end 
of all time. 

Such are some of the high and momentous 
questions treated of, by calm, earnest, and 
deeply meditative men, in this system of Phi- 
losophy, which to the wiser minds among us 
is still unknown, and by the unwiser is spoken 
of and regarded as their nature requires. The 
profoundness, subtilty, extent of iiivpstigation, 
which the answer of these questions presup- 
poses, need not be farther pointed out. With 
the truth or falsehood of the system, we have 
here, as already stated, no concern ; our aim 
has been, so far as might be done, to show it as 
it appeared to us ; and to ask such of our read- 
ers as pursue these studies, whether this also 



* Schelljng has said as much or more, (Mrlliode des 
Jicademischen Studium, pp. 105 — 111,) in terms which we 
' could wish we had space to transcribe. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



8^ 



is not worthy of some study. The reply we 
must noAV leave to themselves. 

As an appendage to the charge of Mysticism 
brought against the Germans, there is often 
added the seemingly incongruous one of Irre- 
ligion. On this point also we had much to 
say; but must for the present decline it. Mean- 
while, let the reader be assured, that to the 
charge of Irreligion, as to so many others, the 
Germans will plead not guilty. On the contra- 
ry, they will not scruple to assert that their lite- 
rature is, in a positive sense, religious ; nay, 
perhaps to maintain, that if ever neighbouring 
nations are to recover that pure and high spirit 
of devotion, the loss of which, however we may 
disguise it or pretend to overlook it, can be 
hidden from no observant mind, it must be by 
travelling, if not on the same path, at least in 
the same direction, in which the Germans have 
already begun to travel. We shall add, that 
the Religion of Germany is a subject not for 
slight but for deep study, and, if we ^mistake 
not, may in some degree reward the deepest. 

Here, however, we must close our examina- 
tion or defence. We have spoken freely, be- 
cause we felt distinctly, and thought the matter 
worthy of being stated, and more fully inquired 
into. Farther than this, we have no quarrel 
for the Germans ; we would have justice done 
them, as to all men and all things; but for their 
literature or character we profess no sectarian 
or exclusive preference. We think their re- 
cent Poetry, indeed, superior to the recent 
Poetry of any other nation ; but taken as a 
whole, inferior to that of several; inferior not 
to our own only, but to that of Italy, nay, per- 
haps to that of Spain. Their Philosophy, too, 
must still be regarded as uncertain; at best 
only the beginning of better things. But surely 
even this is not to be neglected. A little light 
is precious in great darkness: nor, amid the 
myriads of Poetasters and Philosophcs,are Poets 
and Philosophers so numerous that we should 
reject such, when they speak to us in the hard, 
but manly, deep, and expressive tones of that 



old Saxon speech, which is also our mother' 
tongue. 

We confess the present aspect of spiritual 
Europe might fill a melancholic observer with 
doubt and foreboding. It is mournful to see so ' 
many noble, tender, and high-aspiring minds- 
deserted of that religious light which once- 
guided all such : standing sorrowful on the 
scene of past convulsions and controversies, as- 
on a scene blackened and burnt up with fire ^ 
mourning in the darkness, because there is de- 
solation, and no home for the soul ; or what is- 
worse, pitching tents among the ashes, and 
kindling weak earthly lamps which we are to- 
take for stars. This darkness is but transitory 
obscuration: these ashes are the soil of future 
herbage and richer harvests. Religion, Poetry ,- 
is not dead; it will never die. Its dwelling 
and birthplace is in the soul of man, and it is- 
eternal as the being of man. In any point of 
Space, in any section of Time, let there be a 
living Man: and there is an Infinitude above 
him and beneath him, and an eternity encom- 
passes him on this hand and on that ; and tones- 
of Sphere-music, and tidings from loftier 
worlds, will flit round him, if he can but listen,- 
and visit him with holy influences, even in the 
thickest press of trivialities, or the din of busiest 
life. Happy the man, happy the nation that 
can hear these tidings ; that has them written in 
fit characters, legible to every eye, and the so- 
lemn import of them present at all moments to 
every heart ! That there is, in these days, no 
nation so happy, is too clear; but that all na- 
tions, and ourselves in the van, are, with more 
or less discernment of its nature, struggling 
towards this happiness, is the hope and the 
glory of our time. To us, as to others, success, 
at a distant or a nearer day, cannot be uncer- 
tain. Meanwhile, the first condition of success 
is, that, in striving honestly ourselves, we ho- 
nestly acknowledge the striving of our neigh- 
bour ; that with a Will unwearied in seeking 
Truth, we have a Sense open for it, whereso-- 
ever and howsoever it may arise. 



LIFE AND WETTINGS OF WEENEK 



[Foreign Review, 1828.] 



If the charm of fame consisted, as Horace 
has mistakenly declared, " in being pointed at 

* !. Lebens-Abriss Friedrich Ludwig.Zacharia!' Werners. 
Von dem Herausfreber von Hoffmanns Leban vnd JVach- 
lass.) Sketch of the Life of Frederic Ludwig Zacharias 
Werner. By the Editor of "Hoffmann's Life and Re- 
mains.") Berlin, 1823. 

2. Die Soline dcs Thais. (The Sons of the Valley.) 
A Dramatic Poem. Part 1. Die Tempter aiif Cypern. 
(The Templars in Cyprus.) Part IL Die Krcuzesbriider. 
(The Brethren of the Cross.) Berlin, 1801, 1802. 

:;. Das Kreuz an der Oatsee. (The Cross on tlie Baltic.) 
A Trajredy. Berlin, 1806. 

4. Martin Luther, oder Die Jf'eihe der Kraft. (Martin 
Ltither, or the Consecration of Strength.) A Trasedy. 
Berlin, 1807. 

5. Die Mutter der Makkabiier. (The Mother of the 
IMaccabees.) A Tragedy. Vienna, 1820. 



with the finger, and having it said. This is he !" 
few writers of the present age could boast of 
more fame than Werner. It has been the un- 
happy fortune of this man to stand for a long, 
period incessantly before the world, in a far 
stronger light than naturally belonged to him,- 
cr could exhibit him to advantage. Twenty 
years ago he was a man of considerable note, 
which has ever since been degenerating into 
notoriety. The mystic dramatist, the skepti- 
cal enthusiast, was known and partly esteemed' 
by all students of poetry; Madame de Staelj - 
we recollect, allows him an entire chapter in' 
her " Allemagne." It was a much coarser cu- 
riosity, and in a much wider ch-cle, which th«»^ 



36 



. CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dissipated man, by successive indecorums, oc- 
casioned; till at last the convert to Popery, the 
preaching zealot, came to figure in all news- 
papers ; and some picture of him was required 
for all heads that would not sit blank and mute 
in the topic of every coffeehouse and esthetic 
tea. In dim heads, that is, in the great majo- 
rity, the picture was, of course, perverted into 
a strange bugbear, and the original decisively 
enough condemned; but even the few, who 
might see him in his true shape, felt too well 
that nothing loud could be said in his behalf; 
that, with so many mournful blemishes, if ex- 
tenuation could not avail, no complete defence 
was to be attempted. 

At the same time, it is not the history of a 
mere literary profligate that we have here to do 
with. Of men whom fine talents cannot teach 
the humblest prudence, M-hose high feeling, 
unexpressed in noble action, must lie smould- 
ering with baser admixtures in their own 
bosom, till their existence, assaulted from 
ivithout and from within, becomes a burnt and 
blackened ruin, to be sighed over by the few, 
and stared at, or trampled on, by the many, — 
there is unhappily no want in any country; 
nor can the unnatural union of genius with 
depravity and degradation have such charms 
for our readers, that we should go abroad in 
quest of it, or in any case to dwell on it, other- 
wise than with reluctance. M^erner is some- 
thing more than this : a gifted spirit, struggling 
earnestly amid the new, complex, tumultuous 
influences of his time and country, but without 
force to body himself forth from amongst them; 
a keen adventurous swimmer, aiming towards 
high and distant landmarks, but too M-eakly in 
so rough a sea, for the currents drive him far 
astray, and he sinks at last in the waves, at- 
taining little lor himself, and leaving little, 
save the memory of his failure, to others. A 
glance over his history may not be unprofita- 
ble ; if the man himself can less interest us, 
the ocean of German, of European Opinion, 
still rolls in wild eddies to and fro; and with 
its movements and refluxes, indicated in the 
history of such men, every one of us is con- 
cerned. 

Our materials for this survey are deficient, 
not so much in quantity as quality. The " Life," 
now known to be by Hitzig of Berlin, seems a 
very honest, unpresuming performance; but, 
on the other hand, it is much too fragmentary 
and discursive for our wants ; the features of 
the man are nowhere united into a portrait, 
but left for the reader to unite as he may ; a 
task which, to most readers, will be hard 
enough : for the work, short in compass, is 
more than proportionally short in details of 
facts ; and Werner's history, much as an in- 
timate friend must have known of it, still lies 
before us, in great part, dark and unintelligible. 
For what he has done we should doubtless 
thank our Author ; yet it seems a pity, that, in 
this instance, he had not done more and better. 
A singular chance made him, at the same time, 
companion of both Hoffmann and Werner, 
perhaps the two most showy, heterogeneous, 
and misinterpretable writers of his day; nor 
Khali we deny, that, in performing a friend's 
'huy to their memory, he has done truth also a 



service. His " Life of Hoffmann," pretending 
to no artfulness of arrangement, is redundant, 
rather than defective, in minuteness; but there, 
at least, the means of a correct judgment are 
brought within our reach, and the work, as 
usual with Hitzig, bears marks of the utmost 
fairness ; and of an accuracy which we might 
almost call professional : for the author, it 
would seem, is a legal functionary of long 
standing, and now of respectable rank ; and 
he examines and records, with a certain notarial 
strictness too rare in compilations of this sort. 
So far as Hoffmann is concerned, therefore, 
we have reason to be satisfied. In regard to 
Werner, however, we cannot say so much: 
here we should certainl}' have wished for more 
facts, though it had been with fewer conse- 
quences drawn from them ; were these some- 
what chaotic expositions of Werner's charac- 
ter exchanged for simple particulars of his walk 
and conversation, the result would be much 
surer, and, especially to foreigners, much more 
complete and luminous. As it is, from repeated 
perusals of this biography, we have failed 
to gather any very clear notion of the man ; 
nor with, perhaps, more study of his writings 
than, on other grounds, they might have mer- 
ited, does his manner of existence still stand 
out to us with that distinct cohesion which 
puts an end to doubt. Our view of him the 
reader will accept as an approximation, and be 
content to wonder with us, and charitably pause 
where we cannot altogether interpret. 

Werner was born at Konigsberg, in East 
Prussia, on the 18th of November, 1768. His 
father was Professor of History and Eloquence 
in the University there; and i^urther, in virtue 
of this office. Dramatic Censor, which latter 
circumstance procured young Werner almost 
daily opportunity of visiting the theatre, and 
so gave him, as he says, a greater acquaint- 
ance with the mechanism of the stage than 
even most players are possessed of. A strong 
taste for the drama it probabl}- enough gave 
him ; but this skill in stage mechanism may 
be questioned, for often in his own plays no 
such skill, but rather the want of it, is evinced. 

The Professor and Censor, of whom we hear 
nothing in blame or praise, died in the four- 
teenth year of his son, and the boy now fell to 
the sole charge of his mother, a woman whom 
he seems to have loved warmly, but whose 
guardianship could scarcely be the best for 
him. Werner himself speaks of her in earnest 
commendation, as of a pure, high-minded, and 
heavilj'-afflicted being. Hoffmann, however, 
adds, that she was hypochondriacal, and gen- 
erally quite delirious, imagining herself to be 
the Virgin Mary, and her son to be the promised 
Shiloh ! Hofl^mann had opportunity enough 
of knowing ; for it is a curious fact that these 
two singular persons were brought up under 
the same roof, though, at this time, by reason 
of their difference of age, Werner being eight 
years older, the\' had little or no acquaintance. 
What a nervous and melancholic parent was, 
HolTinann, by another unhappy coincidence 
had also full occasion to know : his own mother 
parted from her husband, lay helpless and 
broken-hearted for the last seventeen years of 
: her life, and the first seventeen of his ; a source 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



37 



of painful influences, which he used to trace 
through the whole of his own character; as to 
the like cause he imputed the primary perver- 
sion of Werner's. How far his views on this 
point were accurate or exaggerated, we have 
no means of judging. 

Of Werner's early years the biographer says 
little or nothing. We learn only that, about 
the usual age, he matriculated in the KiJnigs- 
berg University, intending to qualify himself 
for the business of a lawyer ; and with his pro- 
fessional studies united, or attempted to unite, 
the study of philosoph}' under Kant. His 
college-life is characterized by a single, but too 
expressive word : " It is said," observes Hitzig, 
" to have been very dissolute." His progress 
in metaphysics, as in all branches of learning, 
might thus be expected to be small ; indeed, 
at no period of his life can he, even in the 
language of panegyric, be called a man of cul- 
ture or solid information on any subject. Never- 
theless, he contrived, in his twenty-first year, 
to publish a little volume of" Poems," apparent- 
ly in very tolerable magazine metre, and after 
some" roamings" over Germany, having loiter- 
ed for a while at Berlin, and longer at Dresden, 
he betook himself to more serious business, 
applied for admittance and promotion as a 
Prussian man of law ; the employment which 
young jurists look for in that country being 
chiefly in the hands of government: consist- 
ing, indeed, of appointments in the various 
judicial or administrative Boards by which the 
Provinces are managed. In 1793, Werner ac- 
cordingly was made Kniniiicrsecrctdr (Exchecjuer 
Secretary ;) a subaltern office, which he held 
successively in several stations, and last and 
longest in Warsaw, where Hitzig, a young man 
following the same profession, first became ac- 
quainted with him in 1799. 

What the purport or result of Werner's 
"roamings" may have been, or how he had de- 
meaned himself in office or out of it, we are 
nowhere informed; but it is an ominous cir- 
cumstance that, even at this period, in his 
thirtieth year, he had divorced two wives, the 
last at least by mutual consent, and was look- 
ing out for a third! Hitzig, with whom he 
seems to have formed a prompt and close in- 
timacy, gives us no full picture of him under 
any of his aspects : yet we can see, that his 
life, as naturally it might, already wore some- 
what of a shattered appearance in his own 
eyes, that he was broken in character, in spirit, 
perhaps in bodily constitution ; and, content- 
ing himself with the transient gratifications of 
so gay a city, and so tolerable an appointment, 
had renounced all steady and rational hope 
either of being happy or of deserving to be so. 
Of unsteady and irrational hopes, however, he 
had still abundance. The fine enthusiasm of 
his nature, undestroyed by so many external 
perplexities, nay, to which, perhaps, these very 
perplexities had given fresh and undue excite- 
ment, glowed forth in strange many-coloured 
brightness, from amid the wreck of his fortunes, 
and led him into wild worlds of speculation, 
the more vehemently, that the real world of 
action and duty had become so unmanageable 
in his hands. 

Werner's early publication had sunk, after a 



brief provincial life, into merited oblivion ; in 
fact, he had then only been a rhymer, and was 
now, for the first time, beginning to be a poet. 
We have one of those youthful pieces tran- 
scribed in this volume, and certainly it exhibits 
a curious contrast with his subsequent writ- 
ings, both in form and spirit. In form, because, 
unlike the first fruits of a genius, it is cold and 
correct: while his later works, without excep- 
tion, are fervid, extravagant, and full of gross 
blemishes. In spirit no less, because, treating 
of his fiivourite theme, Religion, it treats of it 
harshly and skeptically ; being, indeed, little 
more than a metrical version of common Util- 
itarian Freethinking, as it may be found 
(without metre) in most taverns and debating- 
societies. Werner's intermediate secret history 
might form a strange chapter in psychology: 
for now, it is clear, his French skepticism had 
got overlaid with wondrous theosophic garni- 
ture; his mind was full of visions and cloudy 
glories, and no occupation pleased him better 
than to controvert, in generous inquiring minds, 
that very unbelief which he appears to have 
once entertained in his own. From Hitzig's 
account of the matter, this seems to have 
formed the strongest link of his intercourse 
with Werner. The latter was his senior by ten 
years of time, and by more than ten years of 
unhappy experience ; the grand questions of 
Immortality, of Fate, Free-will, Fore-knowledge 
absolute, were in continual agitation between 
them; and Hitzig still remembers with grati- 
tude these earnest warnings against irregular- 
ity of life, and so many ardent and not ineffec- 
tual endeavours to awaken in the passionate 
temperament of youth a glow of purer and en- 
lightening fire. 

" Some leagues from Warsaw," says the 
Biographer, " enchantingly embosomed in a 
thick wood, close by the high banks of the 
Vistula, lies the Cameldulensian Abbey of 
Bielany, inhabited by a class of monks, who in 
strictness of discipline yield only to those of 
I.a Trappe. To this cloistral solitude Werner 
was wont to repair with his friend, every fine 
Saturday of the summer of 1800, so soon as 
their occupations in the city were over. In 
defect of any formal inn, the two used to 
bivouac in the forest, or at best to sleep under 
a temporary tent. The Sunday was then spent 
in the open air; in roving about the woods; 
sailing on the river, and the like ; till late night 
recalled them to the city. On such occasions, 
the younger of the party had ample room to 
unfold his whole heart before his more mature 
and settled companion ; to advance his doubts 
and objections against many theories, which 
Werner m'us already cherishing : and so, by 
exciting him with contradiction, to cause him 
to make them clearer to himself." 

Week after week, these discussions were 
carefully resumed from the point where they 
had been left : indeed, to Werner, it would 
seem, this controversy had unusual attractions ; 
for be was now busy composing a Poem, in- 
tended principally to convince the world of 
those very truths which he was striving to im- 
I press on his friend ; and to which the world, as 
might be expected, was likely to give a similar 
reception. The character, or at least the war 
D 



•38 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of thought, attributed to Robert d'Heredon, the 
Scottish Templar, in the Sons of the Valley, was 
borrowed, it appears, as if by regular instal- 
ments, from these conferences with Hitzig ; the 
result of the one Sunday being duly entered in 
•dramatic form during the week; then audited 
on the Sunday following; and so forming the 
text for further disquisition. "Blissful days," 
-adds Hitzig, "pure and innocent, which doubt- 
less Werner also ever held in pleased remem- 
brance!" 

The Soluic des Thais, composed in this rather 
questionable fashion, was in due time forth- 
coming; the First Part in 1801, the Second 
about a year afterwards. It is a drama, or 
rather two dramas, unrivalled at least in one 
particular, in length; each Part being a play 
of six acts, and the whole amounting to some- 
what more than eight hundred small octavo 
pages ! To attempt any analysis of such a 
work would but fatigue our readers to little 
purpose: it is, as might be anticipated, of a 
•most loose and formless structure: expanding 
on all sides into vague boundlessness, and, on 
-the whole, resembling not so much a poem as 
the rude materials of one. The subject is the 
destruction of the Templar Order ; an event 
which has been dramatized more than once, 
but on which, notwithstanding, Werner, we 
suppose, may boast of being entirely original. 
The fate of Jacques Molay, and his brethren, 
acts here but like a little leaven; and lucky 
were we, could it leaven the lump; but it lies 
■buried under such a mass of Mystical theology, 
Masonic mummery. Cabalistic tradition, and 
Bosicrucian philosophy, as no power could 
work into dramatic union. The incidents are 
few, and of little interest; interrupted contin- 
ually by flaring shows and long-winded specu- 
iations; for Werner's besetting sin, that of 
loquacity, is here in decided action ; and so we 
wander, in aimless windings, through scene 
after scene of gorgeousness or gloom; till at 
last the whole rises before us like a wild phan- 
tasmagoria; cloud heaped on cloud, painted 
indeed here and therewith prismatic hues, but 
representing nothing, or at least not the subject, 
but the author. 

In this last point of view, however, as a pic- 
ture of himself, independently of other consid- 
erations, this play of^ Werner's may still have 
a certain value for us. The strange chaotic 
nature of the man is displayed in it: his skep- 
ticism and theosophy ; his audacity, yet in- 
trinsic weakness of character; his baffled 
longings, but still ardent endeavours after 
Truth and Good; his search for them in far 
journeyings, not on the beaten highways, but 
through the pathless, infinitude of Thought. 
'To call it a work of art would be a misappli- 
cation of names : it is little more than a rhap- 
•sodic effusion; the outpouring of a passionate 
and mystic soul, only half knowing what it 
utters, and not ruling its own movements, but 
ruled by them. It is fair to add that such also, 
in a great measure, was Werner's own view 
of the matter: most likely the utterance of 
these things gave him such relief, that, crude 
as they were, he could not suppress thein. For 
it ought to be remembered, that in this per- 
■formance one condition, atleast, of genuine in- 



spiration is not wanting: Werner evidently 
thinks that in these his ultramundane excur- 
sions he has found truth ; he has something 
positive to set forth, and he feels himself as if 
bound on a high and holy mission in preach- 
ing it to his fellow-men. 

To explain with any minuteness the articles 
of Werner's creed, as it was now fashioned, 
and is here exhibited, would be a task perhaps 
too hard for us, and, at all events, unprofitable 
in proportion to its ditficuliy. We have found 
some separable passages, in which, under dark 
symbolical figures, he has himself shadowed 
forth a vague likeness off it : ihese we shall 
now submit to the reader, with such exposi- 
tions as we gather from the context, or as Ger- 
man readers, from the usual tone of specula- 
tion in that country, are naturally enabled to 
supply. This may, at the same time, convey 
as fair a notion of the work itself, with its 
tawdry splendours, and tumid grandiloquence, 
and mere playhouse thunder and lightning, as 
by any other plan our limits would admit. 

Let the reader fanc}' himself in the island 
of Cyprus, where the Order of the Templars 
still subsists, though the heads of it are already 
summoned before the French King and Pope 
Clement ; which summons they are now, not 
without dreary enough forebodings, preparing 
to obey. The purport of this First Part, so far 
as it has any dramatic purport, is to paint the 
situation, outward and inward, of that once 
pious and heroic, and still magnificent and 
powerful body. It is entitled The Templars in 
Cyprus : but why it should also be called The 
.S'oHs of the Viillcy does not so well appear ; for 
the Brotherhood of the Valley has yet scarcely 
come into activity, and only hovers before us 
in glimpses, of so enigmatic a sort, that we 
know not fully so much as Mhether these its 
Sons are of flesh and blood like ourselves, or of 
some spiritual nature, or of something inter- 
mediate, and altogether nondescript. For the 
rest, it is a series of spectacles and disserta- 
tions ; the action cannot so much be said to 
advance as to revolve. On this occasion the 
Templars are admitting two new members; 
the acolytes have already passed their prelim- 
inary trials; this is the chief and final one: — 

ACT FIFTH.— scEXE first. 

Mirlnight. Interior of tlie Temple Church. Backwards, a deep perspec- 
tive of Altars and Gothic Pillars. On the right-hand side of the foreground, 
a little Chapel ; and in this an Altar with the figure of St. Sebastian. The 
scene is lighted very dimly by a single Lamp which hangs before the Altar. 

* * * » » » 

ADALBERT (dressed in white, without mantle or doublet; 
groping his way in the dark.) 

Was it not at the Altar of Sebastian 
That I wag bid to wait for the unknown f 
Here should it l)e ; but darl<ness with her veil 
Inwraps the figures. 

(Advancing to the Altar.) 
Here is the fifth pillar! 
Yes, this is he, tho Sainted. ^How the glimmer 
Of that faint lamp falls on his fading eye I — 
Ah, it is not the spears o' th' Saracens, 
It is the pangs of hopeless love that burning 
Transfi.v thy heart, poor Comrade ; — O my Agnes, 
May not thy spirit, in this earnest hour. 
Be looking on ? Art hovering in that moon-beam 
Which struggles through the painted window, and dies 
Amid the cloister's gloom ? Or linger'st thou 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



39 



Behind these pillars, which, ominous and black, 
Look down on me, like horrors of the Past 
Upon the Present ; and hidest thy gentle form, 
Lest with thy paleness thou too much affright me 1 
Hide not thyself, pale shadow of my Agnes, 
Thou affrightest not thy lover.— Hush ! — 
Hark ! Was there not a rustling ^—Father ! You 'i 

PHILIP (rushing in with wild looks.) 
Yes, Adalbert !— But time is precious ;— Come, 
My son, my one sole Adalbert, come with me ! 

ADALBERT. 

What would you, father, in this solemn houri 

PHILIP. 

This hour, or never ! 

(Leading Adalbert to the Altar.) 
Hither !— Know'st thou him 7 



ADALBERT. 



'Tis Saint Sebastian. 



Because he would not 
Renounce his faith, a tyrant had him murder'd. 

(Points to his head.) 
These furrows, too, the rage of tyrants ploughed 
In thy old father's face. My son, my first-born child, 
In this great hour I do conjure thee ! Wilt thou. 
Will tho'i obey me f 

ADALBERT. 

Be it just, I will ; 



Then swear, in this great hour, in this dread presence. 
Here by thy father's head made early gray, 
By the remembrance of thy mother's agony. 
And by the ravished blossom of thy Agnes, 
Against the Tyranny which sacrificed us. 
Inexpiable, bloody, everlasting hate ! 

ADALBERT. 

Ha ! This the All-avenger spoke through thee ; — 
Yes! Bloody shall my Agnes' death-torch burn 
In Philip's heart ; I swear it ! 

PHILIP (icilh increasing vehemence.) 

And if thou break 
This oath, and if thou reconcile thee to him, 
Or let his golden chains, his gifts, his prayers, 
His dying-moan itself, avert thy dagger 
When th' hour of vengeance comes, — shall this gray head, 
Thy mother's wail, the last sigh of thy Agnes, 
Accuse thee at the bar of the Eternal t 

ADALBERT. 

So be it, if 1 break my oath ; 



Then man thee '. — 
{Looking up, then shrinking together as icith dazzled eyes.) 
Ha ! was not that his lightning ? — Fare thee well ! 
I hear the footstep of the Breaded !— Firm ! — 
Remember me, remember this stern midnight : 

(Retires hastily ) 
ADALBERT (alone ) 

Yes, Grayhead, whom the beckoning of the Lord 
Sent hither to awake me out of craven sleep, 
I will remember thee and this stern midnight. 
And my Agnes' spirit shall have vengeance ! 

Enter an abmed man. (He is mailed from head to foot in 
black harness ; his visor is closed.) 



AHMED MAK. 

Pray! 
(ADALBERT kneels.) 

Bare thyself: 

(He strips him to the girdle and raises him.) 
Look on the ground, and follow ! 

(He leads him into the back-ground to a trap door, on the 
ria-ht. He descends first himself; and when ADALBERT has 
foUoioed him, it closes.) 

SCENE SECOND. 

Cemetery of Ihe Tcmplirs, under the Church. The scene is lighted only 
by a I^mp which hangs down from the vault. Around are Tombslonea of 
deceased Knights, marked with Crosses and sculptured Bones. In the back- 
ground, two colossal Skeletons holding between them a large white Book, 
marked with a red Cross; from the under end of the Book hangs a lonj 
black curtain. The Book, of which only the cover is visible, has ao inscrip- 
tion in black ciphers. The Skeleton on the right holds io its right hand a 
naked drawn sword ; that on the left holds in its left hand a Palm turned 
downwards. On the ria:htside of the foreground, stands a black Coffin open; 
on Ihe left, a similar one with the body of a Templar in full dress of his 
Order; on both Coffins are inscriptions in white ciphers. On each side, 
nearer the back-ground, are seen the lowest steps of the stairs, which lead 
up into the Temple Church above the vault. 

ARMED MAX (not yet visible ," above on the right-hand 
stairs.) 
Dread.?d : Is the grave laid open 1 

CONCEALED TOICES. 

Yea! 

ARMED MAN (who after a pause shows himself on the 
stairs.) 

Shall he behold the Tombs o' th' fathers 1 

CONCEALED TOICES. 

Yea! 

(afmed man with drawn sword leads Adalbert carefully 
down the steps on the right hand.) 

ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.) 

Look down ! 'Tis on thy life ! 

(Leads him to the open Coffin.) 
What seest thou? 

ADALBERT. 

An open empty Coffin. 

ARMED MAN. 

'Tis the house 
Where thou one day shalt dwell. Canst read th" inscrip- 
tion ? 



ADALBERT. 



No. 



ARMED MAN. 
Hear it, then ; " Thy wages, Sin, is Death." 
(Leads him to the opposite Coffin where the Body is lying.) 
Look down! 'T is on thy life !— What seest thou ? 
(Shows the Coffin.) 

ADALBERT. 

A Coffin with a Corpse. 

AHMED 5«\N. 

He is thy Brother, 
One day thou art as he.— Canst read the inscription ? 



ADALBERT 



No. 



40 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ARMED MAN. 

Hear: "Corruption is the name of Life." 
Now look around ; go forward,— move, and act I— 

{He pushes him towards the back-ground of the stage.) 

ADALBERT (observing the Book.) 

Ha! Here the Book of Ordination !— Seems 
(.Approaching.) 
As if th' inscription on it might be read. 

(He reads it.) 
"Knock four times on the ground, 
Thou Shalt behold thy loved one." 
O Heavens ! And may I see thee, sainted Agnes 1 

(Hastening close to the Book.) 
My bosom yearns for thee; — 

(IVUh the following words, he stamps four times on the 
ground.) 
One,— Two,— Three,— Four !— 
(The Curtain hanging from the Book rolls rapidly up, 
and covers it. A colossal DeviVs-head appears between the 
two Skeletons : its form is horrible ; it is gilt ; has a 
huge golden Crown, a Heart of the same in its Brow ; roll- 
ing flaming Eyes: Serpents instead of Hair: golden 
Chains round its neck, which is visible to the breast: and a 
golden Cross, yet not a Crucifix, which rises over its rin-ht 
shoulder, as if crushing it down. The whole Bust rests 
on four gilt Dragon's feet. Jit sight of it, Adalbert 
starts back in horror, and exclaims :) 
Defend us! 

ARMED MAN. 

Dreaded, may he hear it I 

CONCEALED VOICES. 

Yea ! 
ARMED MAN (touches the Curtain with his sword: it 
rolls down over the Devil's-head, concealing it again ; and 
above, as before, appears the Book, but now opened, with 
white colossal leaves and red characters. The armed man, 
pointing constantly to the Book with his Sword, and there- 
with turning the leaves, addresses Adalbert, who stands 
on the other side of the Book, and nearer the foreground.) 
List to the Story of the Fallen Master. 

(He reads the following from the Book: yet not stand- 
ing before it but on one side, at some paces distance, and 
ichilst he reads, turning the leaves with hia sword.) 
"So now when the foundation-stone was laid, 
The Lord called forth the Master, Baflbmetus, 
And said to hini : Go and complete my Temple '. 
But in his heart the Master thought : What boots it 
Building thee a temple'! and took the stones. 
And built himself a dwelling, and what stones 
Were left he gave for filthy gold and silver. 
Now after forty moons the Lord returned. 
And spake : Where is my temple, Baffometus 1 
The Master said : I had to build niyself 
A dwelling : grant me other forty weeks. 
And after forty weeks, the Lord returns. 
And asks : where is my temple, Baffometus'? 
He said : There were no stones (but he had sold then 
For filthy gold ;) so wait yet forty days. 
In forty days thereafter came the Lord, 
And cried : Where is my temple, Baffotnetus 1 
Then like a mill-stone fell it on his soul 
How he for lucre had betrayed his Lord ; 
But yet to other sin the Fiend did tempt him. 
And he answered, saying : Give me forty hours ! 
And when the forty hours were gone, the Lord 
Came down in wrath : My Temple, Baffometus ? 
Then fell he quaking on his face, and cried 
For mercy ; but the Lord was wroth, and said : 
Since thou hast cozened me with empty lies. 
And those the stones I lent thee for my Temple 
Hast sold them for a purse of filthy gold, 
Lo, I will cast thee forth, and with the Mammon 
Will chastise thee, until a Saviour rise 
Of thy own seed, who shall redeem thy trespass. 
'Jen did the Lord lift up the purse of Gold ; 



And shook the gold into a melting-pot, 

And set the melting-pot upon the Sun, 

So that the metal fused into a fiuid mass. 

And then he dipt a finger in the same, 

And; straightway touching Baffometus, 

Anoints hirn on the chin and brow and cheeks. 

Then was the face of Baffometus changed : 

His eye-balls rolled like fire-flames, 

His nose became a crooked vulture's bill, 

The tongue hung bloody from his throat ; the flesh 

Went from his hollow cheeks ; and of his hair 

Grew snakes, and of the snakes grew Devil's-horns. 

Again the Lord put forth his finger with the gold 

And pressed it upon Baffometus' heart; 

Whereby the heart did bleed and wither up, 

And all his members bled and withered up, 

And fell away, the one and then the other. 

At last his back itself sunk into ashes : 

The head alone continued gilt and living; 

And instead of back, grew dragon's-talons. 

Which destroyed all life from off the Earth. 

Then from the ground the Lord took up the heart. 

Which, as he touched it, also grew of gold. 

And placed it on the brow of Baffometus; 

And of the other metal in the pot 

He made for Irm a burning crown of gold. 

And crusheil it on his serpent-hair, so that 

Ev'n to the bone and brain, the circlet scorched him. 

And round the neck he twisted golden chains. 

Which strangled him and pressed his breath together. 

What in the pot remained he poured upon the ground. 

Athwart, along, and there it formed a cross ; 

The which he lifted and laid upon his neck, 

And bent him that he could not raise his head. 

Two Deaths moreover he appointed warders 

To guard him : Death of Life, and Death of Hope. 

The sword of the first he sees not but it smites him; 

The other's Palm he sees, but it escapes him. 

So languishes the outcast Baffometus 

Four thousand years and four-and-forty moons, 

Till once a Saviour rise from his own seed, 

Redeem his trespass, and deliver him." 

(7*0 ADALBERT.) 

This is the Story of the Fallen Master. 
(IVith his sword he toitches the Curtain, which now as 
before rolls up over the book: so that the HEAD under it 
again becomes visible, in its former shape.) 

ADALBERT {looking at the HEAD.) 
Hah, what a hideous shape 1 

HEAD (witli a hollow voice.) 

Deliver me ! 

AHMED MAN. 

Dreaded: Shall the work begin 1 

CONCEALED VOICES. 

Yea! 

ARMED MAN (to ADALBERT.) 

Take the Neckband 
Away ! (Pointing to the HEAD.) 

ADALBERT. 

I dare not ! 
HEAD (with a still more piteous tone.) 
O, deliver me '. 

ADALBERT (taking off the chains.) 
Poor fallen one ! 

ARMED MAN. 

Now lift the Crown from 's head ! 
ADALBERT. 

It seems so heavy ! 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



41 



ARMED MAN. 

Touch it, it grows light. 
ADALBERT (taking off the Croicn, and casting it, as he 
did the chains, on the ground.) 

ARMED MAN. 

Now take the golden heart from off his brow '■ 

ADALBERT. 

It seems to burn ! 

ARMED MAN. 

Thou arrest ; ice is warmer. 
ADALBERT (taking the Heart from the Brow.) 
Hah ! shivering frost '■ 

ARMED MAN. 

Take from his back the Cross, 
And throw it from thee : — 

ADALBERT. 

How ! the Saviour's token 1 

HEAD. 

Deliver, O deliver me ! 

AHMED MAN. 

This Cross 
Is not thy Master's, not that bloody one : 
Its counterfeit is this : throw 't from thee ! 

ADALBERT (taking it from the Bust, and laying it softly 

on the ground.) 
The Cross of the Good Lord that died for me f 

ARMED MAN. 

Thou shall no more believe in one. that died ; 
Thou shall henceforth believe in one that liveth 
And never dies I — Obey, and question not, — 
Step over it! 

ADALBERT. 

Take pity on me I 
ARMED MAN (threatening him with his sword.) 
Step: 

ADALBERT. 

I do 't with shuddering — 

(Steps over, and then looks vp to the head which raises 
itself, as if freed from a load.) 

How the figure rises 
And looks in gladness ! 

ARMED MAN. 

Him whom thou hast served 
Till now, deny ! 

ADALBERT (.horror-struck.) 

Deny the Lord my God ■? 

ARMED MAN. 

Thy God 'tis not : the Idol of this world ! 
Deny him, or— 

(Pressing on him with the Sword in a threatening pos- 
ture.) 
— thou diest : 

ADALBERT. 

I deny ! 
ARMED MAN (pointing to the Head with his Sword.) 
Go to the Fallen ! — Kiss his lips 1— 

— And so on through many other sulphurous 
pages ! How much of this mummery is copied 
from the actual practice of the Templars we 
know not with certainty; nor what precisely 
either they or Werner intended, by this mar- 
6 



vellous " Story of the Fallen Master," to sha- 
dow forth. At first view, one might take it for 
an allegory, couched in masonic language, — 
and truly no flattering allegory, — of the Catho- 
lic Church ; and this trampling on the Cross, 
which is said to have been actually enjoined 
on every Templar at his initiation, to be a type 
of his secret behest to undermine that Institu- 
tion, and redeem the spirit of Religion from the 
state of thraldom and distortion under which it 
was there held. It is known at least, and was 
well known to Werner, that the heads of the 
Templars entertained views, both on religion 
and politics, which they did not think meet for 
communicating to their age, and only imparted 
by. degrees, and under mysterious adumbra- 
tions, to the wiser of their own Order. They 
had even publicly resisted, and succeeded in 
thwarting, some iniquitous measures of Phi- 
lippe Auguste, the French King, in regard to his 
coinage; and this, while it secured them the 
love of the people, was one great cause, per- 
haps second only to their wealth, of the hatred 
which that sovereign bore them, and of the 
savage doom which he at last executed on the 
whole body. 

But on these secret principles of theirs, as- 
on Werner's manner of conceiving them, we 
are only enabled to guess ; for Werner, too, 
has an esoteric doctrine, which he does not 
prornulgate, except in dark iSybilline enigmas, 
to the unitiated. As we are here seeking chief- 
ly for his religious creed, which forms, in 
truth, with its changes, the main thread where- 
by his wayward, desultory existence attains any 
unity or even coherence in our thoughts, we 
may quote another passage from the same 
First Pan of this rhapsody ; which, at the 
same time, will afford us a glitnpse of his 
favourite hero, Robert d'Heredon, lately the dar- 
ling of the Templars, but now, for some mo- 
mentary infraction of their rules, cast into 
prison, and expecting death, or, at best, exclu- 
sion from the Order. Gottfried is another 
Templar, in all points the reverse of Robert. 

ACT FOURTH. SCENE FIRST. 

(Prison ; at the wall a Table. Robert, withoxit sword, 
cap, or mantle, sits downcast on one side of it : Gott- 
FUIED, who keeps watch by him, sitting at the other.) 

GOTTFRIED. 

But how could'st thou so far forget thyself? 

Thou vvert our pride, the Master's friend and favourite 1 

ROBERT. 

I did it, thou perceivest ! 

GOTTFRIED. 

How could a word 
Of the old surly Hugo so provoke thee t 

ROBERT. 

Ask not '.—Man's being is a spider-web : 
The passionate flash o' th' soul — comes not of him ; 
It is the breath of that dark Genius, 
Which whirls invisil)le along the threads: 
A sprv:iiit of eternal Destiny. 
It purifies them from the vulgar dust, 
Which earthward strives to prejs the net: 
But Fate gives sign ; the breath becomes a whirlwind. 
And in a moment rends to shreds the thing 
We thought was woven for Eternity. 
D 2 



42 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



GOTTFRIED. 

Yet each man shapes his destiny himself. 



Small soul! Dost thou tno know it 1 Has the story 

Of Force and free Volition, that, defying 

The corporal Atoms and Annihilation, 

Methodic guides the car of Destiny, 

Come down to thee ? Dream'st thou, poor Nothingness, 

That thou, and like of thee, and ten times better 

Than thou or I, can lead the wheel of Fate 

One hair's-breadth from its everlasting track'! 

I too have had such dreams : but fearfully 

Have I been shook from sleep; and they are fled; — 

Look at our Order : has it spared its thousands 

Of noblest lives, the victims of its Purpose ; 

And has it gained this Purpose ; can it gain it 1 

Look at our noble Molay's silvered hair : 

The fruit of watchful nights and stormful days, 

And of the broken yet still burning heart! 

That mighty heart!— Through sixty battling years, 

'T has beat in pain for nothing : his creation 

Remains the vision of his own great soul ; 

It dies with him ; and one day shall the pilgrim 

Ask where his dust is lying, and not learn ! 

COTTFHIED {yawning.) 
But then the Christian has the joy of Heaven 
For recompense : in his flesh he shall see God. 

nOBERT. 

In his flesh?— Now fair befal the journey ! 
Wilt stow it in behind, by way of luggage, 
When the Angel comes to coach ihee into Glory'} 
Mind also that the memory of those fair hours 
When dinner smoked before thee, or thou usedst 
To dress thy nag, or scour thy rusty harness, 
And such like noble business be not left behind !- 
Ha ! self-deceiving bipeds, is it not enough 
The carcass should at e\(tiy step oppress, 
Imprison you ; that toothache, headache, 
Gout,— who knows what all,— at every moment, 
Degrades the god of Earth into a beast; 
But you would take this villanous mingle, 
The coarser dross of all the elements. 
Which, by the Light-beam from on high that visits 
And dwells in it, but baser shows its baseness, — 
Take this, and all the freaks which, bubble like. 
Spring forth o' th' blood, and which by such fair names 
You call,— along with you into your Ileaven '? — 
Well, be it so ! much good may't — 

(As his eye, by chance, lights on Gottfried, irho mean- 
while has fallen asleep) 

— Sound already ? 
There is a race for whom all serves as — pillow, 
Even rattling chains are but a lullaby. 

This Robert d'Heredon, whose preaching 
has here such a narcotic virtue, is destined ul- 
timately for a higher office than to rattle his 
chains by way of lullaby. He is ejected from 
the Order; not, however, with disgrace and in 
anger, but in sad feeling of necessity, and with 
tears and blessings from his brethren ; and the 
messenger of the Valley, a strange, ambigu- 
ous, little sylph-like maiden, gives him obscure 
encouragement, before his departure, to pos- 
sess his soul in patience; seeing, if he can 
learn the grand secret of Renunciation, his 
course is not ended, but only opening on a 
fairer scene. Robert knows not well what to 
make of this ; but sails for his native Hebrides, 
in darkness and contrition, as one who can do 
no other. 

In the end of the Second Part, which is re- 
presented as divided from the First by an 
interval of seven years, Robert is again sum- 



moned forth ; and the whole surprising secret 
of his mission, and of the Valley which ap- 
points it for him, is disclosed. This Frieden- 
tlial (Valley of Peace), it now appears, is an 
immense secret association, which has its 
chief seat somewhere about the roots of Mount 
Carmel, if we mistake not ; but, comprehending 
in its ramifications the best heads and hearts 
of every countr}', extends over the whole civi- 
lized world ; and has, in particular, a strong 
body of adherents in Paris, and indeed a sub- 
terraneous, but seemingly very commodious 
suite of rooms, under the Carmelite Monastery 
of that city. Here sit in solemn conclave the 
heads of the Establishment; directing from 
their lodge, in deepest concealment, the princi- 
pal movements of the kingdom : for William 
of Paris, Archbishop of Sens, being of their 
number, the king and his other ministers, fan- 
cying within themselves the utmost freedom 
of action, are nothing more than puppets in 
the hands of this all-powerful Brotherhood, 
which watches, like ,a sort of Fate, over the in- 
terests of mankind, and by mysterious agen- 
cies, forwards, we suppose, "the cause of civil 
and religious liberty over all the world." It is 
they that have doomed the Templars; and, 
without malice or pity, are sending their lead- 
ers to the dungeon and the stake. That knight- 
ly Order,once a favourite minister of good, has 
now degenerated from its purity, and come to 
mistake its purpose, having taken up politics 
and a sort of radical reform ; and so must now 
be broken and reshaped, like a worn imple- 
ment, which can no longer do its appointed 
work. 

Such a magnificent " Society for the Sup- 
pression of Vice" may well be supposed to 
walk by the most philosophical principles. 
These Fritdcnthalcrs, in l-act, profess to be a 
sort of Invisible Church ; preserving in vestal 
purity the sacred fire of religion, which burns 
with more or less fuliginous admixture in the 
worship of every people, but only with its clear 
sidereal lustre in the recesses of the Valley, 
They are Bramins on the Ganges, Bonzes on 
the Hoangho, Monks on the Seine. They ad- 
dict themselves to contemplation, and the sub- 
tilest study ; have penetrated far into the mys- 
teries of spiritual and physical nature; they 
command the deep-hidden virtues of plant and 
mineral ; and their sages can discriminate the 
eye of the mind from its sensual instruments, 
and behold, without type or material embody- 
ment, the essence of Being. Their activity is 
all-comprehending and unerringly calculated: 
they rule over the world by the authority of 
wisdom over ignorance. 

In the Fifth Act of the Second Part, we are 
at length, after many a hint and significant 
note of preparation, introduced to the privacies 
of this philosophical Sainte Hcrniandad. A 
strange Delphic cave this of theirs, under the 
very pavements of Paris! There are brazen, 
folding doors, and concealed voices, and 
sphinxes, and naptha-lamps, and all manner 
of wondrous furniture. It seems, moreover, to 
be a sort of gala evening with them ; for the 
" Old Man of Carmel, in eremite garb, with a 
long beard reaching to his girdle," is for a mo- 
ment discovered " reading in a deep monoto- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER, 



43 



nous voice." The " Strong Ones," meanwhile, 
are out in quest of Robert d'Heredon ; who, by 
cunning practices, has been enticed from his 
Hebridean solitude, in the hope of saving Mo- 
lay, and is even now to be initiated, and equip- 
ped for his task. After a due allowance of 
pompous ceremonial, Robert is at last ushered 
in, or rather dragged in ; for it appears that he 
has made a stout debate, not submitting to the 
customary form of being ducked, — an essential 
preliminary, it would seem, — till compelled by 
the direst necessity. He is in a truly Highland 
anger, as is natural: but by various manipula- 
tions and solacements, he is reduced to reason 
again, finding, indeed, the fruitlessness of any 
thing else ; for when lance and sword and free 
space are given him, and he makes a thrust at 
Adam of Valincourt, the master of the cere- 
monies, it is to no purpose: the old man has a 
torpedo quality in him, which benumbs the 
stoutest arm ; and no death issues from the 
baffled sword-point, but only a small spark of 
electric fire. With his Scottish prudence, 
Robert, under these circumstances, cannot but 
perceive that quietness is best. The people 
hand him, in succession, the " Cup of Strength," 
the "Clip of Beauty," and the "Cup of Wis- 
dom;" liquors brewed, if we may judge from 
their eflect, with the highest stretch of Rosi- 
crucian art; and which must have gone far to 
disgust Robert d'Heredon with his natural us- 
quebaugh, however excellent, had that fierce 
drink been in use then. He rages in a fine 
frenzy; dies away in raptures; and then, at 
last, " considers what he wanted and what he 
wants." Now is the time for Adam of Valin- 
court to strike in with an interminable exposi- 
tion of the " objects of the society." To not 
unwilling, but still cautious ears, he unbosoms 
himself, in mystic wise, with extreme copious- 
ness; turning aside objections like a veteran 
disputant, and leading his apt and courageous 
pupil, by signs and wonders, as well as b}^ 
logic, deeper and deeper into the secrets of 
theosophic and thaumaturgic science. A little 
glimpse of this our readers may share with us ; 
though we fear the allegory will seem to most 
of them but a hollow nut. Nevertheless, it is 
an allegory — of its sort ; and we can profess to 
have translated with entire fidelit}". 



ADAM. 

Thy riddle by a second will be solved, 
{He leads him to the Sphinx.) 
Rehnld this Sphinx ! Ilalf-beast, half-angel, both 
Combined in one, it is an emblem to thee 
Of th' ancient Mother, Nature, lierself a riddle, 
And only by a deeper to be master'd. 
Etern.il clearness in th' eternal Ferment : 
This is the riddle of Existence : — read it, — 
Propose that other to her, and she serves thee ! 
[The door on the riirht hand opens, and, in the space 

iehind it appears, as befoje, the OLD STAJf OF CAllMEL, 

sitting at a Table, and reading- in a large Volume. The 

deep strokes of a Bell are heard.) 

OLD MAX OF CARMEL {reading with a loud but still mo- 
notonous voice.) 
" And when the Lord saw Phosphoros " — 
ROBERT (interrupting him.) 

Ha ! Again 
A story as of BalTometus 1 



Not so. 
That tale of theirs was but some poor distortion 
Of th' outmost image of our sanctuary.— 
Keep silence here ; and see thou interrupt not, 
By too bold cavilling, this mystery. 

OLD MAN (rending.) 

"And when the Lord saw Phosphoros his pride. 

Being wroth thereat, he cast him forth, 

And shut him in a prison called Life ; 

And gave him for a Garment, earth and water, 

And bound him straitly in four ,\zure Chains, 

And pour'd for him the bitter Cup of Fire. 

The Lord moreover spake : Because thou hast forgotten 

My will I yield thee to the Element, 

And thou shalt be his slave, and have no longer 

Remembrance of thy birthplace or my name. 

And silhence thou hast sinn'd a;.'ainst me by 

Thy prideful Thought of being One and Somewhat, 

I leave with thee that thought to be thy whip, 

And this thy weakness for a Bit and Bridle ; 

Till once a Saviour from the waters rise. 

Who shall again baptize thee in my bosom, 

That so thou may'st be Nought and All. 

"And when the Lord had spoken, he drew back 
As in a mighty rushing ; and the Element 
Rose up round Phosphoros, and tower'd itself 
Aloft to Ileav'n; and he lay stunn'd beneath it. 

"But when his first-born Sister saw his pain. 
Her heart was full of sorrow, and she turn'd her 
To the Lord ; and with veil'd face, thus spake Mylitta :* 
Pity my Brother, and let me console him : 

"Then did the Lord in pity rend asunder 
A little think in Phosphoros his dungeon. 
That so he might behold his Sister's face : 
And when she silent peep'd into his Prison, 
She left with him a Mirror for his solace, 
And when he look'd therein, his earthly Garment 
Pressed him less ; and, like the gleam of morning. 
Some faint remembrance of his Birthplace dawn'd 

"But yet the Azure Chains she could not break, 
The bitter Cup of Fire not take from him. 
Therefore she pray'd to Mythras, to her Father, 
To save his younger-born : and INIythras went 
Tip to the footstool of the Lord, and said : 
Take pity on my Son :— Then said the Lord ; 
Have I not sent Mylitta that he may 
Behold his Birthplace ?— Wherefore Mythras answer'd: 
What profits it ! The chains she cannot break. 
The bitter Cup of Fire not take from him. 
So will L said the Lord, the Salt l>e given him. 
That so the bitter Cup of Fire be softened ; 
But yet the Azure Chains must lie on him 
Till once a Saviour rise from out the Waters. — 
And when the Salt was laid on Phosphor's tongue 
The Fire's piercing ceased ; but th' Element 
Congeal'd the Salt to Ice, and Phosphoros 
Lay there benumb'd, and had not power to move. 
But Isis saw him, and thus spake the mother : 

"Thou who art Father, Strength and Word and 
Light : 
Shall he my last-born grandchild lie for ever 
In pain, the down-press'd thrall of his rude Brother 1 
Then had the Lord compassion, and he sent him 
The Herald of the Saviour from the Waters ; 
The cup of Fluidness, and in the Cup 
The drops of Sadness and the drops of Longing ; 
And then the Ice was thawed, the Fire grew cool, 
And Phosphoros again had room to breathe. 
But yet the earthy Garment cumber'd him, 
The Azure chains still gall'd, and the Remembrance 
Of the Name, the Lord's, which he had lost, was want- 
ing. 

"Then the Mother's heart was moved with pity, 
She beckoned the Son to her, and said : 
Thou who art more than I, and yet my nursling, 

*Mijlitta, in the old Persian mysteries, was the name 
of the Moon ; SHijthras that of tlie Sun. 



44 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Put on this Robe of Earth, and show thyself 

To fallen Phosphoros bound in the dungeon, 

And open him that dungeon's narrow cover. 

Then said the Word : It shall be so 1 and sent 

His messenger Disease; she broke the roof 

Of Phosphor's Prison, so that once again 

The Fount of Light he saw ; the Element 

Was dazzled blind ; but Phosplior knew his Father. 

And when the Word, in Earth, came to the Prison, 

The Element address'd him as his like ; 

But Phosphoros look'd up to him, and said : 

Thou art sent hither to redeem from Sin, 

Yet art thou not the Saviour from the Waters. — 

Then spake the Word : The Saviour from the Waters 

I surely am not ; yet wlien thou hast drunk 

The Cup of Fluidness, 1 will Redeem thee. 

Then Phosphor drank the Cup of Fluidness, 

Of Longing, and of Sadness ; and his Garment 

Did drop sweet drops ; wherewith the Messenger 

Of the Word wash'd all his Garment, till its folds 

And stiffness vanish'd, and it 'gan grow light. 

And when the Prison Life she touch'd, straightway 

It wa.\'d thin and lucid like to crystal. 

But yet the Azure Chains she could not break. — 

Then did the Word vouchsafe him the Cup of Faith, 

And having drunk it, Phosphoros look'd up. 

And saw the Saviour standing in the Waters. 

Both hands the (/'aptive stretch'd to grasp that Saviour; 

But he fled. 

"So Phosphoros was grieved in heart: 
But yet the Word spake comfort, giving him 
The Pillow Patience, there to lay his head. 
And having rested, he rais'd his head, and said : 
Wilt thou redeem me from the Prison too 7 
Then said the Word : Wait yet in peace seven moons, 
It may be nine, until thy hour shall come. 
And Phosphor answer'd. Lord, thy will be done ; 

"Which when the mnilier Is^is saw, it grieved her ; 
She called the Rainbow up, and said to him : 
Go thou and tell the Word that he forgive 
The Captive these seven moons 1 And Rainbow tievv 
Where he was sent ; and as he shook his wings 
There dropt from them the Oil of Purity : 
And this the Word did gather in a Cup, 
And cleansed with it the Sinner's head and bosom. 
Then passing forth into his Father's Garden, 
He breathed upon the ground, and there arose 
A flow'ret out of It, like milk and rose-bloom; 
Which having wetted with the dew of Rapture, 
He crown'd therewith the Captive's brow ; then grasp'd 

him 
With his right hand, the Rainbow with the left ; 
Mylitta likewise with the Mirror came. 
And Phosphoros looked into it, and saw 
Wrote on the Azure of Infinity 
The long-forgotten Name, and the Remembrance 
Of his Birthplace, gleaming as in light of gold. 

" Then fell there as if scales from Phosphor's eyes, 
He left the Thought of being One and Somewhat, 
His nature melted in the mighty All ; 
Like sighings from above came balmy healing. 
So that his heart for very bliss was bursting. 
For Chains and Garment cumber'd him no more : 
The Garment he had changed to royal purple. 
And of his Chains were fashion'd glancing jewels. 

"True, still the Saviour from the Waters tarried ; 
Yet came the Spirit over him ; the Lord 
Turn'd towards him a gracious countenance. 
And Isis held him in her mother-arms. 
" This is the last Evangile. 

{The door closes, and an-ain roitrcals the OLD MAN OF 
C ARM EL.) 

The purport of this enigma Robert confesses 
that he does not "wholly" understand; an ad- 
mission in which, we suspect, most of our 
readers, and the Old Man of Carmel himself, 
■were he candid, might be inclined to agree 
with him. Sometimes, in the deeper consider- 
ation which translators are bound to bestow- 



on such extravagances, we have fancied we 
could discern in this apologue some glimmer- 
ings of meaning, scattered here and there like 
weak lamps in the darkness ; not enough to 
interpret the riddle, but to show that by possi- 
bility it might have an interpretation, — was a 
typical vision, with a certain degree of signifi- 
cance in the wild mind of the poet, not an in- 
ane fever-dream. Might not Phosphoros, for 
example, indicate generally the spiritual es- 
sence of a man, and this story be an emblem 
of his history? He longs to be "One and 
Somewhat;" that is, he labours under the 
very common complaint of egotism ; cannot, in 
the grandeur of Beauty and Virtue, forget his 
own so beautiful and virtuous Self ; but, amid 
the glories of the majestic All, is still haunted 
and blinded by some shadow of his own little 
Mc. For this reason he is punished; impri- 
soned in the "Element" (of a material body,) 
and has the " four Azure Chains " (the four 
principles of matter) bound round him ; so 
that he can neither think nor act, except in a 
foreign medium, and under conditions that 
confuse him. The "Cup of Fire" is given 
him ; perhaps, the rude, barbarous passion and 
cruelty natural to all uncultivated tribes 1 But, 
at length, he beholds tne " Moon ;" begins to 
have some sight and love of material Nature ; 
and, looking into her " Mirror," forms to him- 
self, under gross emblems, a theogony and sort 
of mythologic poetry ; in which, if he cannot 
behold the " Name," and has forgotten his own 
" Birthplace," both of which are blotted out 
and hidden by the "Element," he finds some 
spiritual solace, and breathes more freely. 
Still, however, the "Cup of Fire" tortures him; 
till the "Salt" (intellectual culture?) is vouch- 
safed ; which, indeed, calms the raging of that 
furious bloodthirstiness and warlike strife, but 
leaves him, as mere culture of the understand- 
ing may be supposed to do, frozen into irreli- 
gion and moral inactivity, and farther from 
the "Name" and his "Own Original" than 
ever. Then is the " Cup of Fluidness " a more 
merciful disposition ? and intended, with " the 
Drops of Sadness and the Drops of Longing," 
to shadow forth that wo-struck, desolate, yet 
softer and devouter state in which mankind 
displayed itself at the coming of the " Word," 
at the first promulgation of the Christian reli- 
gion ? Is the " Rainbow " the modern poetry 
of Europe, the Chivalry, the new form of Sto- 
icism, the whole romantic feeling of these later 
days 1 But who or what the "Hciland aus den 
Wdssmi" (Saviour from the Waters) maybe,, 
we need not hide our entire ignorance; this 
being apparently a secret of the Valley, which 
Robert d'Heredon, and Werner, and men of 
like gifts, are in due time to show the world, 
but unhappily have not 3-et succeeded in bring- 
ing to light. Perhaps, indeed, our whole in- 
terpretation may be thought little better than 
lost labour; a reading of what was only 
scrawled and flourished, not written; a shap- 
ing of gay castles and metallic palaces from 
the sunset clouds, which, though motuitain- 
like, and purple and golden of hue, and low- 
ered together as if by Cyclopean arms, are but 
dyed vapour. 

Adam of Valincourt continues his exposi- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



45 



tion in the most liberal way ; but, through 
many pages of metrical lecturing, he does 
little to satisfy us. What was more to his 
purpose, he partly succeeds in satisfying Ro- 
bert d'Heredon ; who, after due preparation, — 
Molay being burnt like a martyr, under the 
most promising omens, and the Pope and the 
King of France struck dead, or nearly so, — 
sets out to found the order of St. Andrews in 
his own country, that of Calatrava in Spain, 
and other knightly Missions of the He Hand a us 
den Wasi'crn elsewhere ; and thus, to the great 
satisfaction of all parties, the Sons of the Valley 
terminates, " positively for the last time." 

Our reader may have already convinced 
himself that in this strange phantasmagoria 
there are not v/anting indications of very high 
poetic talent. We see a mind of great depth, 
if not of sufficient strength ; struggling with 
objects which, though it cannot master them, 
are essentially of richest significance. Had 
the writer only kept his piece till the ninth 
year ; meditating it with true diligence and un- 
wearied will ! But the weak Werner was not 
a man for such things : he must reap the har- 
vest on the morrow after seed-day, and so 
stands before us at last, as a man capable of 
much, only not of bringing aught to perfec- 
tion. 

Of his natural dramatic genius, this work, 
ill-concocted as it is, affords no unfavourable 
specimen ; and may, indeed, have justified ex- 
pectations which were never realized. It is 
true, he cannot yet give form and animation to 
a character, in the genuine poetic sense ; we 
do not see any of his dramatis persona, but only 
hear of them : yet, in some cases his endea- 
vour, though imperfect, is by no means abor- 
tive ; and here, for instance, Jacques Molay, 
Philip Adalbert, Hugo, and the like, though 
not living men, have still as much life as many 
a buff-and-scarlet Sebastian . or Barbarossa, 
whom we find swaggering, for years, with ac- 
ceptance, on the boards. Of his spiritual 
beings, whom in most of his plays he intro- 
duces too profusely, we cannot speak in com- 
mendation : they are of a mongrel nature, 
neither rightly dead nor alive ; in fact, they 
sometimes glide about like real, though rather 
singular mortals, through the whole piece; 
and only vanish as ghosts in the fifth act. 
But, on the other hand, in contriving theatrical 
incidents and sentiments ; in scenic shows, 
and all manner of gorgeous, frightful, or as- 
tonishing machinery, Werner exhibits a copi- 
ous invention, and strong though untutored 
feeling. Doubtless, it is all crude enough ; all 
illuminated by an impure, barbaric splendour; 
not the soft, peaceful brightness of sunlight, 
but the red, resinous glare of playhouse torches. 
Werner, however, was still young; and had he 
been of a right spirit, all that was impure and 
crude might in time have become ripe and 
clear; and a poet of no ordinary excellence 
would have been moulded out of him. 

But as matters stood, this was by no means 
the thing Werner had most at heart. It is not 
the degree of poetic talent manifested in the 
Sons of the Valkij that he prizes, but the reli- 
gious truth shadowed forth in it. To judge from 
the parables of Bafibmetus and Phosphoros, 



our readers may be disposed to hold his reve- 
lations on this subject rather cheap. Never- 
theless, taking up the character of Vates in its 
widest sense, Werner earnestly desires not 
only to be a poet, but a prophet ; and, indeed, 
looks upon his merits in the former province 
as altogether subservient to his higher pur- 
poses in the latter. We have a series of the 
most confused and long-winded letters to Hit- 
zig, who had now removed to Berlin ; setting 
forth, with a singular simplicity, the mighty 
projects Werner was cherishing on this head. 
He thinks that there ought to be a new Creed 
promulgated, a new Body of Religionists es- 
tablished ; and that, for this purpose, not writ- 
ing, but actual preaching, can avail. He 
detests common Protestantism, under which 
he seems to mean a sort of Socinianism, or 
diluted French Infidelity; he talks of Jacob 
Bo?hme, and Luther, and Schleiermacher, and 
a new Trinity of "Art, Religion, and Love." 
All this should be sounded in the ears of men, 
and in a loud voice, that so their torpid slum- 
ber, ihe harbinger of spiritual death, may be 
driven away. With the utmost gravity he 
commissions his correspondent to wait upon 
Schlegel, Tieck, and others of a like spirit, 
and see whether they will not join him. For 
his own share in the matter, he is totally in- 
different; will serve in the meanest capacity, 
and rejoice with his whole heart, if, in zeal 
and ability as poets and preachers, not some 
only, but every one, should infinitely outstrip 
him. We suppose, he had dropped the thought 
of being "One and Somewhat;" and now 
wished, rapt away by this divine purpose, to 
be "Nought and All." 

On the Heiland uus den Wassern this corre- 
spondence throws no further light : what the 
new Creed specially v/as, which Werner felt 
so eager to plant and propagate, we nowhere 
learn with any distinctness. Probably, he 
might himself have been rather at a loss to 
explain it in brief compass. His theogony, we 
suspect, was still very much 171 posse ; and 
perhaps only the moral part of this system 
could stand before him with some degree of 
clearness. On this latter point, indeed, he is 
determined enough ; well assured of his dog- 
mas, and apparently waiting but for some 
proper vehicle in which to convey them to 
the minds of men. His fundamental princi- 
ple of morals we have seen in part already: 
it does not exclusively or primarily belong 
to himself; being little more than that high 
tenet of entire Self-forgetfulness, that " merg- 
ing of the Me in the Idea" a principle which 
reigns both in Stoical and Christian ethics, 
and is at this day common, in theory, among 
all German philosophers, especially of the 
Transcendental class. Werner has adopted 
this principle with his whole heart and his 
whole soul, as the indispensable condition of 
all Virtue. He believes it, we should say, in- 
tensely, and without compromise, exaggerating 
rather than softening or concealing its peculi- 
arities. He will not have Happiness, under 
any form, to be the real or chief end of man ; 
this is but love of enjoyment, disguise it as 
we like; a more complex and sometimes more 
respectable species of hunger, he would sav 



46 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



to be admitted as an indestructible element in 
human nature, but nowise to be recognised as 
the highest; on the contrarjs to be resisted and 
incessantly warred with, till it become obedi- 
ent to love of God, which is only, in the truest 
sense, love of Goodness, and the germ of which 
lies deep in the inmost nature of man ; of au- 
thority superior to all sensitive impulses; 
forming, in fact, the grand law of his being, as 
subjection to it forms the first and last condi- 
tion of spiritual health. He thinks that to pro- 
pose a reward for virtue is to render virtue im- 
possible. He warmly seconds Schleiermacher 
in declaring that even the hope of Immortality is 
a consideration unfit to be introduced into re- 
ligion, and tending only to pervert it, and im- 
pair its sacredness. Strange as this may seem, 
Werner is firmly convinced of its importance ; 
and has even enforced it specifically in a pas- 
sage of his Sohnc dcs Thais, which he is at the 
pains to cite and expound in his correspond- 
ence with Hitzig. Here is another fraction of 
that wondrous dialogue between Robert d'Here- 
don and Adam of Valincourt, in the cavern of 
the Valley: 



And Deatli, — so dawns it on me, — Deatli perhaps, 
The doom that leaves nought of this Me remaining, 
May be perhaps the Symbol of that Self-denial, — 

Perhaps still more, perhaps, — I have it, friend ; — 

That cripplish Immortality,— think"st not 7 — 

Which but spins forth our paltry Me, so thin 

And pitiful, into Infinitude, 

That too must die. ?— This shallow Self of ours, 

We are not naii'd to it eternally i 

We can, we must be free of it, and then 

Uncumber'd wanton in the Force of All ! 

ADAM (.callinn- joyfully into the interior of the Cavern.) 

Brethren, he has renounced I Himself has found it I 

Oh ! praised be Light ; He sees ! The North is saved : 

CONCEALED VOICES of the old men of the Valley. 

Hail and joy to thee, thou Strong One ; 
Force to thee from above, and Light ; 
Complete, — complete the work ! 

ADAJI (embracing Robert.) 
Come to my heart ! — &;c. &c. 

Such was the spirit of that new Faith, which, 
symbolized under mythuses of Baffbmetus and 
Phosphorus, and " Saviours from the Waters," 
and "Trinities of Art, Religion, and Love," 
and to be preached abroad by the aid of Schlei- 
ermacher, and what was then called the New 
Poetical School, Werner seriously purposed, like 
another Luther, to cast forth, as good seed, 
among the ruins of decayed and down-trodden 
Protestantism ! M'hether Hitzig was still young 
enough to attempt executing his commission, 
and applying to Schlegel and Tieck for help ; 
and if so, in what gestures of speechless asto- 
nishment, or what peals of inextinguishable 
laughter they answered him, we are not in- 
formed. One thing, however, is clear : that a 
man with so unbridled an imagination, joined to 
so weak an understanding, and so broken a voli- 
tion ; who had plunged so deep into Theoso- 
phy, and still hovered so near the surface in 
all practical knowledge of men and their af- 
fairs ; who, shattered and degraded in his own 
private character, could meditate such apos- 
tolic enterprises, was a man likely, if he lived 



long, to play fantastic tricks in abundance; 
and, at least, in his religious history, to set the 
world a-wondering. Conversion, not to Pope- 
ry, but, if it so chanced, to Braminism, was a 
thing nowise to be thought impossible. 

Nevertheless, let his missionary zeal have 
justice from us ' It does seem to have been 
grounded on no wicked or even illaudable 
motive : to all appearance, he not only believed 
what he professed, but thought it of the high- 
est moment that others should believe it. And 
if the proselytizing spirit, which dwells in all 
men, be allowed exercise even when it only 
assaults what it reckons Errors, still more 
should this be so, when it proclaims what it 
reckons Truth, and fancies itself not taking 
from us v/hat in our eyes may be good, but 
adding thereto what is better. 

Meanwhile, Werner was not so absorbed in 
spiritual schemes, that he altogether over- 
looked his own merely temporal comfort. In 
contempt of former failures, he was now court- 
ing for himself a third wife, " a young Poless 
of the highest personal attractions;" and this 
under difiiculties which would have appalled 
an ordinary wooer: for the two had no lan- 
guage in common ; he not understanding 
three words of Polish, she not one of Ger- 
man. Nevertheless, nothing daunted by this 
circumstance, nay, perhaps discerning in it 
an assurance against many a sorrowful cur- 
tain lecture, he prosecuted his suit, we sup- 
pose by signs and dumb-show, with such 
ardour, that he quite gained the fair mute ; 
wedded her in 1801 ; and soon after, in her 
company quitted Warsaw for Konigsberg, 
where the helpless state of his mother re- 
quired immediate attention. It is from Konigs- 
berg that most of his missionary epistles to 
Hitzig are written ; the latter, as we have hint- 
ed above, being now stationed, by his official- 
appointment, in Berlin. The sad duty of 
watching over his crazed, forsaken, and dying 
mother, Werner appears to have discharged 
with true filial assiduity : for three years she 
lingered in the most painful state, under his 
nursing; and her death, in 1804, seems not- 
withstanding to have filled him with the deep- 
est sorrow. This is an extract of his letter to- 
Hitzig on that mournful occasion: 

" I know not whether thou hast heard that on 
the 24th of February, (the same day when our 
excellent Mnioch died in Warsaw,) my mother 
departed here, in my arms. My Friend ! God 
knocks with an iron hammer at our hearts ; 
and we are duller than stone, if we do not feel 
it; and madder than mad, if we think it shame 
to cast ourselves into the dust before the All- 
powerful, and let our M'hole so highly misera- 
ble Self be annihilated in the sentiment of His 
infinite greatness and long-suffering. I wish I 
had words to paint how inexpressibly pitiful 
my Sohne cks Thais appeared to me in that hour, 
when, after eighteen years of neglect, I again 
went to partake in the Communion ! This 
death of my mother, — the pure, royal poet-and- 
martyr spirit, who for eight years had lain con- 
tinually on a sick-bed, and suffered unspeaka- 
ble things, — affected me, (much as, for her sake 
and my own, I could not but wish it with alto- 
gether agonizing feelings.) Ah, Friend, how 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



47 



heavy do my youthful faults lie on me ! How 
much would I give to have my mother — (though 
both I aud my wife have of late times lived 
wholly for her, and had much to endure on her 
account) — how much would I give to have her 
back to me but one week, that I might dis- 
burden my heavy-laden heart with tears of re- 
pentance ! My beloved Friend, give thou no 
grief to thy parents ! ah, no earthly voice can 
awaken the dead ! God and Parents, that is 
the first concern ; all else is secondary." 

This affection for his mother forms, as it 
were, a little island of light and verdure in 
Werner's history, where, amid so much that is 
dark and desolate, one feels it pleasant to lin- 
ger. Here was at least one duty, perhaps, in- 
deed, the only one, which, in a wayward, 
wasted lite, he discharged with fidelity : from 
his conduct towards this one hapless being, we 
may, perhaps, still learn that his heart, how- 
ever perverted by circumstances, was not in- 
capable of true, disinterested love. A rich heart 
by Nature ; but unwisely squandering its riches, 
and attaining to a pure union only with this one 
heart; for it seems doubtful whether he ever 
loved another! His poor mother, while alive, 
was the haven of all his earthly voyagings ; and, 
in after years, from amid far scenes, and crush- 
ing perplexities, he often looks back to her 
grave with a feeling to which all bosoms must 
respond.* The date of her decease became a 
memorable era in his mind; as may appear 
from the title which he gave, long afterwards, 
to one of his most popular and tragical pro- 
ductions. Die Vier-unii-zicanztgstc Feb nuir (The 
Twenty-fourth of February.) 

After this event, which left him in posses- 
sion of a small but competent fortune, Werner 
returned with his wife to his post at Warsaw. 
By this time, Hitzig, too, had been sent back, 
and to a higher post : he was now married 
likewise ; and the two wives, he says, soon be- 
came as intimate as their husbands. In a lit- 
tle while Hoffmann joined them ; a colleague 
in Hitzig's oflice, and by him ere long intro- 
duced to Werner, and the other circle of Prus- 
sian men of law, who, in this foreign capital, 
formed each other's chief society; and, of 
course, cleave to one another more closely 
than they might have done elsewhere. Hoff- 
mann does not seem to have loved Werner; 
as, indeed, he was at all times rather shy in 
his attachments ; and, to his quick eye, and 
more rigid, fastidious feeling, the lofty theory 
and low selfish practice, the general diffuse- 
ness, nay, incoherence of character, the pe- 
dantry and solemn affectation, too visible in 
the man, could nowise be hidden. Neverthe- 
less, he feels and acknowledges the frequent 



* See, for example, the Preface to his Mutter derMak- 
kabaer, written at Vienna, in 1819. The tone of still, bat 
deep and heartfelt sadness, which runs through the 
whole of this piece, cannot be communicated in extracts. 
We quote only a half stanza, which, except in prose, we 
shall not venture to translate : 

j'eh, dem der Liehe Kosen 
Und alle Freudenrosen, 
Brym erst en Scflaufeltosen 
Am Mutterffrah' entjlohn. — 

" I, for whom the caresses of love and all roses of joy 
withered away, as the first shovel with its mould sound- 
ed on the coffin of my mother." 



charm of his conversation: for Werner many 
times could be frank and siinple ; and the true 
humour and abandonment with which he often 
launched forth into bland satire on his friends, 
and still ofteneron himself, atoned for many of 
his whims and weaknesses. Probably the two 
could not have lived together b}' themselves : 
but in a circle of commcm men, where these 
touchy elements were attempered by a fair ad- 
dition of M'holesome insensibilities and for- 
malities, they even relished one another; and, 
indeed, the whole social union seems to have 
stood on no undesirable footing. For the rest, 
Wat-saw itself was, at this time, a gay, pic- 
turesque, and stirring city; full of resources 
for spending life in pleasant occupation, either 
wisel)r or unwisely.* 

It was here, that, in 1805, Werner's Kieuz 
an dcr Oslsee (Cross on the Baltic) was writ- 
ten : a sort of half-operatic performance, for 
which Hoflmann, who to his gifts as a writer 
added perhaps still higher attainments, both as 
a musician and a painter, composed the ac- 
companiment. He complains that, in this mat- 
ter, Werner was very ill to please. A ridicu- 
lous scene, at the first reading of the piece, the 
same shrewd wag has recorded in his Sera- 
pioHs-Bnalcr; Hitzig assures us that it is lite- 
rally true, and that Hoflmann himself was the 
main actor in the business. 

" Our Poet had invited a few friends, to read 
to them, in manuscript, his Krcuz cinder Oslsee, 
of which they already knew some fragments 
that had raised their expectations to the high- 
est stretch. Planted, as usual, in the middle 
of the circle, at a little miniature table, on which 
two clear lights, stuck in high candlesticks, 
were burning, sat the poet : he had drawn the 
manuscript from his breast; the huge snuff-box, 
the blue-checked handkerchief, aptly reminding 
you of Baltic muslin, as in use for petticoats and 
other indispensable things, lay arranged in 
Older before hira. — Deep silence on all sides ! — 
Not a breath heard! — The poet cuts one of 
those unparalleled, ever-memorable, altogether 
indescribable faces you have seen in him, and 
begins. — Now you recollect, at the rising of the 
curtain, the Prussians are assembled on the 
coast of the Baltic, fishing amber, and com- 



* Hitzig has thus described the first aspect it presented 
to Hoffmann : " Streets of stately breadth, formed of pa- 
laces in the finest Italian style, and wooden huts which 
threatened every moment to rush down over the heads 
of their inmates; in these edifices, Asiatic pomp com- 
bined in strange union with Greenland squalor. An 
ever-moving population, forming the sharpest contrasts, 
as in a perpetual masquerade : long-bearded Jews ; 
monks in the garb of every order ; here veiled and deep- 
ly-shrouded nuns of strictest discipline, walking, self- 
secluded and apart : there flights of young Polesses, in 
silk mantles of the brightest colours, talking and prome- 
nading over broad squares. The venerable ancient Po- 
lish noble, with moustaches, caftan, girdle, sabre, and 
red or yellow boots : the new generation equipt to the 
utmost pitch as Parisian Incroyables ; with Turks, 
Greeks, Russians, Italians, Frenchmen, in ever-chang- 
ing throng. Add to this a police of inconceivable toler- 
ance, disturbing no popular .=port ; so that little puppet- 
theatres, apes, camels, dancing bears, practised inces 
santly in open spaces and streets ; while the most elogant 

i equipages, and the poorest pedestrian bearers of burden. 

I stood gazing at them. P'urther, a theatre in the national 
language; a good French company; an Italian opera ; 

I German players of at least a very passable sort ; mask- 
ed-halls on a quite original but highly entertaining plan t 
places for pleasure-excursions all round the city," &c, 
&.C. — Hoffmann's Lehen und J^achlass, b. i. p. 287. 



48 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



mencc by calling on the god who presides over 
this vocation. — So — begins : 

lliiiiK|)ultiH ! IlaiigpultiH I Iliii];;piittiH ! 

— Uriel' pause ! — Incipient stare in the audi- 
ence ! — and from ai'eilow in the corner comes 
a small clear voice : ' My dearest, most valued 
friend! my best ol' jkicIs ! If thy wiiole dear 
opera is written in iliai cursed iant,Miage, no 
soul of us knows a syllal)l<; of it; and 1 beg, 
in the Devil's name, tliou woiildsf rather have 
the goodness to translate it lirst!' "* 

()(' this KrcKS <in tier (hisce our limits will 
pertnit us to say but little. It is still a frag- 
ment ; the Second Part, which was often pro- 
mised, and, we believe, partly written, having 
never yet been published. In some respects, 
it appears to us the best of Werner's dramas : 
there is a decisive coherence in the plot, such 
as we seldom (iiul witli him; and a lirmness, a 
rugged nervous brevity in ilie ilialogue, which 
is etjually rare. Here, too, the mystic dreamy 
agencies, which, as in most of his pieces, he 
has interwoven with the action, harmonize 
more than usually with the spirit of the whole. 
It is a wild subject, and this helps to give it a 
corresponding wildness of locality. The first 
planting of Christianity among the Prussians, 
l)y the Teutonic Knights, leads us hack of 
itself into dim ages of anti((uity, of supersti- 
tious barbarism, and stern a))ost(dic zeal : it is 
a scene hanging, as it were, in half-ghasily 
(hi (trout uro, on a ground of jiriineval Night: 
where the Cross and St. Adalbert come in con- 
tact with the Sacred Oak and the Idols of 
Romova, we are not surprised that spectral 
.shapes peer forth on us from the gloom. 

In the constructing and depicting of charac- 
ters, Werner, indeed, is still liltle better than a 
mannerist: his persons, ditl'ering in external 
figure, did'er too slightly in inward natun* ; and 
no one of them comes forward on us with a 
rightly visible or living air. Yet, in scenes 
and incidents, in what maybe called the gene- 
ral costume of his subject, he has here attained 
a really superior excellence. 'J'he savage 
Prussians, wiih their aniliei-lishing, their beai- 
liunting, tiieir bloody idolatry, ami stormful un- 
tutored energy, are brought vividly h\io view; 
no less so the Polish Court of I'lozk, and the 
CJermau Crusaders, in their bridal-feasts and 
battles, as they live atid move, here placed on 
the verge id' lleaihendom, as it were, the van- 
guard of Ligiit in ctuitiict with the kingdoms 
of Darlcness. The nocturnal assault on Plozk 
by the i'rnssians, where the handful of Teuto- 
nic Knights is overpowered, but the city saved 
from ruin b\' the miraculous interposition of 
the " Harper," who now proves to be the spirit 
of St. Adalbert; this, with the scene which 
follows it, on the Islaiul (d' the Vistula, where 
the dawn slowly breaks over doings of wo and 
horrid cruelty, but of wo and cruelty atoned 
for by immortal hope, — belongs undoubtedly 
to Werner's most successful ellbrts. With 
much that is questionable, much tiiat is merely 
common, there are intermingled touches from 
the true Land (d" Wonders; indeed, the wlude 
is overspread with a certain dim religious 
light, in which its many pettinesses and exag- 

• HolHnann'g Serapions-Briider, b. iv. s. 240. 



gerations are softened into something which 
at least resembles poetic harmony. We give 
this drama a high praise, when we say that 
more than once it has reminded us of Cal- 
dcron. 

The " Cross on the Baltic" had been bespoke 
by Iflland for the Berlin theatre ; but the com- 
plex machineiy oL' the piece, the " little flames" 
springing, at intervals, from the heads of cer- 
tain characters, and the other supernatural 
ware with which it is replenished, were found 
to transcend the capabilities of any merely 
terrestrial stage. Illland, liie best actor in 
Germany, was himself a dramatist, and a man 
of talent, but in all points difi'ering from Wer- 
ner, as a stage-machinist may diller from a 
man with the siain'l-si!;hl. HolFmann chuckles 
in secret over the perplexities in which the 
shrewd prosaic manager and playwright must 
have found himself, when he came to the 
" little llames." Nothing remained but to write 
back a refusal, full of admiration and expostu- 
lation : and Kiland wrote one which, says Hofl- 
mann, " passes for a master-piece of theatrical 
diplomacy." 

In this one respect, ai least, Werner's next 
play was happier, for it actually crossed the 
" Stygian mai-sh" of green-room hesitations, 
and reached, though in a maimed state, the 
Elysium of the boards; and this to the great 
joy, as it proved, both of inland and all other 
parties interested. We allude to the Marl'ni 
Liilhtr, oiler die 11 7 /Vic dcr Kraft, (Martin Luther, 
or the Consecration of Strength,) Werner's 
most pojuilar performance, which came out at 
Berlin in 1807, and soon spread over all Ger- 
many, Catholic as well as protestant, being 
acted, it would seem, even in Vienna, to over- 
llowing and delighted audiences. 

If instant acceptance, therefore, were a 
measure of dramatic merit, this play should 
rank high among that class of M'orks. Never- 
theless, to judge from our own impressions, 
the sober reader of Mirrlin Luther will be far 
fiom finding in it such excellence. It cannot 
be named among the best dramas: it is not 
even the best of Werner's. There is, indeed, 
much scenic exhibition, many a " fervid senti- 
ment," as the newspapers have it; na}', with 
all its mixture of coarseness, here and there 
a glimjise of genuine dramatic inspiration; 
but. as a whole, the work sorely disajipoints 
us ; it is of so loose and mixed a structure and 
falls asunder in our thoughts, like the iron and 
clay in the Chaldean's Dream. There is an 
interest, perhaps of no trivial sort, awakened 
in the First Act; but, unhappily, it goes on de- 
clining, till, in the Fifth, an ill-natured critic 
might almost say, it expires. The story is too 
wide for Wern(M"s dramatic lens to gather into 
a focus; besides, the reader brings with him 
an image of it, too fixed i'ov being so boldly 
metamiu-phosed, and too high and august for 
being ornamented with tinsel and gilt paste- 
board. Accordingly, the Diet of Worms, 
plentifully furnished as it is with sceptres and 
armorial shields, continues a much grander 
scene in History, than it is here in Fiction. 
Neither, with regard to the persons of the play, 
excepting those of Luther and Catharine, the 
Nun whom he Aveds, can we find much scope 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



49 



for praise. Nay, our praise even of these 
two must have many limitations. Catharine, 
though carefully enough depicted, is, in fact, 
little more than a common tragedy-queen, with 
the storminess, the love, and other stage-hero- 
ism, which belong prescriptively to that class 
of dignitaries. With regard to Luther himself, 
it is evident that Werner has put forth his 
■whole strength in this delineation ; and, trying 
him by common standards, we arc Air from 
saying that he has failed. Doubtless it is, in 
some respects, a significant and even subli^ne 
delineation : yet must we ask whether it is 
Luther, the Luther of History, or even the 
Luther proper for this drama; and not rather 
some ideal portraiture of Zacharias Werner 
himself! Is not this Luther, with his too as- 
siduous IhUe-playing, his trances of three days, 
his visions of the Devil, (at whom, to the sor- 
row of the housemaid, he resolutely throws his 
huge ink-bottle,) by much too spasmodic and 
brainsick a personage ? We cannot but ques- 
tion the dramatic beauty, whatever it may be 
in history, of that three days' trance; the hero 
must before this have been in want of mere 
victuals; and there, as he sits deaf and dumb, 
■with his eyes sightless, yet fixed and staring, 
are we not tempted less to admire, than to send 
in all haste for some officer of the Humani; 
Society? — Seriously, we cannot but regret 
that these and other such blemishes had not 
been avoided, and the character, worked into 
chasteness and purity, been presented to us in 
the simple grandeur which essentially belongs 
to it. For, censure as we may, it were blind- 
ness to deny that this figure of Luther has in 
it features of an austere loveliness, a mild, yet 
awful beauty : undoubtedly a figure rising from 
the depths of the poet's soul ; and, marred as it 
is with such adhesions, piercing at times into 
the depths of ours ! Among so many poetical 
sins, it forms the chief redeeming virtue, and 
truly were almost in itself a sort of atone- 
ment. 

As for the other characters, they need not 
detain us long. Of Charles the Fifth, by far 
the most ambitious, — meant, indeed, as the 
counterpoise of Luther, — we may say, without 
hesitation, that he is a failure. An empty Gas- 
con this; bragging of his power, and honour, 
and the like, in a style which Charles, even in 
his nineteenth year, could never have used. 
"One God, one Charles," is no speech for an 
emperor; and, besides, is borrowed froiri soin(.' 
panegyrist of a Spanish opera-singer. Neither 
can we fall in with Charles, when he tells us, 
that "he fears nothing, — not even God." We 
humbly think he must be mistaken. With the 
old Miners, again, with Hans Luther and his 
Wife, the Reformer's parents, there is inore 
reason to be satisfied ; yet in Werner's hands 
simplicity is always apt, in such cases, to be- 
come too simple, and these honest peasants, 
like the honest Hugo in the "Sons of the Val- 
ley," are very garrulous. 

This drama of " Martin Luther" is named 
likewise the "(Consecration of Strength;" that 
is, we suppose, the purifying of this great 
theologian from all remnants of earthly pas- 
sion, into a cl(!ar heavenly zeal; an operaliiwi 
which is brought about, strangely enough, by 
7 



two half-ghosts and one whole ghost, — a little 
fairy girl, Catharine's servant, who imper- 
simates Faith; a little fairy youth, Luther's 
servant, who represents Art ; and the " Spirit 
of Colta's wife," an honest housekeeper, but 
defunct many years before, who stands for 
Purity. These three supernaturals hover about 
in very whimsical wis<', cultivating llowers, 
playing on llntes, and singing dirge-like epitha- 
lamiums over unsound sleepers : we cannot see 
how aught of this is to "consecrate strength;" 
or, indeed, what such jack-o'-lantern person- 
ages have in the least to do with so grave a 
business. If the author intended by such 
machinery to elevate his subject from the 
Common, and unite it with the higher region 
of the Infinite and the Invisible, we cannot 
think that his contrivance has succeeded, or 
was worthy to succeed. These half-allegorical, 
half-corporeal beings yield no contentment 
anywhere : Abstract Ideas, however they may 
put on ileshly garments, are a class of charac- 
ters whom we canmn sympathize with or de- 
light in. Besides, how can this mere imbody- 
menl of an allegory be supposed to act on the 
rugged materials of life, and elevate into ideal 
grandeur the doings of real men, that live and 
move amid the actual pressure of worldly 
things? At best, it can stand but like a liand 
in till' m(irv;in : it is not pcrfornting the task pro- 
posed, but only telling us that it was meant to 
be performed. To our feelings, this entire 
episode runs like straggling bindweed through 
the whole growth of tlie piece, not so much 
uniting as encumbering and choking up what 
it meets with; in itself, perhaps, a green and 
rather pretty weed; yet here superfluous, and, 
like any other weed, deserving only to be alto- 
gether cut away. 

Our general opinion of " Martin Luther," it 
would seem, therefore, corresponds ill with that 
of the "overflowing and delighted audiences" 
over all Germany. We believe, however, that 
now, in its twentieth y(!ar, the work may be 
somewhat more calmly judged of even there. 
As a classical drama it could never pass with 
any critic ; nor, on the other hand, shall we 
ourselves deny that, in the lower sphere of a 
popular spectacle, its attractions are manifold. 
We find it, what, more or less, we find all 
Werner's pieces to be, a splendid, sparkling 
mass ; yet not of pure metal, but of many- 
coloured scoria, not unmingled with metal ; and 
must regret, as ever, tliat it had not been re- 
fined in a stronger furnace, and kept in the 
crucible till the true siZwr-ii/cam, glancing from 
it, had shown that the process was complete. 

Werner's dramatic popularity could not re- 
main without influence on him, more espe- 
cially as he was now in the very centre of its 
brilliancy, having changed his residence from 
Warsaw to Berlin, some lime before his ]Veihe 
(Icr Kraft was acted, or indeed written. Von 
Schiiitler, one of the slate-ministers, a man 
harmonizing with Werner in his" zeal both for 
religion and freemasonry," had been persuaded 
by some friends to appoint him his secretary. 
Werner naturally rejoiced in such promotion ; 
yet, combined with his theatrical success, it 
perhaps, in the long run, did him nmre barm 
than good. He might now, for the first time, 
E 



50 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



be said to see the busy and influential world 
■with his own eyes : but to draw future instruc- 
tion from it, or even to guide himself in its 
present complexities, he was little qualified. 
He took a shorter method: "he plunged into 
the vortex of society," says Hitzig, M'ilh brief ex- 
pressiveness ; became acquainted, indeed, with 
Fichte, Johannes Miiller and other excellent 
men, but united himself also, and with closer 
partiality, to players, play-lovers, and a long 
list of jovial, admiring, but highly unprofitable 
companions. His religious schemes, perhaps, 
rebutted by collision with actual life, la}' dor- 
mant for the time, or mingled in strange union 
■with wine-vapours, and the "feast of reason, 
and the flow of soul." The result of all this 
might, in some measure, be foreseen. In eight 
weeks, for example, Werner had parted with 
his wife. It was not to be expected, he writes, 
that she should be happy with him. "I am 
no bad man," continues he, with considerable 
candour; "yet a weakling in many respects, 
(for God strengthens me also in several,) fret- 
ful, capricious, greedy, impure. Thou knowest 
me ! Still, immersed in my fantasies, in my 
occupation : so that here, what with playhouses, 
what with social parties, she had no manner 
of enjoyment with me. She is innocent. I, 
too, perhaps, for can I pledge myself that I am 
so?" These repeated divorces of Werner's at 
length convinced him that he had no talent for 
managing wives ; indeed, we subsequently find 
him, more than once, arguing in dissuasion of 
marriage altogether. To our readers one other 
consideration may occur: astonishment at 
the state of marriage-law, and the strange foot- 
ing this "sacrament" must stand on throughout 
Protestant Germany. For a Christian man, at 
least not a Mohammedan, to leave three widows 
behind him, certainly wears a peculiar aspect. 
Perhaps it is saying much for German morality, 
that so absurd a system has not, by the dis- 
orders resulting from it, already brought about 
its own abrogation. 

Of Werner's further proceedings in Berlin, 
except by implication, we have little notice. 
After the arrival of the French armies, his 
secretaryship ceased ; and now wifeless and 
placeless, in the summer of 1807, " he felt him- 
self," he says, "authorized by Fate to indulge 
his taste for pilgriming." Indulge it accord- 
ingly he did ; for he wandered to and fro many 
years, nay, we may almost say to the end of 
his life, like a perfect Bedouin. The various 
stages and occurrences of his travels, he has 
himself recorded in a paper, furnished by him 
for his own Name, in some Biographical Dic- 
tionary. Hitzig quotes great part of it, but it 
is too long and too meagre for being quoted 
here. Werner was at Prague, Vienna, Munich, 
— everywhere received with open arms ; " saw 
at Jena, in December, 1807, for the first time, 
the most universal and the clearest man of his 
age, (the man whose like no one that has seen 
him will ever see again,) the great, nay, only 
Goethe; and, under his introduction, the pat- 
tern of German princes," (the Duke of 
Weimar;) and then, "after three ever-memora- 
ble months in this society, beheld at Berlin the 
triumphant entry of the pattern of European 
tyrants," (Napoleon.) On the summit of the 



Rigi, at sunrise, he became acquainted witb 
the Crown-Prince, King of Bavaria ; was by 
him introduced to the Swiss festival at In- 
terlacken, and to the most " intellectual lady 
of our time, the Baroness de Stael ;" and must 
beg to be credited when, after suihcicnt in- 
dividual experience, he can declare, that the 
heart of this high and noble woman was at 
least as great as her genius. Coppet, for a 
while, was his head quarters, but he went to 
Paris, to Weimar,* again to Switzerland; in 
short, trudged and hurried hither and thither, 
inconstant as an ignis fatims, and restless as 
the Wandering Jew. 

On his mood of mind during all this period, 
Werner gives us no direct information ; but so 
unquiet an outward life betokens of itself no 
inward repose ; and when we, from other lights, 
gain a transient glimpse into the wayfarer's 
thoughts, they seem still more fluctuating than 
his footsteps. His project of a New Religion 
was by this time abandoned: Hitzig thinks 
his closer survey of life at Berlin had taught 
him the impracticability of such chimeras- 
Nevertheless, the subject of Religion, in one 
shape or another, nay, of propagating it in new 
purity by teaching and preaching, had nowise 
vanished from his meditations. On the con- 
trary, we can perceive that it still formed the 
master-principle of his soul, "the pillar of 
cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night," 
which guided him, so far as he had any guid- 
ance, in the pathless desert of his now solitary, 
barren, and cheerless existence. What his 
special opinions or prospects on the mattei' 
had, at this period, become, we nowhere learn ; 
except, indeed, negatively, — for if he has not 
yet found the new, he still cordially enough 
detests the old. All his admiration of Luther 
cannot reconcile him to modern Lutheranism. 
This he regards but as another and more hide- 
ous impersonation of the Utilitarian spirit of the 
age, nay, as the last triumph of Infidelity, which 
has now dressed itself in priestly garb, and 
even mounted the pulpit, to preach, in heaven- 
ly symbols, a doctrine which is altogether of 
the earth. A curious passage from his pre- 
face to the "Cross on the Baltic" we may 
quote, by way of illustration. After speaking 
of St. Adalbert's miracles, and how his body, 
when purchased from the heathen for its 
weight in gold, became light as gossamer, he 
proceeds : 

" Though these things may be justly doubted ; 
yet one miracle cannot be denied him, the mi- 
racle, namely, that after his death he has ex- 
torted from this Spirit of Protestantism against 
Strength in general, — which now replaced the 
old heathen and catholic Spirit of Persecution, 
and weighs almost as much as Adalbert's body, 
— the admission, that he knew what he wanted ; 
was what he wished to be ; was so wholly ; and 
therefore must have been a man, at all points 
diametrically opposite both to that Protestant- 
ism, and to the culture of our day." In a Note, 
he adds: "There is another Protestantism, 



* It was here that Hitzi? saw him, for the last lime, 
in 1809, found admittance, through his means, tea court 
festival in honour of Bernadotte ; and he still rerollects, 
with sratification, "the lordly spectacle of Goethe and 
that sovereign standing front to front, engaged in the 
liveliest conversation." 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



Si 



however, which constitutes in Conduct, what 
Art is in Speculation, and which I reverence 
so highly, that I even place it above Art, as 
Conduct is above Speculation at all times. But 
in this, St. Adalbert and St. Luther are — col- 
leagues : and if God, which I daily pray for, 
should awaken Luther to us before the Last 
Day, Ihe first task he would find, in respect of 
that degenerate and spurious Protestantism, 
would be, in his somewhat rugged manner, to 
— protest against it." 

A similar, or perhaps still more reckless 
temper, is to be traced elsewhere, in passages 
of a gay, as well as grave character. This is 
the conclusion of a letter from Vienna, in 
1807 

"We have Tragedies here which contain so 
many edifying maxims, that you might use 
them instead of Jesus Sirach, and have them 
read from beginning to end in the Berlin Sun- 
day-schools. Comedies, likewise, absolutely 
bursting with household felicity and nobleness 
of mind. The genuine Kasperl is dead, and 
Schikander gone his ways; but here, too. Bigotry 
and Superstition are attacked in enlightened 
Journals with such profit, that the people care 
less for Popery than even you in Berlin do ; 
and prize, for instance, the Weihe der Kraft, 
which has also been declaimed in Regensburg 
and Munich to thronging audiences, — chiefly 
for the multitude of liberal Protestant opinions 
therein brought to light ; and regard the author, 
all his struggling to the contrary unheeded, as 
a secret lUuminatus, or at worst an amiable 
Enthusiast. In a word, Vienna is determined, 
without loss of time, to overtake Berlin in the 
career of improvement; and when I recollect 
that Berlin, on her side, carries Porsten's 
Hymn-book with her, in her reticule, to the 
shows in the Thiergaiicn ; and that the ray 
of Christiano-catholico-platonic Faith pierces 
deeper and deeper into your (already by nature 
very deep) Privy-councillor Mamsell, — I al- 
most fancy that Germany is one great mad- 
house ; and could find in my heart to pack up 
my goods, and set off for Italy to-morrow morn- 
ing; — not, indeed, that I might work there, 
where follies enough are to be had too ; but 
that, amid ruins and -flowers, I might forget all 
things, and myself in the first place." — Lcbens- 
Abriss, s. 70. 

To Italy accordingly he went, though with 
rather different objects, and not quite so soon 
as on the morrow. In the course of his wander- 
ings, a munificent ecclesiastical Prince, the 
Fiirst Primas von Dalberg, had settled a year- 
ly pension on him; so that now he felt still 
more at liberty to, go whither he listed. In 
the course of a second visit to Coppet, and 
which lasted four months, Madame de Stael 
encouraged and assisted him to execute his 
favourite project; he set out, through Turin 
and Florence, and " on the 9th of December, 
1809, saw, for the first lime, the capital of the 
world !" Of his proceedings here, much as 
we should desire to have minute details, no 
information is given in this narrative ; and 
Hitzig seems to know, by a letter, merely, that 
" he knelt with streaming eyes over the graves 
of St. Peter and St. Paul." This little phrase 
says much. Werner appears likewise to have 



assisted at certain " Spiritual Exercitations'"'' 
(Geistlichc Uebutigeii:) a new invention set on' 
foot at Rome for quickening the devotion of 
the faithful, consisting, so far as we can gather^ 
in a sort of fasting-and-prayer meetings, con-- 
ducted on the most rigorous principles, the^ 
considerable band of devotees being bound- 
over to strict silence, and secluded for several 
days, with conventual care, from every sort of 
intercourse with the world. The effect of these' 
Exercitations, Werner elsewhere declares, was 
edifying to an extreme degree ; at parting on- 
the threshold of their holy tabernacle, all the;' 
brethren "embraced each other, as if intoxi- 
cated with divine joy; and each confessed to- 
the other, that throughout these precious day* 
he had been, as it were, in heaven ; and now, 
strengthened as by a soul-purifying bath, was 
but loath to venture back into the cold week- 
day world." The next step from these Tabor- 
feasts, if, indeed, it had not preceded them, was 
a decisive one: "On the 19th of April, 1811, 
Werner had grace given him to return to the 
Faith of his fathers, the Catholic!" 

Here, then, the "crowning mercy "had at' 
length arrived! This passing of the Rubicon, 
determined the whole remainder of Werner's 
life, which had henceforth the merit, at least, 
of entire consistency. He forthwith set about 
the professional study of Theology ; then being' 
perfected in this, he left Italy in 1813, taking- 
care, however, by the road, " to supplicate, and 
certainly not in vain, the help of the Gracious 
Mother at Loretto; and after due preparation, 
under the superintendence of his patron, the 
Prince Archbishop von Dalberg, had himself 
ordained a Priest at Aschaffenburg, in June, 
1814, Next, from Aschaffenburg he hastened 
to Vienna ; and there, with all his might, begare 
preaching; his first auditory being the Con-' 
gress of the Holy Alliance, which had then' 
just begun its venerable sessions. "The novelty 
and strangeness," he says, "nay, originality 
of his appearance, secured him an extraor- 
dinary concourse of hearers." He was, indeed^ 
a man worth hearing and seeing ; for his name; 
noised abroad in many-sounding peals, waft 
filling all Germany from the hut to the palace,' 
This, he thinks, might have affected his head J 
but he " had a trust in God, which bore himi' 
through." Neither did he seem anywise anx-' 
ious to still this clamour of his judges, least of- 
all to propitiate his detractors : for already,- 
before arriving at Vienna, he had published,- 
as a pendant to his " Martin Luther, or the' 
Consecration of Strength," a pamphlet, in dog- 
grel metre, entitled the " Consecration of 
Weakness," wherein he proclaims himself tO' 
the whole world as an honest seeker and finder 
of truth, and takes occasion to revoke his old 
" Trinity," of art, religion, and love", love hav»- 
ing now turned out to be a dangerous ingredi- 
ent in such mixtures. The writing of this 
Weihe der Unkraft was reckoned by many a' 
bold but injudicious measure, — a throwing 
down of the gauntlet when the lists were fuh 
of tumultuous foes, and the knight was but 
weak, and his cause, at best, of the most que.s 
tionable sort. To reports, and calumnies, and 
criticisms, and vituperations, there was no 
limit. 



62 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



What remains of this strange eventful his- 
tory may be summed up in few words. Wer- 
ner accepted no special charge in the Church ; 
but continued a private and secular Priest; 
preaching diligently, but only where he him- 
self saw good ; oftenest at Vienna, but in sum- 
mer over all parts of Austria, in Styria, Carin- 
thia, and even Venice. Everywhere, he says, 
the opinions of his hearers were "violently 
divided." At one time, he thought of becom- 
ing Monk, and had actually entered on a sort 
of noviciate; but he quitted the establishment 
rather suddenly, and, as he is reported to have 
said, "for reasons known only to God and 
himself." By degrees, his health grew very 
yeak; yet he still laboured hard both in public 
and private ; writing or revising poems, devo- 
tional or dramatic; preaching, and officiating 
as father-confessor, in which last capacity he 
is said to have been in great request. Of his 
poetical productions during this period, there 
is none of any moment known to us, except the 
Mother of the Maccabees (1819); a tragedy of 
careful structure, and apparently in high favour 
with the author, but which, notwithstanding, 
need not detain us long. In our view, it is the 
worst of all his pieces ; a pale, bloodless, in- 
deed quite ghost-like affair; for a cold breath 
as from a sepulchre chills the heart in perus- 
ing it: there is no passion or interest, but a 
certain wo-struck martyr zeal, or rather frenzy, 
and this not so much storming as shrieking; 
not loud and resolute, but shrill, hysterical, and 
bleared with ineffectual tears. To read it may 
well sadden us: it is a convulsive fit, whose 
"uncontrollable writhings indicate, not strength, 
but the last decay of it.* 

Werner was, in fact, drawing to his latter 
^nd: his health had long been ruined; espe- 
cially of later years, he had suffered much 
from disorders of the lungs. In 1817, he was 
thought to be dangerously ill; and afterwards, 
in 1822, when a journey to the Baths partly 
restored him; though he himself still felt that 
his term was near, and spoke and acted like a 
man that was shortly to depart. In January, 
1823, he was evidently dying: his affairs he 
had already settled ; much of his time he spent 
in prayer; was constantly cheerful, at inter- 
vals even gay. " His death," says Hitzig, " was 
especially mild. On the eleventh day of his 
disorder, h€ felt himself, particularly towards 
evening, as if altogether light and well; so 
that he would hardly consent to have any one 
to watch with him. The servant whose turn 
it was did watch, however; he had sat down 
by the bedside between two and three next 
morning, (the 17th,) and continued there a con- 
siderable while, in the belief that his patient 
was asleep. Surprised, however, that no 
breathing was to be heard, he hastily aroused 

* Of his Attila, (1808,) his Vier-und-iwanzigste Febrvar, 
(1809,) his Cunegunde. (1814,) and various other pipces 
written in his wanderings, we have not room to speak. 
It is the less necessary, as the Jittila and Twenty -fourth 
/>f February, by much the best of these, have already bpen 
forcibly, and, on the whole, fairly characti'rized by M,t- 
«Ianie de Stael. Of the last-named little work we iniwht 
say, with double emphasis, M'ec pueros coram poputo J)/e- 
dea trucirlet : it has a deep and genuine tragic interest, 
■were it not so painfully protracted into the regions of 
pure horror. Werner's Serinons, his Ilyinvs. his Preface 
%£ Tliovias ti Kempis, i^c, are entirely unknown to us. 



the household, and it was found that Werner 
had already passed away." 

In imitation, it is thought, of Lipsius, he 
bequeathed his Pen to the treasury of the Vir- 
gin at Mariazell, " as a chief instrument of his 
aberrations, his sins, and his repentance." He 
was honourably interred at Enzersdorf on the 
Hill, where a simple inscription, composed by 
himself, begs the wanderer to " pray charitably 
for his poor soul;" and expresses a trembling 
hope that, as to Mary Magdalen, " because she 
loved much," so to him also, " much maybe 
forgiven." 

We have thus, in hurried movement, travelled 
over Zacharias Werner's Life and Works ; 
noting down from the fonner such particulars 
as seemed most characteristic; and gleaning 
from the latter some more curious passages, 
less indeed with a view to their intrinsic ex- 
cellence, than to their fitness for illustrating the 
man. These scattered indications we must 
now leave our readers to interpret each for 
himself: each will adjust them into that com- 
bination which shall best harmonize with his 
own way of thought. As a writer, Werner's 
character will occasion little difficulty. A 
richly gifted nature; but never wisely guided, 
or resolutely applied: a loving heart; an in- 
tellect subtile and inquisitive, if not always 
clear and strong; a gorgeous, deep, and bold 
imagination; a true, nay, keen and burning 
sympathy M-ith all high, all tender and holy 
things ; — here lay the main elements of no 
common poet; save only that one was still 
wanting, — the force to cultivate them, and 
mould them into pure union. But they have 
remained uncultivated, disunited, too often 
struggling in wild disorder: his poetry, like his 
life, is still not so much an edifice as a quarry. 
Werner had cast a look into perhaps the very 
deepest region of the Wonderful; but he had 
not learned to live there: he was yet no deni- 
zen of that mysterious land : and, in his visions, 
its splendour is strangely mingled and over- 
clouded with the flame or smoke of mere 
earthly fire. Of his dramas we have already 
spoken ; and with much to praise, found always 
more to censure. In his rhymed pieces, his 
shorter, morp didactic poems, we are better 
satisfied: here, in the rude, jolting vehicle of a 
certain Sternhold-and-Hopkins metre, we often 
find a strain of true pathos, and a deep, though 
quaint significance. His prose, again, is among 
the worst known to us : degraded with silliness; 
diffuse, nay, tautological, yet obscure and 
vague; contorted into endless involutions; a 
misshapen, lumbering, complected coil, well 
nigh inexplicable in its entanglements, and 
seldom worth the trouble of unravelling. He 
does not move through his subject, and arrange 
it, and rule over it; for the most part, he but 
welters in it, and laboriously tumbles it, and at 
last sinks under it. 

As a man, the ill-fated Werner can still less 
content us. His feverish, inconstant, and 
wasted life we have already looked at. Hitzig, 
his determined well-wisher, admits that in 
practice he was selfish, wearying out his best 
friends b}' the most barefaced importunities ; a 
man of no dignity ; avaricious, greedy, sensual, 
at times obscene; in discourse, with all his 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



53 



humour and heartiness, apt to be intolerably- 
long-winded; and of a maladroitness, a blank 
ineptitude, which exposed him to incessant 
ridicule and manifold mystifications from peo- 
ple of the world. Nevertheless, under all this 
rubbish, contends the friendly Biographer, 
there dwelt, for those who could look more 
narrowly, a spirit, marred indeed in its beauty, 
and languishing in painful conscious oppres- 
sion, yet never wholly forgetful of its original 
nobleness. Werner's soul was made for affec- 
tion ; and often as, under his too rude colli- 
sions with external things, it was struck into 
harshness and dissonance, there was a tone 
which spoke of melody, even in its jarrings. 
A kind, a sad, and heartfelt remembrance of 
his friends seems never to have quitted him : 
to the last he ceased not from warna love to 
men at large ; nay, to awaken in them, with 
such knowledge as he had, a sense for what 
was best and highest, may be said to have 
formed the earnest, though weak and unstable 
aim of his whole existence. The truth is, his 
defects as a writer were also his defects as a 
man: he was feeble, and without volition; in 
life, as in poetry, his endowments fell into con- 
fusion; his character relaxed itself on all sides 
into incoherent expansion; his activity became 
gigantic endeavour, followed by most dwarfish 
performance. 

The grand incident of his life, his adoption 
of the Roman Catholic religion, is one on 
which we need not heap further censure; for 
already, as appears to us, it is rather liable to 
be too harshly than too leniently dealt with. 
There is a feeling in the popular mind, which, 
in well-meant hatred of inconsistency, perhaps 
in general too sweepingly condemns such 
changes. Werner, it should be recollected, 
had at all periods of his life a religion ; nay, he 
hungered and thirsted after truth in this matter, 
as after the highest good of man ; a fact which 
of itself must, in this respect, set him far above 
the most consistent of mere unbelievers, — in 
whose barren and callous soul consistency, 
perhaps, is no such brilliant virtue. We par- 
don genial weather for its changes ; but the 
steadiest of all climates is that of Greenland. 
Further, we must say that, strange as it may 
seem, in Werner's whole conduct, both before 
and after his conversion, there is not visible 
the slightest trace of insincerity. On the whole, 
there are fewer genuine renegades than men 
are apt to imagine. Surely, indeed, that must 
be a nature of extreme baseness, who feels 
that, in worldly good, he can gain by such a 
step. Is the contempt, the execration of all 
that have known and loved us, and of millions 
that have never known us, to be weighed 
against a mess of pottage, or a piece of money ? 
We hope there are not many, even in the rank 
of sharpers, that would think so. But for Wer- 
ner there was no gain in any way ; nay, rather 
certainty of loss. He enjoyed or sought no 
patronage ; with his own resources he was 
already independent though poor, and on a 
footing of good esteem with all that was most 
estimable in his country. His little pension, 
conferred on him, at a prior date, by a Catholic 
Prince, was not continued after his conversion, 
except by the Duke of Weimar, a Protestant. 



He became a mark for calumny ; the defence- 
less butt at which every callow witling made 
his proof-shot; his character was more de- 
formed and mangled than that of any other 
man. What had he to gain? Insult and per- 
secution ; and with these, as candour bids us 
believe, the approving voice of his own con- 
science. To judge from his Avritings, he was 
far from repenting of the change he had made ; 
his Catholic faith evidently stands in his own 
mind as the first blessing of his life; and he 
clings to it as to the anchor of his soul. Scarce- 
ly more than once (in the Preface to his Muttc- 
dcr Makkabaer) does he allude to the legions of 
falsehoods that were in circulation against 
him; and it is in a spirit which, without en- 
tirely concealing the querulousness of nature, 
nowise fails in the meekness and endurance 
which became him as a Christian. Here is a 
fragment of another Paper, published since 
his death, as it was meant to be ; which ex- 
hibits him in a still clearer light. The reader 
may condemn, or what will be better, pity and 
sympathize with him ; but the structure of this 
strange piece surely bespeaks any thing but in- 
sincerity. We translate it with all its breaks 
and fantastic crotchets, as it stands before us J 

"TESTAMEXTAnr IvscRiPTiois, from Fried- 
rich Ludwig Zacharias Werner, a son," &c. — ■ 
(here follows a statement of his parentage and 
birth, with vacant spaces for the date of his 
death,) — " of the following lines, submitted to 
all such as have more or less felt any friendly 
interest in his unworthy person, with the re- 
quest to take warning by his example, and 
charitably to remember the poor soul of thd 
writer before God, in prayer and good deeds. 

"Begun at Florence, on the 24th of Septem- 
ber, about eight in the evening, amid the still 
distant sound of approaching thunder. Con- 
cluded, when and where God will ! 

" Motto, Device, and Watchword in Death : 
Remithmtur ci pcccata nmlta, quoniam dilexit muU 
turn ! .' ! — Lucas, Caput vii. v. 47. 

"N. B. Most humbly and earnestly, and in 
the name of God, does the Author of this Writ- 
ing beg, of such honest persons as may find it, 
to submit the same in any suitable way to 
public examination. 

" Fccisti nos, Dominc, ad Tc, et irrequietum est 
cor nostrum, donee reqidescat in Tc. — iS. AugustimiSt 

"Per multa dispergitur, et hie illucqv.e qucerit 
(cor) ubi requiescerc possit, et nihil invenit quod ei 
sufficiat, donee ad ipsiim (sc. Dcum) redeat. — S. 
Bernardus, 

"In the name of God the Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, Amen! 

"The thunder came hither, and is still roll- 
ing, though now at a distance. — The name of 
the Lord be praised ! Hallelujah ! — I bf.gix : 

"This Paper must needs be brief; becausr; 
the appointed term for my life itself ma)' al- 
ready be near at hand. There are not wanting 
examples of important and unimportant men> 
E 2 



M 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



.'who have left behind them in -writing the de- 
fence, or even sometimes the accusation, of 
.their earthly life. Without estimating such 
procedure, I am not minded to imitate it. With 
-trembling I reflect that I myself shall first learn 
,in its whole terrific compass what properly I 
was, when these lines shall be read by men ; 
.that is to say, in a point of Time which for me 
will be no Time ; in a condition wherein all 
.experience will for me be too late I 

Rex tremenda; majestatis, 
Qui saliwti'los salvas gratis, 
Salva vie, funs pictatis ! .' ! 

But if I, do, till that day Avhen All shall be laid 
.open, draw a veil over my past life, it is not 
snerely out of false shame that I so order it; 
for though not free from this vice also, I would 
willingly make known my guilt to all and 
^very one whom my voice might reach, could 
,1 hope, by such confession, to atone for what I 
have done; or thereby to save a single soul 
from perdition. There are two motives, how- 
.ever, which forbid me to make such an open 
persona] revelation after death : the one, because 
the unclosing of a pestilential grave may be 
dangerous to the health of the uninfected looker- 
-on ; the olher, because in my Avritings, (which 
may God forgive me !) amid a wilderness of 
poisonous weeds and garbage, there may also 
be here and there a medicinal herb lying scat- 
tered, from which poor patients, to whom it 
juight be useful, would start back with shud- 
jdering, did they know the pestiferous soil on 
which it grew. 

"So much, however, in regard to those good 
:Creatures as they call themselves, namely, to 
those feeble wealclings who brag of what they 
■designate their good hearts, — so much must I 
•say before God, that such a heart alone, when 
it is not checked and regulated by forethought 
.and steadfastness, is not only incapable of 
saving its possessor from destruction, but it is 
rather certain to hurry him, full speed, into 
that abyss, where I have been, whence I — per- 
haps! !! ! — by God's grace am snatched, and 
from which may God mercifully preserve every 
reader of these lines." — Werner's Ldzte Leben- 
stagcn, (quoted by Hitzig, p. 80.) 

" All this IS melancholy enough ; but it is not 
like the writing of a hypocrite or repentant 
apostate. To Protestantism, above all things, 
Werner shows no thought of returning. In al- 
lusion to a rumour, which had spread, of his 
having given up Catholicism, he says (in the 
Prefiice already quoted) : 

" A stupid falsehood I must reckon it; since, 
according to my deepest conviction, it is as 
impossible that a soul in Bliss should return 
back into the Grave, as that a man, who, like 
me, after a life of error and search has found 
•the priceless jewel of Truth, should, I will not 
5ay, give up the same, but hesitate to sacrifice 
for it blood and life, nay, many things perhaps 
far dearer, with joyful heart, when the one good 
£ause is concerned." 

And elsewhere in a private letter: 

'' I not only assure thee, but I beg of thee to 
assure all men, if God .should ever so withdraw 
the light of his grace from me, that I ceased to 
ps a Catholic, I would a thousand times sooner 



join myself to .Tudaism, or to the Bramins on 
the Ganges : but to that shallowest, driest, 
most contradictory, inanest Inanity of Protest- 
antism, never, never, never .'" 

Here, perhaps, there is a touch of priestly, 
of almost feminine vehemence ; for it is to a 
Protestant and an old friend that he writes : 
but the conclusion of his Preface shows him in 
a better light. Speaking of Second Parts, and 
regretting that so many of his works were un- 
finished, he adds : 

" But what specially comforts me is the pros- 
pect of — our general Second Part ; where, even 
in the first Scene, this consolation, that there 
all our works will be known, may not indeed 
prove solacing for us all : but where, through 
the strength of Him that alone completes all 
works, it will be granted to those whom He 
has saved, not only to know each other, but 
even to know Him, as by Him they are known ! 
— With my trust in Christ, whom I have 
not yet won, I regard, with the Teacher of 
the Gentiles, all things but dross that I 
may win Him ; and to him, cordially and 
lovingly do I, in life or at death, commit you 
all, my beloved Friends and my beloved Ene- 
mies !" 

On the whole, we cannot think it doubtful 
that Werner's belief was real and heartfelt. 
But how then, our wondering readers may in- 
quire, if his belief was real and not pretended, 
how then did he believe ? He, who scoffs in 
infidel style at the truths of Protestantism, by 
what alchemy did he succeed in tempering 
into credibility the harder and bulkier dogmas 
of Popery 1 Of Popery, too, the frauds and 
gross corruptions of which he has so fiercely 
exposed in his Martin Luther.' and this, more- 
over, without cancelling, or even softening his 
vituperations, long after his conversion, in the 
very last edition of that drama? To this 
question, we are far from pretending to have 
any answer that altogether satisfies ourselves; 
much less that shall altogether satisfy others. 
Meanwhile, there are two considerations which 
throw light on the difficulty for us : these, as 
some step, or at least, attempt towards a solu- 
tion of it, we shall not withhold. The first lies 
in Werner's individual character and mode of 
life. Not only was he born a mystic, not only 
had he lived from of old amid freemasonry, and 
all manner of cabalistic and other traditionary' 
chimeras; he was also, and had long been, 
what is emphaticall}' called dissolute: a word, 
which has now lost somewhat of its original 
force; but which, as applied here, is still more 
just and significant in its etymological, than 
in its common acception. He was a man dis- 
soluie ; that is, by a long course of vicious in- 
dulgences, enervated and loosened asunder. 
Everywhere in Werner's life and actions, we 
discern a mind rela.xed from its proper ten- 
sion ; no longer capable of effort and toilsome 
resolute vigilance; but floating almost pas- 
sively with the current of its impulses, in lan- 
guid, imaginative, Asiatic reverie. That such 
a man should discriminate, with sharp, fear- 
less logic, between beloved errors and unwel- 
come truths, was not to be expected. His belief 
is likely to have heen persuasion rather than cow- 
viction, both as it related to Religion^ and to 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF WERNER. 



65 



other subjects. What, or how much a man in 
this way may bring himself to believe, with such 
force and distinctness as he honestly and 
usually calls belief, there is no predicting. 

But another consideration, which we think 
should nowise be omitted, is the general state of 
religious opinion in Germany, especially among 
such minds as Werner was most apt to take 
for his examplars. To this complex and high- 
ly interesting subject, we can for the present 
do nothing more than allude. So much, how- 
ever, we may say: It is a common theory 
among the Germans, that every Creed, every 
Form of worship, is a form merely ; the mortal 
and everchanging body, in which the immortal 
and unchanging spirit of Religion is, with more 
or less completeness, expressed to the mate- 
rial eye, and made manifest and influen- 
tial among the doings of men. It is thus, for 
instance, that Johannes Miiller, in his Univer- 
sal History, professes to consider the Mosaic 
Law, the creed of Mahomet, nay, Luther's Re- 
formation ; and, in short, all other systems of 
Faith ; which he scruples not to designate, 
without special praise or censure, simply as 
Vorstellitngsarten, " modes of Representation." 
We could report equally singular things of 
Schelling and others, belonging to the philoso- 
phic class ; nay of Herder, a Protestant clergy- 
man, and even bearing high authority in the 
Church. Now, it is clear, in a country where 
such opinions are openly and generally pro- 
fessed, a change of religious creed must be 
comparatively a slight matter. Conversions 
to Catholicism are accordingly by no means 
unknown among the Germans : Friedrich 
Schlegel, and the younger Count von Stolberg, 
men, as we should think, of vigorous intellect, 
and of character above suspicion, were col- 
leagues, or rather precursors, of Werner in 
this adventure; and, indeed, formed part of 
his acquaintance at Vienna. It is but, they 
would pay perhaps, as if a melodist, inspired 
with harmony of inward inusic, should choose 
this instrument in preference to that, for giving 
voice to it: the inward inspiration is rhe grand 
concern ; and to express it, the " deep majestic 
solemn organ" of the Unchangeable Church 
maybe better fitted than the "scrannel pipe" 
of a withered, trivial, Arian Protestantism. 
That Werner, still more that Schlegel and Stol- 
berg, could, on the strength of such hypotheses, 
put off or put on their religious creed, like a 
new suit of apparel, we are far from asserting; 



they are men of earnest hearts, and seem to 
have a deep feeling of devotion : but it should 
be remembered, that what forms the ground- 
work of their religion, is professedly not De- 
monstration but Faith; and so pliant a theory 
could not but help to soften the transition from 
the former to the latter. That some such prin- 
ciple, in one shape or another, lurked in 
Werner's mind, we think we can perceive 
from several indications ; among others, from 
the Prologue to his last tragedy, where, mys- 
teriously enough, under the emblem of a Phoe- 
nix, he seems to be shadowing forth the histo- 
ry of his own Faith; and represents himself 
even then as merely " climbing the tree, where 
the pinions of his Phoenix la.st vanished :'' but 
not hoping to regain that blissful vision, till his 
eyes shall have been opened by death. 

On the whole, we must not pretend to under- 
stand Werner, or expound him with scientific 
rigour: acting many times with only half con- 
sciousness, he was always, in some degree, an 
enigma to himself, and may well be obscure to 
us. Above all, there are mysteries and un- 
sounded abysses in every human heart ; and 
that is but a questionable philosophy which 
undertakes so readily to explain them. Reli- 
gious belief especially, at least when it seems 
heartfelt and well-intentioned, is no subject 
for harsh or even irreverent investigation. 
He is a wise man that, having such a belief, 
knows and sees clearly the grounds of it in 
himself: and those, we imagine, who have 
explored with strictest scrutiny the secret of 
their own bosoms, will be least apt to rush 
with intolerant violence into that of other 
men's. 

"The good Werner," says Jean Paul, "fell, 
like our more vigorous Hoffmann, into the po- 
etical fermenting vat (Gdhrbotlich) of our time, 
where all Literatures, Freedoms, Tastes, and 
Untastes are foaming through each other: and 
where all is to be found, excepting truth, dili- 
gence, and the polish of the file. Both would 
have come forth clearer had they studied in 
Lessing's day."* We cannot justify Werner : 
yet let him be condemned with pity! And 
well were it could each of us apply to him- 
self those words, which Hitzig, in his friendl}^ 
indignation, would "thunder in the ears " of 
many a German gainsayer : Take thou the beam 
out of thive own eye ; then shall thou see clearly to 
take the mote out of thy brother's. 



* Letter to Hitzig, in Jean PauVs Leben, by Doering. 



56 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



^ 



GOETHE^S HELENA/ 



[Foreign Review, 1828.] 



NovAns has rather tauntingly asserted of 
Goethe, that the grand law of his being is to 
conclude whatsoever he undertakes ; that, let, 
him engage in any task, no matter what its 
difficulties or how small its worth, he cannot 
quit it till he has mastered its whole secret, 
finished it, and made the result of it his own. 
This, surely, whatever Novalis might think, is 
a quality of which it is far safer to have too 
much than too little ; and if, in a friendlier 
spirit, we admit that it does strikingly belong 
to Goethe, these his present occupations will 
not seem out of harmony with the rest of his 
life ; but rather it may be regarded as a sin- 
gular constancy of fortune, which now allows 
him, after completing so many single enter- 
prizes, to adjust deliberately the details and 
combination of the whole; and thus, in per- 
fecting his individual works, to put the last 
hand to the highest of all his works, his own 
literary character, and leave the impress of it 
to posterity in that form and accompaniment 
which he himself reckons fittest. For the last 
two years, as many of our readers may know, 
the venerable Poet has been employed in a pa- 
tient and thorough revisal of all his Writings; 
an edition of which, designated as the " complete 
and final" one, was commenced in 1827, under 
external encouragements of the most flattering 
sort, and with arrangements for private co-ope- 
ration, which, as we learn, have secured the 
constant progress of the work '• against every 
accident." The first Lieferung, of five vo- 
lumes, is now in our hands; a second of like 
extent, we understand to be already on its way 
hither ; and thus by regular " Deliveries," 
from half-year to half-year, the whole Forty 
Volumes are to be completed in 1831. 

To the lover of German literature, or of 
literature in general, this undertaking will not 
be indifferent: considering, as he ifiust do, the 
works of Goethe to be among the most import- 
ant which Germany for some centuries has 
sent forth, he will value their correctness and 
completeness for its own sake ; and not the 
less, as forming the conclusion of a long pro- 
cess to which the last step was still wanting ; 
whereby he may not only enjoy the result, but 
instruct himself by following so great a mas- 
ter through the changes which led to it. We 
can now add, that, to the mere book-collector 
also, the business promises to be satisfactory. 
This Edition, avoiding any attempt at splen- 
dour or unnecessary decoration, ranks, never- 
theless, in regard to accuracy, convenience, 
and true, simple elegance, among the best spe- 
cimens of German typography. The cost, too, 



* Goethe's Scimmtlklie fVerke. Vollsfavdige Ausgabe 
letiter Hand. (Goethe's Collective Works. Complete 
Edition, with his final Corrections.) First Portion, vols. 
i — V. 16nio and Svo. Cotta : Stuttgard & Tubingen. 
1827. 



seems moderate; so that, on every account, 
we doubt not but that these tasteful volumes 
will spread far and wide in their own country, 
and by and by, we may hope, be met with here 
in many a British library. 

Hitherto, in the First Portion, we have found 
little, or no alteration of what was already 
known; but, in return, some changes of ar- 
rangement; and, what is more important, 
some additions of heretofore unpublished 
poems ; in particular, a piece entitled " Helena, 
a cl(issico-ro7iianlic l'hani(tsm<tgorin" which oc- 
cupies some eighty pages of Volume Fourth. 
It is to this piece that we now propose direct- 
ing the attentioii of our readers. Such of 
these, as have studied Helena for themselves, 
must have felt how little calculated it is, either 
intrinsically or by its extrinsic relations and 
allusions, to be rendered very interesting or 
even very intelligible to the English public, 
and may incline to augur ill of our enterprise. 
Indeed, to our own eyes it already looks dubi- 
ous enough. But the dainty little " Phantas- 
magoria," it would appear, has become a 
subject of diligent and truly wonderful specu- 
lation to our German neighbours ; of which, 
also, some vague rumours seem now to have 
reached this country, and these likely enough 
to awaken on all hands a curiosity,* which, 
whether intelligent or idle, it were a kind of 
good deed to allay. In a Journal of this sort, 
what iitile light on such a matter is at our 
disposal may naturally be looked for. 

Helena, like many of Goethe's works, by no 
means carries its significance written on its 
forehead, so that he who runs ma)^ read ; but, 
on the contraiy, it is enveloped in a certaia 
mystery, under coy disguises, which, to hasty 
readers, may not be only offensively obscure, 
but altogether provoking and impenetrable.. 
Neither is this any new thing with Goethe. 
Often has he produced compositions, both in. 
prose and verse, which bring critic and com- 
mentator into straits, or even to a total non- 
plus. Some we have, wholly parabolic; some 
half-literal, half-parabolic ; these latter are oc- 
casionally studied, by dull heads, in the literal 
sense alone; and not only studied, but con- 
demned : for, in truth, the outward meaning 
seems unsatisfactory enough, were it not that 
ever and anon we are reminded of a cunning, 
manifold meaning which lies hidden under 
it; and incited by capricious beckonings to 
evolve this, more and more completely, from 
its quaint concealment. 

Did we believe that Goethe adopted this 
mode of writing as a vulgar lure, to confer on 
his poems the interest which might belong to 

* See, for instance, the " AthenEPum," No. vii,, where 
an article stands headed with these words : Faust, 
Helen of Troy, and Lord Byron. 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



5T 



so many charades, we should hold it a very 
poor proceeding. Of this most readers of 
Groethe will know that he is incapable. Such 
juggleries, and uncertain anglings for distinc- 
tion, are a class of accomplishments to which 
he has never made any pretension. The truth 
is, this style has, in many cases, its own ap- 
propriateness. Certainly, in all matters of 
Business and Science, in all expositions of 
fact or argument, clearness and ready compre- 
hensibility are a great, often an indispensable, 
object. Nor is there any man belter aware of 
this principle than Goethe, or who more rigo- 
rously adheres to it, or more happily exempli- 
fies it, wherever it seems applicable. But in 
this, as in many other respects. Science and 
Poetry, having separate purposes, may have 
each its several law. If an artist has con- 
ceived his subject in the secret shrine of his 
own mind, and knows, with a knowledge be- 1 
yond all power of cavil, that it is true and pure, 
he may choose his own manner of exhibiting 
it, and will generally be the fittest to choose it 
well. One degree of light, he may find, will 
beseem one delineation; quite a different de- 
gree of light another. The Face of Agamem- 
non was not painted but hidden in the old Pic- 
ture : the Veiled Figure at Sais was the most 
expressive in the Temple. In fact, the grand 
point is to have a meaning, a genuine, deep, 
and noble one ; the proper form for embodying 
this, the form best suited to the subject and to 
the author, will gather round it almost of its 
own accord. We profess ourselves unfriendly 
to no mode of communicating Truth ; which 
we rejoice to meet with in all shapes, from that 
of the child's Catechism to the deepest poetical 
Allegory. Nay, the Allegory itself may some- 
times be the truest part of the matter. John 
Bunyan, we hope, is nowise our best theolo- 
gian ; neither, unhappily, is theology our most 
attractive science ; yet, which of our compends 
and treatises, nay, which of our romances and 
poems, lives in such mild sunshine as the good 
old Pilgriins Progress, in the memory of so many 
men 1 

Under Goethe's management, this style of 
composition has often a singular charm. The 
reader is kept on the alert, ever conscious of 
his own active co-operation; light breaks on 
him, and clearer and clearer vision, by degrees ; 
till at last the whole lovely Shape comes forth, 
definite, it may be, and bright with heavenly 
radiance, or fading, on this side and that, into 
vague expressive mystery ; but true in both 
cases, and beautiful with nameless enchant- 
ments, as the poet's own eye may have beheld 
it. We love it the more for the labour it has 
given us; we almost feel as if we ourselves 
had assisted in its creation. And herein lies 
the highest merit of a piece, and the proper art 
of reading it. We have not read an author till 
we have seen his object, whatever it may be, 
as he saw it. It is a matter of reasoning, and 
has he reasoned stupidly and falsely 1 We 
should understand the circumstances which to 
his mind made it .seem true, or persuaded him 
to write it, knowing that it was not so. In any 
other way we do him injustice if we judge him. 
Is it of poetry] His words are so many sym- 
bols, to which we ourselves must furnish the 



interpretation ; or they remain, as in all prosaic 
minds the words of poetry ever do, a dead 
letter: indications they are, barren in them- 
selves, but by following which, we also may 
reach, or approach, that Hill of Vision where 
the poet stood, beholding the glorious scene 
which it is the purport of his poem to show 
others. A reposing state, in which the Hill were 
brought under us, not we obliged to mount it, 
might, indeed, for the present be more conve- 
nient; but, in the end, it could not be equally 
satisfying. Continuance of passive pleasure, 
it should never be forgotten, is here, as under 
all conditions of mortal existence, an impossi 
bility. Everywhere in life, the true question is,. 
not what we gain, but what we do: so also in 
intellectual matters, in conversation, in read- 
ing, which is more precise and careful con- 
versation, it is not what we receive, but what we 
are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits 
us. True, the mass of readers will object; be- 
cause, like the mass of men, they are too indo- 
lent. But if any one affect, not the active and 
watchful, but the passive and somnolent line 
of study, are there not writers, expressly 
fashioned for him, enough and to spare 1 It is 
but the smaller number of books that become 
more instructive by a second perusal: the 
great majority are as perfectly plain as perfect 
triteness can make them. Yet, if time is pre- 
cious, no book that will not improve by re- 
peated readings deserves to be read at all.. 
And were there an artist of a right spirit; a 
man of wisdom, conscious of his high voca- 
tion, of whom we could know beforehand that 
he had not written without purpose and earnest 
meditation, that he knew what he had written, 
and had imbodied in it, more or less, the crea- 
tions of a deep and noble soul, — should we not 
draw near to him reverently, as disciples to a 
master; and what task could there be more 
profitable than to read him as we have de- 
scribed, to study him even to his minutest 
meanings 1 For, were not this to think as he 
had thought, to see with his gifted eyes, to 
make the very mood and feeling of his great 
and rich mind the mood also of our poor and 
little one] It is under the consciousness of 
some such mutual relation that Goethe writes, 
and his countrymen now reckon themselves 
bound to read him; a relation singular, we 
might say solitary, in the present time ; but 
which it is ever necessary to bear in mind in 
estimating his literary procedure. 

To justify it in this particular, much more 
might be said, were it our chief business at 
present. But what mainly concerns us here, 
is, to know that such, justified or not, is the 
poet's manner of writing; which also must 
prescribe for us a correspondent manner of 
studying him, if we study him at all. For the 
rest, on this latter point he nowhere expresses 
any undue anxiety. His works have invaria 
bly been sent forth without preface, without 
note or comment of any kind ; but left, some 
times plain and direct, sometimes dim and 
t3'pical, in what degree of clearness or obscu 
rity he himself may have judged best, to be 
scanned, and glossed, and censured, and dis 
tortcd, as might please the innumerable multi- 
tude of critics ; to whose verdict he has been. 



58 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



for a great part of his life, accused of listening 
with unwarrantable composure. Helena is no 
exception to that practice, but rather among 
the strong instances of it. This Interlude to 
Faust presents itself abruptly, under a charac- 
ter not a little enigmatic ; so that, at first view, 
we know not well what to make of it ; and only 
after repeated perusals, will the scattered 
glimmerings of significance begin to coalesce 
into continuous light, and the whole, in any 
measure, rise before us with that greater or less 
degree of coherence which it may have had in 
the mind of the poet. Nay, after all, no perfect 
clearness may be attained, but only various 
approximations to it; hints and half glances 
of a meaning, which is still shrouded in vague- 
ness ; nay, to the just picturing of which this 
very vagueness was essential. For the whole 
piece has a dream-like character; and, in these 
cases, no prudent soothsayer will be altogether 
confident. To our readers we must now en- 
deavour, so far as possible, to show both the 
dream and its interpretation : the former as it 
stands written before us ; the latter from our 
own private conjecture alone; for of those 
strange German comments we yet know no- 
thing, except by the faintest hearsay. 

Helena forms part of a continuation to Faust ,- 
but, happily for our present undertaking, its 
connection with the latter work is much looser 
than might have been expected. We say, 
happily; because Faust, though considerably 
talked of in England, appears still to be nowise 
known. We have made it our duty to inspect 
the English translation of Fai'st, as well as the 
Extracts Avhich accompany Retzsch's Outlines ; 
and various disquisitions and animadversions, 
vituperative or laudatory, grounded on these 
two works ; but, unfortunately, have found 
there no cause to alter the above persuasion. 
Faxist is emphatically a work of Art; a work 
matured in the mysterious depths of a vast and 
wonderful mind; and bodied forth with that 
truth and curious felicity of composition, in 
which this man is generally admitted to have 
no living rival. To reconstruct such a work 
in another language; to show it in its hard yet 
graceful strength; with those slight witching 
trails of pathos or of sarcasm, those glimpses 
of solemnity or terror, and so many reflexes 
and evanescent echoes of meaning, which con- 
nect it in strange union with the whole Infinite 
of thought, — were business for a man of difler- 
ent powers than has yet attempted German 
translation among us. In fact, Faust is to be 
read not once but many times, if we would un- 
derstand it: every line, every word has its pur- 
port; and only in such minute inspection will 
the essential significance of the poem display 
itself. Perhaps it is even chiefly by following 
these fainter traces and tokens, that the true 
point of vision for the whole is discovered to 
us; and we stand at last in the proper scene 
of Faust; a wild and wondrous region, where, 
in pale light, the primeval Shapes of Chaos, 
— as it were, the Foundations of Being itself, — 
seem to loom forth, dim and huge, in the vague 
Immensity around us; and the life and nature 
of man, with its brief interests, its miserj" and 
sin, its mad passion and poor frivolity, struts 
and frets its hour, encompassed and overlooked 



by that stupendous All, of which it forms an 
indissoluble though so mean a fraction. He 
who would study all this must for a long time, 
we are afraid, be content to study it in the 
original. 

But our English criticisms of Faust have 
been of a still more unedifying sort. Let any 
man fancy the (Edipus Tyramms discovered for 
the first time, translated from an unknown 
Greek manuscript, by some ready-writing 
manufacturer, and "brought out" at Drury 
Lane, with new music, made as " apothecaries 
make new mixtures, by pouring out of one. 
vessel into another!" Then read the theatrical 
report in the morning Papers, and the Maga- 
zines of next month. Was not the whole afiiair 
rather " heavy 1" How indifterent did the 
audience sit; how little use was made of the 
handkerchief, except by such as took snuflf! 
Did not CEdipus somewhat remind us of a 
blubbering schoolboy, and Jocasta of a decayed 
milliner? Confess that the plot was mon- 
strous; nay, considering the marriage-law of 
England, highly immoral. On the whole, what 
a singular deficiency of taste must this Sopho- 
cles have laboured under! But probably he 
was excluded from the " society of the influ- 
ential classes :" for, after all, the man is not 
without indications of genius: had u-e had the 
training of him, — And so on, through all the 
variations of the critical cornpipe. 

So might it have fared with the ancient Gre- 
cian; for so has it fared with the only modern 
that writes in a Grecian spirit. This treat- 
ment of Faust may deserve to be mentioned, 
for various reasons; not to be lamented over, 
because, as in much more important instances, 
it is inevitable, and lies in the nature of the 
case. Besides, a better state of things is evi- 
dently enough coming round. By and by, the 
labours, poetical and intellectual, of the Ger- 
mans, as of other nations, will appear before 
us in their true shape; and Fmist, among the 
rest, will have justice done it. For ourselves, 
it were unwise presumption, at any time, to 
pretend opening the full poetical significance 
oi Faust ; nor is this the place for making such 
an attempt. Present purposes will be answer- 
ed if we can point out some general features 
and bearings of the piece; such as to exhibit 
its relation with Helena: by what contrivances 
this latter has been intercalated into it, and 
how far the strange picture and the strange 
framing it is inclosed in correspond. 

The story of Faust forms one of the most 
remarkable productions of the Middle Ages; 
or rather, it is the most striking embodiment 
of a highly remarkable belief, which originated 
or prevailed in those ages. Considered strictly, 
it may take the rank of a Christian mythus, in 
the same sense as the story of Prometheus, of 
Titan, and the like, are Pagan ones; and to 
our keener inspection, it will disclose a no less 
impressive or characteristic aspect of the same 
human nature, — here bright, joyful, self-confi- 
dent, smiling even in its sternness; there deep, 
meditative, awe-struck, austere, — in which both 
they and it took their rise. To us, in these 
days, it is not easy to estimate how this story 
of Faust, invested with its magic and infernal 
horrors, must have harrowed up the souls of a 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



59 



rude and earnest people, in an age -when its 
dialect was not yet obsolete, and such contracts 
■with the principle of Evil were thought not 
only credible in general, but possible to every 
individual auditor who here shuddered at the 
mention of them. The day of Magic has gone 
by; Witchcraft has been put a stop to by act 
of parliament. But the mysterious relations 
which it emblemed still continue ; the Soul of 
Man still fights with the dark influences of 
Ignorance, Misery, and Sin; still lacerates 
itself, like a captive bird, against the iron 
limits which Necessity has drawn round it; 
still follows False Shows, seeking peace and 
good on paths where no peace or good is to be 
found. In this sense, Faust may still be con- 
sidered as true ; nay, as a truth of the most 
impressive sort, and one which will always 
remain true. To body forth, in modern sym- 
bols, a feeling so old and deep-rooted in our 
whole European way of thought, were a task 
not unworthy of the highest poetical genius. 
In Germany, accordingly, it has several times 
been attempted, and with very various success. 
Klinger has produced a Romance of Faust, full 
of rugged sense, and here and there not with- 
out considerable strength of delineation ; yet, 
on the whole, of an essentially unpoetical cha- 
racter; dead, or living with only a mechanical 
life ; coarse, almost gross, and, to our minds, 
far too redolent of pilch and bitumen. Maler 
Miiller's Faust, which is a Drama, must be re- 
garded as a much more genial performance, so 
far as it goes ; the secondary characters, the 
Jews and rakish Students, often remind us of 
our own Fords and Marlowes. His main per- 
sons, however, Faust and the Devil, are but 
inadequately conceived; Faust is little more 
than self-willed, supercilious, and, alas, insol- 
vent; the Devils, above all, are savage, long- 
winded, and insufferably noisy. Besides, the 
piece has been left in a fragmentary state; it 
can nowise pass as the best work of Miiller's.* 
Klingemann's Faust, which also is (or lately 
was) a Drama, we have never seen ; and have 
only heard of it as of a tawdry and hollow 



* Frederic Miiller (more commonly called Maler, or 
Painter Miiller) is here, so far as we know, named for 
Ihe first time to English readers. Nevertheless, in any 
solid study of German literature, this author must take 
precedence of many hundreds whose reputation has tra- 
velled faster. But Miiller has been unfortunate in his 
•own country, as well as here. At an early age, meeting 
with no success as a poet, he quitted that art for paint- 
ing ; and retired, perhaps in disgust, into Italy ; where 
also but little preferment seems to have awaited him. 
His writings, after almost half a century of neglect, were 
at length brought into sight and general estimation by 
Ludwig Tieck ; at a time when the author might indeed 
say, that he was "old and could not enjoy it, solitary 
and could not impart it," but not, unhappily, that he was 
'•known and did not want it," for his fiiie genius had 
yet made for itself no free way amid so many obstruc- 
tions, and still continued unrewarded and unrecognised. 
His paintings, chiefly of still-life and animals, are said 
lo possess a true though no very extraordinary merit : 
but of his poetry we will venture to assert that it be- 
speaks a genuine feeling and talent, nav, rises at times 
even into the higher regions of Art. Hi's Jldnm's Jitoak- 
ening, his Sal i/r Mopsus, his J\russkerven (Nutshelling), 
informed as they are with simple kindly strength, with 
clear vision, and love of nature, are incomparably the 
best German or, indeed, modern Idyls ; his " Genovevu" 
will still stand reading, even with that of Tieck. These 
things are now acknowledged among the Germans ; but 
to Miiller the acknowledgment is of no avail. He died 
some two years ago at Rome, where he seems to have 
subsisted latterly as a sort of picture-cicerone. 



article, suited for immediate use, and immedi- 
ate oblivion. 

Goethe, we believe, was the first who tried 
this subject; and is, on all hands, considered 
as by far the most successful. His manner of 
treating it appears to us, so far as we can un- 
derstand it, peculiarly just and happy. He 
retains the supernatural vesture of the story, 
but retains it with the consciousness, on his 
and our part, that it is a chimera. His artr 
magic comes forth in doubtful twilight; vague 
in its outline ; interwoven everywhere with 
light sarcasm ; nowise as a real Object, but as 
a real Shadow of an Object, which is also 
real, yet lies beyond our horizon, and, except 
in its shadows, cannot itself be seen. Nothing 
were simpler than to look into this poem for a 
new "Satan's Invisible World displayed," or 
any effort to excite the skeptical minds of these 
days by goblins, wizards, and other infernal 
ware. Such enterprises belong to artists of a 
different species : Goethe's Devil is a culti- 
vated personage, and acquainted with the 
modern sciences ; sneers at witchcraft and 
the black-art, even while employing them, as 
heartily as any member of the French Insti- 
tute ; for he is a pldlosophe, and doubts most 
things, nay, half disbelieves even his own ex- 
istence. It is not without a cunning effort that 
all this is managed; but managed, in a consi- 
derable degree, it is ; for a world of magic is 
opened to us which, we might almost sa}', we 
feel to be at once true and not true. 

In fact, Mephistopheles comes before us, 
not arrayed in the terrors of Cocytus and Phle- 
gethon, but in the natural indelible deformity 
of Wickedness; he is the Devil, not of Super- 
stition, but of Knowledge. Here is no cloven 
foot, or horns and tail : he himself informs us 
that, during the late march of intellect, the 
very Devil has participated in the spirit of the 
age, and laid these appendages aside. Doubt- 
less, Mephistopheles "has the manners of a 
gentleman ;" he " knows the world ;" nothing 
can exceed the easy tact with which he ma- 
nages himself; his wit and sarcasm are unli- 
mited ; the cool heartfelt contempt v.nth which 
he despises all things, human and divine, 
might make the fortune of half a dozen "fel- 
lows about town." Yet, wilhal, he is a devil 
in very deed ; a genuine Son of Night. He 
calls himself the Denier, and this truly is his 
name ; for, as Voltaire did with historical 
doubt, so does he with all moral appearances; 
settles them with a N'ca croycz ricn. The 
shrewd, all-informed intellect he has, is an at- 
torney mtellect ; it can contradict, but it cannot 
affirm. With lynx vision, he descries at a 
glance the ridiculous, the unsuitable, the bad; 
but for the solemn, the noble, the worthy, he is 
blind as his ancient Mother. Thus does he go 
along, qualifying, confuting, despising; on all 
hands detecting the false, but without force to 
bring forth, or even to discern, any glimpse 
of the true. Poor Devil ! what truth should 
there be for him T To see Falsehood is his 
only truth : falsehood and evil are the rul-e, 
truth and good the exception which confirms 
it. He can believe in nothing, but in his own 
self-conceit, and in the indestructible baseness, 
folly, and hypocrisy of men. For him, virtue 



60 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



is some bubble of the blood : "it stands written 
on his face that he never loved a livings soul." 
Nay, he cannot even hate: at Faust himself 
he has no grudge; he merely tempts him by 
way of experiment, to pass the time scientifi- 
cally. Such a combination of perfect Under- 
standing with perfect Selfishness, of logical 
Life with moral Death ; so universal a denier, 
both in heart and head, — is undoubtedly a 
child of Darkness, an emissary of the pri- 
meval Nothing ; and coming forward, as he 
does, like a person of breeding, and without 
any flavour of Brimstone, may stand here, in 
his merely spiritual deformity, at once potent, 
dangerous, and contemptible, as the best and 
only genuine Devil of these latter times. 

In strong contrast with this impersonation 
of modern worldly-mindedness, stands Faust 
himself, by nature the antagonist of it, but des- 
tined also to be its victim. If Mephistopheles 
represent the spirit of Denial, Faust may re- 
present that of Inquiry and Endeavour: the 
two are, by necessity, in conflict ; the light 
and the darkness of man's life and mind. In- 
trinsically, Faust is a noble being, though no 
wise one. His desires are towards the high 
and true; nay, with a whirlwind impetuosity 
he rushes forth over the Univers-e to grasp ail 
excellence ; his heart yearns towards the infi- 
nite and the invisible : only that he knows not 
the conditions under which alone this is to be 
attained. Confiding in his feeling of himself, 
he has started with the tacit persuasions, so 
natural to all men, that hr at least, however it 
may fare with others, shall and must be happy ; 
a deep-seated, though only half-conscious con- 
viction lurks in him, that wherever he is not 
successful, fortune has dealt with him unjustly. 
His purposes are fair, nay, generous: why 
should he not prosper in them ? For in ail 
his lofty aspirings, his strivings after truth 
and more than human greatness of mind, it 
has never struck him to inquire how he, the 
striver, was warranted for such enterprises ; 
with what faculty Nature had equipped him; 
within what limits she had hemmed him in; 
by what right he pretended to be happy, or 
could, some short space ago, have pretended 
to be at all. Experience, indeed, will teach 
him, for " Experience is the best of school- 
masters ; only the school-fees are heavy." As 
yet, too, disappointment, which fronts him on 
every hand, rather maddens than instructs. 
Faust has spent his youth and manhood, not 
as others do in the sunny crowded paths of 
profit, or among the rosy bowers of pleasure, 
but darkly and alone in the search of Truth : 
is it fit that Truth should now hide herself, 
and his sleepless pilgrimage towards Know- 
ledge and Vision end in the pale shadow of 
Doubt 1 To his dream of a glorious higher 
happiness, all earthly happiness has been sa- 
crificed; friendship, love, the social rewards 
of ambition were cheerfully cast aside, for his 
eye and his heart were bent on a region of 
clear and supreme good ; and now, in its stead, 
he finds isolation, silence, and despair. What 
solace remains 1 Virtue once promised to be 
her own reward; but because she does not 
pay him in the current coin of worldly enjoy- 
ment, he reckons her too a delusion; and, like 



Brutus, reproaches as a shadow, what he once 
worshipped as a substance. Whither shall 
he now tend? For his loadstars have gone 
out one by one; and as the darkness fell, the 
strong and steady wind has changed into a 
fierce and aimless tornado. Faust calls him- 
self a monster, "without object, yet without 
rest." The vehement, keen, and stormful na- 
ture of the man is stung into fury, as he thinks 
of all he has endured and lost; he broods in 
gloomy meditation, and, like Bellerophon, 
wanders apart, "eating his own heart;" or 
bursting into fiery paroxysms, curses man's 
whole existence as a mockery ; curses hope, 
and faith, and joy, and care, and what is worst, 
"curses patience more than all the rest." Had 
his weak arm the power, he could smite the 
Universe asunder, as at the crack of Doom, 
and hurl his own vexed being along with it 
into the silence of Annihilation. 

Thus Faust is a man who has quitted the 
wa5^s of vulgar men, without light to guide him 
on a better way. No longer restricted by the 
sympathies, the common interests and common 
persuasions by which the mass of mortals, each 
individually ignorant, nay, it may be, stolid, 
and altogether blind as to the proper aim of 
life, are yet held together, and like stones in 
the channel of a torrent, by their ver)' multi- 
tude and mutal collision, are made to move with 
some regularit}'-, — he is still but a slave; the 
slave of impulses, which are stronger, not truer 
or better, and the more unsafe that they are soli- 
tary. He sees the vulgar of mankind happy ; 
but happy only in their baseness. Himseif he 
feels to be peculiar ; the victim of a strange, 
an unexampled destiny; not as other men, he 
is " tvith them, not of them." There is misery 
here ; nay, as Goethe has elsewhere wisely 
remarked, the beginning of madness itself. It 
is only in the sentiment of companionship that 
men feel safe and assured ; to all doubts and 
mysterious " questionings of destinj-," their sole 
satisfying answer is. Others do and suffer the like. 
Were it not for this, the dullest day-drudge of 
Mammon might think himself into unspeak- 
able abysses of despair; for he, too, is "fear- 
fully and wonderfully made ;" Infinitude and 
Incomprehensibility surround him on this hand 
and that; and the vague spectre Death, silent 
and sure as Time, is advancing at all moments 
to sweep him away for ever. But he answers. 
Others do and suffer the like ; and plods along 
without misgivings. Were there but One Man 
in the world, he would be a terror to himself; 
and the highest man not less so than the low- 
est. Now it is as this One Man that Faust re- 
gards himself; he is divided from his fellows; 
cannot answer with them. Others do the like : and 
yet, wh}^ or how he specially is to do or suffer 
will nowhere reveal itself. For he is still "in 
the gall of bitterness ;" Pride and an entire 
uncompromising, though secret love of Self, 
are still the mainsprings of his conduct. 
Knowledge with him is precious only be- 
cause it is power; even virtue he would love 
chiefly as a finer sort of sensuality, and be- 
cause it was his virtue. A ravenous hunger 
for enjoyment haunts him everywhere ; the 
stinted allotments of earthly life are as a 
mockery to him : to the iron law of Force he 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



61 



will not yield, for his heart, though torn, is yet 
unweakened, and till Humility shall open his 
eyes, the soft law of Wisdom will be hidden 
from him. 

To invest a man of this character with su- 
pernatural powers is but enabling him to re- 
peat his error on a larger scale, to play the 
same false game with a deeper and more 
ruinous stake. Go where he may, he will " find 
himself again in a conditional world ;" widen 
his sphere as he pleases, he will find it again 
encircled by the empire of Necessity; the gay 
island of Existence is again but a fraction of 
the ancient realm of Night. Were he all-wise 
and all-powerful, perhaps he might be content- 
ed and virtuous ; scarcely otherwise. The 
poorest human soul is infinite in wishes, and 
the infinite Universe was not made for one, 
but for all. Vain were it for Faust, by heap- 
ing height on height, to struggle towards infi- 
nitude ; while to that law of Self-denial, by 
which alone man's narrow destiny may become 
an infinitude within itself, he is still a stran- 
ger. Such, however, is his attempt: not in- 
deed incited by hope, but goaded on by des- 
pair, he unites himself with the Fiend, as 
with a stronger though a wicked agency ; reck- 
less of all issues, if so were that by these means 
the craving of his heart might be stayed, and 
the dark secret of Destiny unravelled or for- 
gotten. 

It is this conflicting union of the higher 
nature of the soul with the lower elements of 
human life; of Faust, the son of Light and 
Free-will, with the influences of Doubt, Denial, 
and Obstruction, or Mephistopheles, who is 
the symbol and spokesman of these, that the 
poet has here proposed to delineate. A high 
problem ; and of which the solution is yet far 
from completed ; nay, perhaps, in a poetical 
sense, is not, strictly speaking, capable of com- 
pletion. For it is to be remarked that, in this 
contract with the Prince of Darkness, little or 
no mention or allusion is made to a Future 
Life; whereby it might seem as if the action 
was not intended, in the manner of the old 
Legend, to terminate in Faust's perdition; but 
rather as if an altogether diff"erent end must 
be provided for him. Faust, indeed, wild and 
wilful as he is, cannot be regarded as a wicked, 
much less as an utterly reprobate man : we do 
not reckon him ill-intentioned, but misguided 
and miserable; he fails into crime, not by 
purpose, but by accident and blindness. To 
send him to the Pit of Wo, to render such a 
character the eternal slave of Mephistopheles, 
would look like making darkness triumphant 
over light, blind force over erring reason ; or, 
at best, were cutting the Gordian knot, not 
loosing it. If we mistake not, Goethe's Faust 
will have a finer moral than the old nursery- 
tale, or the other plays and tales that have been 
founded on it. Our seared and blighted, yet 
still noble Faust, will not end in the madness 
of horror, but in Peace grounded on better 
Knowledge. Whence that Knowledge is to 
come, what higher and freer world of Art or 
Religion may be hovering in the mind of the 
poet, we will not try to surmise : perhaps in 
bright aerial emblematic glimpses, he may yet 
show it us, transient and afar off, yet clear 



with orient beauty, as a Land of Wonders, and 
new Poetic Heaven. 

With regard to that part of the work already 
finished, we must here say little more. Faust, 
as it yet stands, is, indeed, only a stating of 
the difficulty; but a stating of it wisely, truly, 
and with deepest poetic emphasis. For how 
many living hearts, even now imprisoned in 
the perplexities of Doubt, do these wild pierc- 
ing tones of Faust, his withering agonies and 
fiery desperation, " speak the word they have 
long been waiting to hear !" A nameless pain 
had long brooded over the soul: here, by some 
light touch, it starts into form and voice; we 
see it and know it, and see that another also 
knew it. This Fmist is as a mystic Oracle for 
the mind; a Dodona grove, where the oaks 
and fountains prophesy to us of our destiny, 
and murmur unearthly secrets. 

How all this is managed, and the poem so 
curiously fashioned; how the clearest insight 
is combined with the keenest feeling, and the 
noblest and wildest imagination; by what soft 
and skilful finishing these so heterogeneous 
elements are blended in fine harmony, and the 
dark world of spirits, with its merely meta- 
physical entities, plays like a chequering of 
strange mysterious shadows among the palpa- 
ble objects of material life ; and the whole, firm 
in its details, and sharp and solid as reality, 
yet hangs before us melting on all sides into 
air, and free, and light, as the baseless fabric 
of a vision; all this the reader can learn fully 
nowhere but, by long study, in the work itself. 
The general scope and spirit of it we have 
now endeavoured to sketch: the few incidents 
on which, with the aid of much dialogue and 
exposition, these have been brought out, are 
perhaps already known to most readers, and, 
at all events, need not be minutely recapitu- 
lated here. Mephistopheles has promised to 
himself that he will lead Faust " through the 
bustling inanity of life," but that its pleasures 
shall tempt and not satisfy him; "food shall 
hover before his eager lips, but he shall beg 
for nourishment in vain." Hitherto they have 
travelled but a short way together; yet, so far, 
the Denier has kept his engagement well. 
Faust, endowed with all earthly, and many 
more than earthly advantages, is still no nearer 
contentment; nay, after a brief season of 
marred and uncertain joy, he finds himself sunk 
into deeper wretchedness than ever. Marga- 
ret, an innocent girl whom he loves, but has 
betrayed, is doomed to die, and already crazed 
in brain, less for her own errors than for his: 
in a scene of true pathos, he would fain per- 
suade her to escape with him, by the aid of 
Mephistopheles, from prison; but in the in- 
stinct of her heart she finds an invincible 
aversion to the Fiend; she chooses death and 
ignominy, rather than life and love, if of his 
giving. At her final refusal, Mephistopheles 
proclaims that "she is judged," a " voice from 
Above" that "she is saved ;" the action termi- 
nates; Faust and Mephistopheles vanish from 
our sight, as into boundless Space. 

And now, after so long a preface, we arrive 
at Helena, the " Classico-romantic Phantasma- 
goria," where these Adventurers, strangely 
F 



62 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



altered by travel, and in altogether different 
costume, have again risen into sight. Our long 
preface was not needless, for Faust and Helena, 
though separated by some wide and marvel- 
lous interval, are nowise disconnected. The 
characters may have changed by absence; 
Faust is no longer the same bitter and tem- 
pestuous man, but appears in chivalrous com- 
posure, with a silent energy, a grave, and, as 
it were, commanding ardour. Mephistopheles 
alone may retain somewhat of his old spiteful 
shrewdness: but still the past state of these 
personages must illustrate the present; and 
only by what we remember of them, can we 
try to interpret what we see. In fact, the style 
of Helena is altogether new : quiet, simple, joy- 
ful ; passing by a short gradation from Classic 
dignity into Romantic pomp; it has every- 
where a full and sunny tone of colouring; re- 
sembles not a tragedy, but a gay gorgeous 
mask. Neither is Faust's former history al- 
luded to, or any explanation given us of oc- 
currences that may have intervened. It is a 
light scene, divided by chasms and unknown 
distance from that other country of gloom. 
Nevertheless, the latter still frowns in the 
back-ground; nay, rises aloft, shutting out fur- 
ther view, and our gay vision attains a new 
significance as it is painted on th.at canvas of 
storm. 

We question whether it ever occurred to any 
English reader of Faust, that the work needed 
a continuation, or even admitted one. To the 
Germans, however, in their deeper study of a 
favourite poem, which also they have full 
means of studying, this has long been no se- 
cret; and such as have seen with what zeal 
most German readers cherish Favst, and how 
the younger of them will recite whole scenes 
of it, with a vehemence resembling that of 
Gil Bias and his Figures Hibcmoises, in the 
streets of Oviedo, may estimate the interest 
excited in that country by the following Notice 
from the Author, published last year in his 
Kunst und Mlerthurn. 

" Helena. TnLerlude in Faust. 

" Faust's character, in the elevation to 
which latter refinement, working on the old 
rude Tradition, has raised it, represents a man 
who, feeling impatient and imprisoned within 
the limits of mere earthly existence, regards 
the possession of the highest knowledge, the 
enjoyment of the fairest blessings, as insuffi- 
cient even in the slightest degree to satisfy his 
longing: a spirit, accordingl)', which, strug- 
gling out on all sides, ever returns the more 
unhappy. 

"This form of mind is so accordant with 
our modern disposition, that various persons 
of ability have been induced to undertake the 
treatment of such a subject. My manner of 
attempting it obtained approval: distinguished 
men considered the matter, and commented 
on my performance; all which I thankfully 
observed. At the same time I could not but 
wonder that none of those who undertook a 
continuation and completion of my Fragment, 
had lighted on the thought, which seemed so 
obvious, that the composition of a Second Part 



must necessarily elevate itself altogether away 
from the hampered sphere of the First, and 
conduct a man of such a nature into higher 
regions, under worthier circumstances. 

" How I, for my part, had determined to essay 
this, lay silently before my own mind, from 
time to time exciting me to some progress; 
while, from all and each, I carefully guarded 
my secret, still in hope of bringing the work 
to the wished-for issue. Now, however, I must 
no longer keep back; or, in publishing my 
collective Endeavours, conceal any further se- 
cret from the world; to which, on the con- 
trary, I feel myself bound to submit my whole 
labours, even though in a fragmentary state. 

" Accordingly I have resolved that the above- 
named Piece, a smaller drama, complete within 
itself, but pertaining to the Second Part of 
Faust, shall be forthwith presented in the First 
Portion of my Works. 

" The wide chasm between that well-known 
dolorous conclusion of the first part, and the 
entrance of an antique Grecian Heroine, is not 
yet overarched ; meanwhile, as a preamble, my 
readers will accept what follows : 

" The old Legend tells us, and the Puppet- 
play fails not to introduce the scene, that Faust, 
in his imperious pride of heart, required from 
Mephistopheles the love of the fair Helena of 
Greece ; in which demand the other, after some 
reluctance, gratified him. Not to overlook so 
important a concern in our work, was a duty 
for us; and how we have endeavoured to dis- 
charge it, will be seen in this Interlude. Euc 
what may have furnished the proximate occa- 
sion of such an occurrence, and how, afler 
manifold hindrances, our old magical Crafts- 
man can have found means to bring back the 
individual Helena, in person, out of Orcus into 
Life, must, in this stage of the business, remain 
undiscovered. For the present, it is enough if 
our reader will admit that the real Helena may 
step forth, on antique tragedy-cothurnus, before 
her primitive abode in Sparta. We then re- 
quest him to observe in what way and manner 
Faust will presume to court favour from this 
royal all-famous Beauty of the world," 

To manage so unexampled a courtship will 
be admitted to be no easy task ; for the mad 
hero's prayer must here be fulfilled to its 
largest extent, before the business can proceed 
a step; and the gods, it is certain, are not in 
the habit of annihilating time and space, even 
to "make two lovers happy." Our Marlowe 
was not ignorant of this mysterious liaison of 
Faust's: however, he slurs it over briefly, and 
without fronting the difficulty; Helena merely 
flits across the scene as an airy pageant, with- 
out speech or personality, and makes the love- 
sick philosopher " immortal by a kiss." Pro- 
bably there are not many that would grudge 
Faust such immortality ; we at least nowise 
envy him : for who does not see that this, in 
all human probability, is no real Helena, but 
only some hollow phantasm attired in her 
shape, while the true Daughter of Leda still 
dwells afar off in the inane kingdoms of Dis, 
and heeds not and hears not the most poten: 
invocations of black-art ? Another matter it is 
to call forth the frail fair one in very deed ; not in 
form only, but in soul and life, the same Helen a 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



63 



whom the Son of Atreus wedded, and for whose 
sake Ilion ceased to be. For Faust must he- 
hold this Wonder, not as she seemed, but as 
she was; and at his unearthly desire, the Past 
shall become Present; and the antique Time 
must be new-created, and give back its per- 
sons and circumstances, though so long since 
reingulphed in the silence of the blank by-gone 
Eternity! However, Mephistopheles is acun- 
ning genius; and will not start at common 
obstacles. Perhaps, indeed, he is Metaphysi- 
cian enough to know that Time and Space are 
but quiddities, not entities ;/on?(s of the human 
soul, Laws of Thought, which to us appear in- 
dependent existences, but, out of our brains, 
have no existence whatever ; in which case the 
whole nodus may be more of a logical cobweb, 
than any actual material perplexity. Let us 
see how he unravels it, or cuts it. 

The scene is Greece; notour poor oppressed 
Ottoman Morea, but the old heroic Hellas; for 
the sun again shines on Sparta, and " Tynda- 
rus' high House" stands here bright, massive, 
and entire, among its mountains, as when 
Menelaus revisited it, wearied with his ten 
3'ears of warfare, and eight of sea-roving. He- 
ena appears in front of the Palace, with a 
Chorus of captive Trojan maidens. These are 
but Shades, we know, summoned from the deep 
realms of Hades, and imbodied for the nonce : 
but the Conjurer has so managed it, that they 
themselves have no consciousness of this their 
true and highly precarious state of existence : 
the intermediate three thousand years have 
been obliterated, or compressed into a point; 
and these fair figures, on revisiting the upper 
air, entertain not the slightest suspicion that 
they had ever left it, or, indeed, that any thing 
special had happened; save only that they had 
just disembarked from the Spartan ships, and 
been sent forward by Menelaus to provide for 
his reception, which is shortly to follow. All 
these indispensable preliminaries, it would ap- 
pear, Mephistopheles has arranged with con- 
siderable success. Of the poor Shades, and 
their entire ignorance, he is so sure that he 
would not scruple to cross-question them on 
this very point, so ticklish for his whole enter- 
prise ; nay, cannot forbear, now and then, 
throwing out malicious hints to mystify Hele- 
Ha herself, and raise the strangest doubts as to 
her personal identity. Thus on one occasion, 
as we shall see, he reminds her of a scandal 
which had gone abroad of her being a duuble 
personage, of her living with King Proteus in 
Egypt at the very time when she lived with 
Beau Paris in Troy; and, what is more extra- 
ordinary still, of her having been dead, and 
married to Achilles afterwards in the Island of 
Leuce ! Helena admits that it is the most in- 
explicable thing on earth; can only conjecture 
that " she a Vision was joined to him a vision ;" 
and then sinks into a reverie, or swoon, in the 
arms of the Chorus. In this way, can the 
nether-world Scapin sport with the perplexed 
Beauty ; and by sly practice make her show us 
the secret, which is unknown to herself! 

For the present, however, there is no thought 
of such scruples. Helena and her maidens, 
far from doubting that they are real authentic 
denizens of this world, feel themselves in a 



deep embarrassment about its concerns. From , 
the dialogue, in long Alexandrines, or choral 
Recitative, we soon gather that matters wear a 
threatening aspect. Helena salutes her pater- 
nal and nuptial mansion in such style as may 
beseem an erring wife, returned from so event- 
ful an elopement; alludes with charitable le- 
nience to her frailty; which, indeed, it would 
seem, was nothing but the merest accident, for 
she had simply gone to pa.y her vows, "accord- 
ing to sacred wont," in the temple of Cyiherea, 
when the "Phrygian robber" seized her; and 
further informs us that the Immortals still- 
foreshow to her a dubious future : 

For seldom, in our swift ship, did my liushand deign 
To loolt on nie ; and word of coinl'ort spalie lie none. 
As if a-brooding mischief, there he silent sat ; 
llnlil, when steered into Eurotas' bending bay, 
The lirst ships with Iheir prows but kissed the land, 
[(e rose, and said, as by the voice of gods inspired : 
Here will I that my warriors, troop by troop, disbark; 
I muster them, in battle-order, on the ocean strand. 
But thou, go forward, up Eurotas' sacred bank. 
Guiding the steeds along the flower-besprinkled space, 
Till thou arrive on the fair plain where Laredsemon, 
Erewhile a broad fruit-bearing field, has piled its roofs 
Amid the mountains, and sends up the smoke of hearths. 
Then enter thou the high-lowered Palace ; call the Maids 
I left at parting, and the wise old .Stewardess : 
With her inspect the Treasures which thy father left, 
And I, in war or peace still adding, have heaped up. 
Thou firidest all in order standing ; for it is 
The prince's privilege to see, at his return, 
Each household item as it was, and where it was ; 
For of himself the slave hath power to alter nought. 

It appears, moreover, that Manelaus has 
given her directions to prepare for a solemn 
Sacrifice : the ewers, the pateras, the altar, the 
axe, dry wood, are all to be in readiness, only 
of the victim there was no mention ; a circum- 
stance frona which Helena fails not to draw 
some rather alarming surmises. However, re- 
llecting that all issues rest with the higher 
Powers, and that, in any case, irresolution and 
procrastination will avail her nothing, she at 
length determines on this grand enterprise of 
entering the palace, to make a general review, 
and enters accordingly. But long before any 
such business could have been finished, she 
hastily returns with a frustrated, nay, terrified 
aspect; much to the astonishment of her Cho- 
rus, who pressingly inquire the cause. 

HELEXA {who has left the door-leaves open, agitated.) 

Beseems not that Jove's daughter shrink with common 

fright, 
Nor by the brief cold touchof Fear be chill'd and stunned. 
Yet the Horror, which ascending, in the womb of Night, 
From deeps of Chaos, rolls itself together many-shaped, 
Like blowing Clouds from out the mountain's fire-throat, 
In threatening ghastliness, may shake even heroes' 

hearts. 
So have the Stygian here to-day appointed me 
A welcome to my native Mansion, such that fain 
From the oft-trod, long-wished-for threshold, tike a guest 
That has took leave, 1 would withiiraw my steps, for ay. 
But no ! Retreated have I to the light, nor shall 
Ye farther force me, angry Powers, be who ye may, 
New e.xpiations will I use ; then purified. 
The blaze of the Hearth may greet the Mistress as the 

Lord. 

PANTHAI.IS the CHORAGE.* 

Discover, noble queen, to us thy handmaidens. 
That wait by thee in love, what misery has befallet* 



* Leader of the Chorus. 



M 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



HELEJfA. 

What I have seen, ye too with your own eyes shall see, 

If Night have not already sucked her Phantoms back 

To the abysses of her wonder-bearing breast. 

Yet, would ye know this thing, I tell it you in words. 

When bent on present duty, yet with anxious thought, 

I solemnly set foot in these high rnyal Halls, 

The silent, vacant passages astounded me ; 

For tread of hasty footsteps nowhere met the ear, 

Nor bustle as of busy menial-work the eye. 

No maid comes forth to me, no Stewardess, such as 

Still wont with friendly welcome to salute all guests, 

But as, alone advancing, I approach the Hearth, 

Tliere, by the ashy remnant of dim outburnt coals, 

Sits, crouching on the ground, up-muffled, some huge 

Crone ; 
Not as in sleep she sat, but as in drowsy muse. 
With ordering voice I bid her rise ; nought doubting 't was 
The Stewardess the King, at parting hence, had left. 
But, heedless, shrunk together, sits she motionless ; 
And as I chid, at last outstretched her lean right arm, 
As if she beckoned me from hall and hearth away. 
I turn indignant from her, and hasten out forthwith 
Towards the steps whereon aloft the Thalamos 
Adorned rises ; and near by it the Treasure-room ; 
When lo ! the Wonder starts abruptly from the floor ; 
Imperious, barring my advance, displays herself 
In haggard stature, hollow bloodshot eyes ; a shape 
Of hideous strangeness, to perplex all sight and thought. 
But I discourse to the air : for words in vain attempt 
To body forth to sight the form that dwells in us. 
There see herself! She ventures forward to the light! 
Here we are masters till our Lord and King shall come. 
The ghastly births of Night, Apollo, beauty's friend, 
Disperses back to their abysses, or subdues. 
(PHORCTAS enters on the threshold, between the door- 
posts.) 
CHonus. 

Much have I seen, and strange, though the ringlets 

Youthful and thick still wave round my temples: 

Terrors a many, war and its horrors 

Witnessed I once in Uion's night, 

When it fell 

Thorough the clanging, cloud-covered din of 

Onrushing warriors, heard I th' Immortals 

Shouting in anger, heard I Bellona's 

Iron-toned voice resound from without 

City-wards. 

Ah! the city yet stood ; with its 

Bulwarks; Illion safely yet 

Towered ; but spreading from house over 

House, the flame did begirdle us ; 

Sea-like, red, loud, and billowy ; 

Hither, thither, as tempest-floods, 

Over the death-circled city. 

Flying, saw I, through heat and through 

Gloom and glare of that fire-ocean. 

Shapes of Gods in tlieir wralhfulness. 

Stalking grim, fierce, and terrible, 

Giant-high, through tlie luridly 

Flame-dyed dusk of that vapour. 

Did I see it, or was it but 
Terror of he.irl that fashioned 
Forms so affrighting i Know can I 
Never : but here that I view this 
Horrible Thing with my own eyes, 
This of a surety believe I : 
Yea, I could clutch 't in my fingers 
Did not, from Shape so dangerous, 
Fear at a distance keep me. 

Which of old Phorcys' 

Daughters then art thou ■? 

For I compare thee to 

That generation. 

Art thou belike, of the Grais, 

Gray-horn, one eye, and one tooth 

Using alternate, 

<;hild or descendant ■? 



Darest thou, Haggard, 
Close by such bean.ty, 
'Fore the divine glance of 
Phoebus, display thee ? 
But display as it pleases thee ; 
For the ugly he heedeth not, 
As his bright eye yet never did 
Look on a shadow. 

But as mortals, alas for it! 

Law of destiny burdens us 

With the unspeakable eye-sorrow 

Which surh a sight, iinblessed, detestable, 

Doth in lovers of beauty awaken. 

Nay then, hear, since thou shamelessly 
Com'st forth fronting us, hear only 
Curses, hear all nnnner of threatenings. 
Out of the scornful lips of the happier 
That were made by the Deities. 

PHOnCTAS. 

Old is the saw, but high and true remains its sense. 
That Shame and Beauty ne'er, together hand in hand, 
Were seen pursue their journey over the earth's green 

path. 
Deep rooted dwells an ancient hatred in these two ; 
So that wherever, on their way, one haps to meet 
The other, each on its adversary turns his back : 
Then hastens forth the faster on its separate road; 
Shame all in sorrow, Beauty pert and light of mood ; 
Till the hollow night of Orcus catches it at length. 
If age and wrinkles have not tamed it long before. 
So you, ye wantons, wafted hither from strange lands, 
I find in tumult, like the cranes' hoarse jingling flight, 
That over our heads, in long-drawn cloud, sends down 
Its creaking gabble, and tempts the silent wanderer that 

he look 
Aloft at them a moment : but they go their way, 
And he goes his; so also will it be with us. 

Who then are ye' that here in Bacchanalian-wise, 
Like drunk ones ye dure uproar at this Palace-gate 1 
Who then are ye that at the Stewardess of the King's 

House 
Ye howl, as at the moon the crabbed brood of dogs'? 
Think ye 'tis hid from nie what manner of thing ye are 1 
Ye war-begotten, fight-bred, feathor-beaded crew! 
Lascivious crew, seducing as seduced, that waste, 
In rioting, alike the soldier's and the burgher's strength ! 
Here seeing you gathered, seems as a cicada-swarm 
Had lighted, covering the herbage of the fields. 
Consumers ye of other's thrift, ye greedy-mouthed 
Quick squanderers of fruits men gain by tedious toil ; 
Cracked market-ware, stol'n, bought, and bartered troop 

of slaves ! 

We have thought it right to give so much 
of these singular expositions and altercations, 
in the words, as far as might be, of the parties 
themselves ; happy, could we, in any measure, 
have transfused the broad, yet rich and chaste 
simplicity of these long iambics ; or imitated 
the tone as we have done the metre, of that 
choral song ; its rude earnestness, and tortuous, 
awkward-looking, artless strength, as we have 
done its dactyls and anapaests. The task was 
no easy one ; and we remain, as might have 
been expected, little contented with our efforts; 
having, indeed, nothing to boast of, except a 
sincere fidelity to the original. If the reader, 
through such distortion, can obtain any glimpse 
of Helena itself, he will not only pardon us, 
but thank us. To our own minds, at least, 
there is everywhere a strange, piquant, quite 
peculiar, charm in these imitations of the old 
Grecian style; a dash of the ridiculous, if we 
might say so, is blended with the sublime, yet 
blended with it softly, and only to temper its 
austerity : for often, so graphic is the delinea- 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



65 



tion, we could almost feel as if a vista were 
opened through the long gloomy distance of 
ages, and we with our modern eyes and modern 
levity, beheld afar off, in clear light, the very 
figures of that old grave time ; saw them again 
living in their old antiquarian costume and 
environment, and heard them audibly dis- 
course in a dialect which had long been dead. 
Of all this no man is more master tlian Goethe ; 
as a modern-antique, his Ipliigcnie mnsthe con- 
sidered unrivalled in poetry. A similar, tho- 
roughly classical spirit will be found in this 
First Part of Helena; yet the manner of the 
two pieces is essentially different. Here, we 
should say, we are more reminded of Sophocles, 
perhaps of ^schylus, than of Euripides: it is 
more rugged, copious, energetic, inartificial; 
a still more ancient style. How very primi- 
tive, for instance, are Helena and Phorcyas in 
their whole deportment here ! How frank and 
downright in speech; above all, how minute 
and specific ; no glimpse of " philosophical 
culture;" no such thing as a "general idea;" 
thus, every different object seems a new un- 
known one, and requires to be separately 
stated. In like manner, what can be more 
honest and edifying than the chant of the 
Chorus! With what inimitable nalveti they 
recur to the sack of Troy, and endeavour to 
convince themselves that they do actually see 
this "horrible Thing;" then lament the law of 
Destiny which dooms them to such " unspeaka- 
ble eye-sorrow;" and, finally, break forth into 
sheer cursing ; to all which, Phorcyas answers 
in the like free and plain-spoken fashion. 

But to our story. This hard-tempered and 
so dreadfully ugly old lady, the reader cannot 
help suspecting, at first sight, to be some 
cousin-german of Mephistopheles, or, indeed, 
that great Actor of all Work himself; which 
latter suspicion the devilish nature of the bel- 
dame, by degrees, confirms into a moral cer- 
tainty. There is a sarcastic malice in the 
"wise old Stewardess" which cannot be mis- 
taken. Meanwhile the Chorus and the beldame 
indulge still further in mutual abuse; she up- 
braiding them with their giddiness and wanton 
disposition; they chanting unabatedly her ex- 
treme deficiency in personal charms. Helena, 
however, interposes ; and the old Gorgon, pre- 
tending that she has not till now recognised 
the stranger to be her mistress, smooths her- 
self into gentleness, aflects the greatest hu- 
manity, and even appeals to her for protection 
against the insolence of these young ones. 
But wicked Phorcyas is only waiting her op- 
portunity; still neither unwilling to wound, 
nor afraid to strike. Helena, to expel some 
unpleasant vapours of doubt, is reviewing her 
past history, in concert with Phorcyas ; and 
observes that the latter had been appointed 
Stewardess by Menelaus, on his return from 
his Cretan expedition to Sparta. No sooner is 
Sparta mentioned, than the crone, with an offi- 
cious air of helping out the story, adds : 

Which Ihou forsookest, Ilion's tnwer-encircled town 
Preferring, and the unexhausted joys of Love. 



Remind me not of joys ; an all too heavy wo's 
Infinitude soon follow'd, crushing breast and heart. 
9 



PHOHCTAS. 

But I have heard thou livest on earth a double life; 
In Ilion seen, and seen the wliile in Egypt too. 

HELENA. 

Confound not so the weakness of my weary sense ; 
Here even, who or what I am, I know it not. 

PHORCYAS. 
Then I have heard how, from the hollow Realm of 

Shades, 
Achilles, too, did fervently unite himself to thee; 
Thy earlier love reclaiming, spite of all Fate's laws. 

HELENA. 
To him the Vision, I a Vision joined myself: 
It was a dream, the very words may leach us this. 
But I am faint ; and to myself a Vision prow. 

{Sinks into the arms of one division of the Chorus.) 

CHORUS. 

Silence! silence! 
Evil-eyed, evil-tongued, thou! 
Thro' so shrivelled-up, one-tooth'd a 
Mouth, what good can come from that 
Throat of horrors detestable — 

— In which style they continue musically rating 
her, till "Helena has recovered, and again 
stands in the middle of the Chorus;" whea 
Phorcyas, with the most wheedling air, hastens 
to greet her, in a new sort of verse, as if no- 
thing whatever had happened: 

PHORCYAS. 

Issues forth from passing cloud the sun of this bright day ; 
If when veil'd she so could charm us, now her beams in 

splendour blind. 
As the world doth look before thee, in such gentle wise 

thou look'st. 
Let them call me so unlovely, what is lovely know I well. 

HELENA. 

Come so wavering from the Void which in that faintness 

circled me, 
Glad I were to rest again, a space : so weary are my 

limbs. 
Yet it well bccometh queens, all mortals it becometh well. 
To possess their hearts in patience, and await what can 

betide. 

PHORCYAS. 

Whilst thou standest in thy greatness, in thy beaiity here, 
Says thy look that thou commandest : what comniand'st 
thou 1 Speak it out. 

HELENA. 

To conclude your quarrel's idle loitering be prepared: 
Haste, arrange the Sacrifice, the King commanded me. 

PHORCYAS. 
All is ready in the Palace, bowl and tripod, sharp-ground 

axe ; 
For besprinkling, for befuming: now the Victim let ua see. 

HELENA. 

This the King appointed not. 

PHOnCTAS. 

Spoke not of this 1 O word of wo! 

HELENA. 

What strange sorrow overpowers thee 1 

PHORCYAS. 

Queen, 'tis thou he meant. 

HELENA. 



And these. 



PHORCYAS. 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



CHORUS. 

O WO ! O wo ! 

PHORCYAS 

Thou fallest by the axe's stroke. 

HELENA. 

Horrible, yet look'd for : hapless 1 ; 

PHOnCYAS. 

Inevitable seems it me. 

CHORUS. 

Ah, and OB 1 What will become of us? 

PHORCYAS. 

She dies a noble death : 
Ye, on the high Bea_in within that bears the rafters and 

the roof, 
As in birding-tinie so many woodlarks, in a row, shall 

sprawl. 
(HELENA and CHOtius stavd astounded and terror-struck ; 
in expressive, well-concerted groupivg.) 

PHORCYAS. 

Poor spectres: — All like frozen stalups there ye stand, 
In fright to leave the Day which not belongs to you. 
No man or spectre, more than you, is fond to quit 
The Upper Lipht ; yet rescue, res|iile finds not one : 
All know it, all believe it, few d(fli;;lit in it. 
Enough, 't is over with you ! And so let's to work. 

How the cursed old beldame enjoys the 
agony of these poor Shades : nay, we suspect, 
she is laughing in her sleeve at the very clas- 
sicism of this drama, which she herself has 
contrived, and is even now helping to enact! 
Observe, she has quitted her octameter tr- 
chaics again, and taken to plain blank vfiae; 
a sign, perhaps, that she is getting weary of 
the whole classical concern ! But however 
this may be, she now claps her hands ; where- 
upon certain distorted dwarf figures appear at 
the door, and with great speed and agility, at 
her order, bring forth the sacrificial apparatus ; 
on which she fails not to descant demonstra- 
tively, explaining the purpose of the several 
articles as they are successively fitted up before 
her. Here is the "gold-horned" altar, the 
" axe glittering over its silver edge :" then there 
must be " water-urns to wash the black blood's 
defilement," and a "precious mat,"- to kneel on, 
for the victim is to be beheaded queenlike. On 
all hands, mortal horror! But Phorcyas hints 
darkly that there is still a way of escape left ; 
this, of course, every one is in deepest eager- 
ness to learn. Here, one would think, she 
might for once come to the point without di- 
gression ; but Phorcyas has her own way of 
stating a fact. She thus commences : 

PHORCYAS. 

Whoso, collecting store of wealth, at home abides 
To parget in due season his high dwelling's walls, 
And prudent guard his roof from inroad of the rain, 
With him, through long still years of life, it shall be well. 
But he who lightly, in his folly, bent to rove, 
O'ersteps with wand'rinp foot his threshold's sacred line, 
Will find, at his return, the ancient place, indeed 
Still there, but else all alter'd, if not overthrown. 

HELENA. 

Why these trite saws ? Thou wert to teach us, not re- 
prove. 

PHORCYAS. 

Historical it is, is nowise a reproof. 

Ses-roving, steer'd King Menelaus, brisk from bay to bay ; 



Descended on all ports and isles, a plundering foe, 
And still came back with booty, which yet moulders here 
Then by the walls of Ilion spent he ten long years ; 
How many in his homeward voyage were hard to know. 
But all this while how stands it here with Tyndarus' 
High house? How stands it with his own domains 
around? 



Is love of railing, then, so interwoven with thee. 

That thus, except to chide, thou canst not move thy lips ? 

PHORCYAS. 

So many years forsaken stood the mountain glen ; 
Which, north from Sparta, towards the higher land as- 
cends 
Behind Taygetus; where, as yet a merry brook, 
Eurotas gurgles on, and then, along our Vale, 
In sep'rate streams abroad outflowing feeds your Swans. 
There, backwards in the rocky hills, a daring race 
Have fix'd themselves, forth issuing from Cimmerian 

Night; 
An inexpugnable stronghold have piled aloft, 
From which they harry land and people as they please. 

HELENA. 

How could they ? All impossible it seen)s to me. 

PHORCYAS. , 

Enough of time they had ! 't is haply twenty years. 

HELENA. 

Is One the Master? Are there Robbers many? leagued T 

PHORCYAS. 

Not Robbers these : yet many, and the Master One. 
Of him I say no ill, though hither too he came. 
What might not he have took ? yet did content himself 
With some small Present, so he called it, Tribute, not. 

HELENA. 

How looks he ? 

PHORCYAS. 

Nowise ill ! To me he pleasant look'd. 
A jocund, gallant, hardy, handsome man it is. 
And ratiimal in speech, as of the Greeks are few. 
We call the folk Barbarian ; yet I question much 
If one there be so cruel, as at Ilion 
Full many of our best heroes man-devouring were. 
1 do respect his greatness, and confide in him. 
And for his Tower ! This with your own eyes ye should 

see: 
Another thing it is than clumsy boulder-work, 
Such as our Fathers, nothing scrupling, huddled up, 
Cyclopean, and like Cyclops-builders* one rude crag 
On other rude craps tumbling : in that Tow'r of theirs 
'Tis [dumb and level all, and done by square and rule. 
Look on it from without: Heav'nward it soars on high, 
So strait, so tight of joint, and mirror-smooth as steel : 
To clamber there — Nay, even your very Thought slides 

down. 
And then, within, such courts, broad spaces, all around. 
With masonry encompass'd of every sort and use 
There have ye arches, archlets, pillars, pillarlets. 
Balconies, galleries, for looking out and in, 
And coals of arms. 

CHORUS. 

Of arms ? What mean'st thou ? 

PHORCYAS. 

Ajax bore 
A twisted Snake on his shield, as ye yourselves have 

seen. 
The Seven also before Thebes bore carved work 
Each on his Shield ; devices rich and full of Sense : 
There saw ye moon and stars of the nightly heaven's 

vault. 
And poddpsECR, and heroes, ladders, torches, swords, 
And dangerous tools, such as in storm o'erfall good 

towns. 
EECiitcheons of like EOit our heroes also bear : 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



6T 



There sue ye lions, eagles, claws besides and bills. 

The buffalo-horns, and wings, and roses, peacock's tails ; 

And bandelets, gold and black and silver, blue and red. 

Such like are there uphung in Halls, row after row ; 

In halls, so large, so lofty, boundless as the World; j 

There might ye dance ; 



Ha: 



CHORUS. 
Tell UB, are there dancers there ■? 



PUOUCYAS. 

The best on earth ! A golden-haired, fresh, younker 

band, 
They breathe of youth ; Paris alone so breathed when to 
Our Queen he came too near. 

HELENA. 
Thou quite dost lose 
The tenor of thy story : say nie thy last word. 

PHORCTAS. 

Thyself wilt say it : say in earnest audibly, Yes! 
Next moment, I surround thee with that Tow'r. 

The step is questionable: for is not this 
Phorcyas a person of the most suspicious cha- 
racter; or rather, is it not certain that she is a 
Turk in grain, and will almost, of a surety, 
go how it may, turn good into bad? And yet, 
what is to be done ] A trumpet, said to be 
that of Menelaus, sounds in the distance; at 
■which the Chorus shrink together in increased 
terror. Phorcyas coldly reminds them of Dei- 
phobus, with his slit nose, as a small token of 
Menelaus' turn of thinking on these matters ; 
supposes, however, that there is now nothing 
for it but to wait the issue, and die with pro- 
priety. Helena has no wish to die either with 
propriety or impropriety ; she pronounces, 
though with a faltering resolve, the definitive 
Yes. A burst of joy breaks from the Chorus; 
thick fog rises all round; in the midst of 
v/hich, as we learn from their wild tremulous 
chant, they feel themselves hurried through 
the air: Eurotas is swept from sight, and the 
cry of its Swans fades ominously away in the 
distance ; for now, as we suppose, " Tyndarus' 
high House," with all its appendages, is rush- 
ing back into the depths of the Past ; old Lacc- 
do'mnn has again become new Misietru ; only 
Taygetus, with another name, remains un- 
changed; and the King of Rivers feeds among 
his sedges quite a different race of Swans than 
those of Leda ! The mist is passing away, but 
yet, to the horror of the Chorus, no clear day- 
light returns. Dim masses rise round them : 
Phorcyas has vanished. Is it a castle? Is it 
a cavern ? They find themselves in the " In- 
terior Court of the Tower, surrounded with 
rich fantastic buildings of the middle ages !" 

If, hitherto, we have moved along, with con- 
siderable convenience, over ground singular 
enough, indeed, yet, the nature of it once un- 
derstood, affording firm footing and no unplea- 
sant scenery, we come now to a strange mixed 
element, in which it seems as if neither walk- 
ing, swimming, nor even flying, could rightly 
avail us. We have cheerfully admitted, and 
honestly believed, that Helena and her Chorus 
were Shades; but now they appear to be 
changing into mere Ideas, mere Metaphors, or 
poetic Thoughts ! Faust, too, for he, as every 
one sees, must be lord of this Fortress, is a 



mvich altered man since we last met him. 
Nay, sometimes we could fancy he were only 
acting a part on this occasion ; were a mere 
mummer, representing notso much his own 
natural pcrsonulity, as some shadow and im- 
personation of his history .■ not so much his 
own Faustship, as the tradition of Faust's ad- 
ventures, and the Genius of the People among 
whom this took its rise. For, indeed, he has 
strange gifts of flying through the air, and 
living, in apparent friendship and content- 
ment, with mere Eidolons; and, being exces- 
sively reserved withal, he becomes not a little 
enigmatic. In fact, our whole "Interlude" 
changes its character at this point: the Greek 
style passes abruptly into the Spanish; at one 
bound we have left the Seven before Thebes, and 
got into the Vida es Sueno. The action, too, be- 
comes more and more typical ; or rather, we 
should say, half-typical ; for it will neither hold 
rightly together as allegory nor as matter of 
fact. 

Thus do we see ourselves hesitating on the 
verge of a wondrous region, "neither sea nor 
good dry land;" full of shapes and musical 
tones, but all dim, fluctuating, unsubstantial, 
chaotic. Danger there is that the critic may 
require "both oar and sail;" nay, it will be 
well if, like that other great Traveller, he meet 
not some vast vacuity, where, all unawares, 

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drop 
Ten thousand fathom deep .... 



and so keep falling till 

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, 
Instinct with lire and nitre, hurry him 
As many miles aloft .... 

— Meaning, probably, that he is to be " blown-' 
up" by nonplused and justly exasperated Re- 
view-reviewers ! — Nevertheless, unappalled by 
these possibilities, we venture forward into 
this impalpable Limbo; and must endeavour 
to render such account of the "sensible spe- 
cies," and " ghosts of defunct bodies," we may 
meet there, as shall be moderately satisfactory 
to the reader. 

In the little notice from the Author, quoted 
above, we were bid specially to observe in 
what way and manner Faust would presume 
to court this World's-beauty. We must say, 
his style of gallantry seetns to us of the most 
chivalrous and high-flown description, if, 
indeed, it is not a little cuphuistic. In their 
own eyes, Helena and her Chorus, encircled 
in this Gothic Court, appear, for some minutes, 
no better than captives; but, suddenly is- 
suing from galleries and portals, and descend- 
ing the stairs in stately procession, are seen a 
numerous suite of Pages, whose gay habili- 
ments and red downy cheeks are greatly ad- 
mired by the Chorus : these bear with them a 
throne and canopy, with footstools and cush- 
ions, and every other necessary apparatus of 
royalty; the portable machine, as we gather 
from the Chorus, is soon put together ; and 
Helena, being reverently beckoned into the 
same, is thus forthwith constituted Sovereign 
of the whole Establishment. To herself such 
royalty still seems a little dubious; but no 
sooner have the Pages, in long train, fairly. 



es 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



descended, than "Faust appears above, on the 
stairs, in knightly court-dress of the middle 
ages, and with deliberate dignity comes down," 
astonishing the poor " feather-headed" Chorus 
with the gracefulness of his deportment and 
Ijis more than human beauty. He leads with 
him a culprit in fetters ; and, by way of intro- 
duction, explains to Helena that this man, 
Lynceus, has deserved death by his miscon- 
duct; but that to her, as Queen of the Castle, 
must appertain the right of dooming or of par- 
doning him. The crime of Lynceus is, in- 
deed, of an extraordinary nature: he was 
Warder of the Tower; but now, though gifted, 
as his name imports, with the keenest vision, he 
has failed in warning Faust that so august a 
visitor was approaching, and thus occasioned 
the most dreadful breach of politeness. Lyn- 
ceus pleads guilty: quick-sighted as a lynx, 
in usual cases, he has been blinded with ex- 
cess of light, in this instance. While looking 
towards the orient at the " course of morning," 
he noticed "a sun rise wonderfully in the 
south," and, all his senses taken captive by 
such surpassing beauty, he no longer knew 
his right hand from his left, or could move a 
limb, or utter a word, to announce her arrival. 
Under these peculiar circumstances, Helena 
sees room for extending the royal prerogative ; 
and, after expressing unfeigned regret at this 
so fatal influence of her charms over the 
whole male sex, dismisses the Warder with a 
reprieve. We must beg our readers to keep 
an eye on this Innamorato; for there may be 
meaning in him. Here is the pleading, which 
produced so fine an effect given in his own 
words : 

Let me kneel and let nie view her, 

Let me live, or lut me die, 

Slave to this high woman, truer 

Than a bondsman born, am I. 

Watching o'er the course of morning. 
Eastward, as I mark it run. 
Rose there, all the sky adorning, 
Strangely in the South a sun. 

Draws my look towards those places, 
Not the valley, not the heijht. 
Not the earth's or heaven's spaces ; 
She alone the queen of light. 

Eyesight truly hath been lent me, 
Like the lynx on highest tree ; 
•Boots not ; for amaze hath shent me : 
Do I dream, or do I see ? 

Knew I aught l or could I ever 
Think of tow'r or bolted gate 1 
Vapours waver, vapours sever. 
Such a goddess comes in state ! 

Eye and heart I must surrender 
Drown'd as in a radiant sea ; 
That high creature with her splendour 
Blinding all hath blinded me. 

I forgot the warder's duty ; 
Trumpet, challenge, word of call: 
Chain me, tlireaten : sure this beauty 
Stills thy anger, saves her thrall. 

Save him accordingly she did; but no soon- 
er is he dismissed, and Faust has made a re- 
mark on the multitude of" arrows" M'hich she 
is darting forth on all sides, than Lynceus re- 
fjirns in a still madder humour. " Re-enter 



Lynceus with a chest, and men carrying other 
chests behind him." 

LYNCEUS. 

Thou see'st me, Queen, again advance. 
The wealthy begs of thee one glance ; 
He look'd at thee, and feels e'er since 
As beggar poor, and rich as prince. 

What was I erst 1 What am I grown 1 
What have I meant, or done, or known t 
What boots the sharpest force of eyes? 
Back from thy throne it baffled flies. 

From Eastward marching came \ve on, 
And soon the West was lost and won ; 
A long broad army forth we pass'd. 
The foremost knew not of the last. 

The first did fall, the second stood. 
The third hew'd in with falchion good ; 
And still the ne.xt had prowess more. 
Forgot the thousands slain before. 

We stormed along, we rushed apace. 
The masters we from place to place. 
And where I lordly ruled to-day, 
To-morrow another did rob and slay. 

We look ; our choice was quickly made ; 
This snatch'd with him the fairest Maid, 
That seized the Steer for burden bent, 
The horses all and sundry went. 

But I did love apart to spy 
The rarest things could meet the eye : 
Whale'er in others' hands 1 saw, 
That was for me but chaff and straw. 

For treasures did I keep a look, 
My keen eyes pierced to every nook ; 
Into all pockets I could see. 
Transparent each strong-box to me. 

And heaps of gold I gained this way. 
And precious Stones of clearest ray: 
Now Where's the Uiamoiid meet to shine? 
'Tis meet alone for breast like thine. 

So let the Pearl from depths of sea. 
In curious stringlets wave on thee : 
The Ruby fur some covert seeks, 
'Tis paled by redness of thy cheeks. 

And so the richest treasure's brought 
Before thy throne, as best it ought ; 
Beneath thy feel here let me lay 
The fruit of many a bloody fray. 

So many chests we now do bear; 
More chests I have, and finer ware : 
Think me but to be near thee worth 
Whole treasure-vaults I empty forth. 

For scarcely art thou hither sent. 
All hearts and wills to thee are bent ; 
Our riches, reason, strength, we must 
Before the loveliest lay as dust. 

All this I reckon'd great, and mine, 
Now small I reckon it, and thine. 
I thought it worthy, high, and good ; 
'Tis naught, poor, and misunderstood. 

So tlwindles what my glory was, 
A heap of mown and wither'd grass: 
What worlh it had, and now docs lack, 
O, with one kind look, give it back ! 

FATJST. 
Away: away: take haik the bold-earn'd load, 
Not blaiied indeed, hut also not rewarded. 
Her's is already whatsoe'er our Tower 
Of costliness conceals. Go heap me treasures 
On treasures, yet with Order ; let the blaze 
Of Pomp unspeakable appear; the ceilings 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



09 



Gem-fretted, shine like skies ; a Paradise 
Of lifeless life create. Before her feet 
Unfolding quick, let flow'ry carpet roll 
Itself from flow'ry carpet, that her step 
May light on softness, and her eye meet nought 
But splendour blinding only not the Gods. 



Small is what our Lord doth say ; 
Servants do it ; 'tis but play : 
For o'er all we do or dream 
Will this Beauty reign supreme. 
Is not all our host grown tame I 
Every sword is blunt and lame. 
To a form of such a mould 
Sun himself is dull and cold : 
To the richness of that face, 
What is beauty, what is grace, 
Loveliness we saw or thought? 
All is empty, all is nought. 

And herewith rxit Lynceus, and we see no more 
of him! We have said that we thought there 
might be method in this madness. In fact, the 
allegorical, or at least fantastical and figura- 
tive, character of the whole action is growing 
more and more decided every moment. He- 
lena, we must conjecture, is, in the course of 
this her real historical intrigue with Faust, to 
present, at the same time, some dim adumbra- 
tion of Grecian Art, and its flight to the North- 
ern Nations, when driven by stress of War 
from its own country. Faust's Tower will, in 
this case, afford not only a convenient station 
for lifting black-mail over the neighbouring dis- 
trict, but a cunning, though vague and fluctu- 
ating, emblem of the Product of Teutonic Mind ; 
the Science, Art, Institutions of the Northmen, 
of whose Spirifand Genius he himself may in 
some degree become the representative. In this 
way, the extravagant homage and admiration 
paid to Helena are not without their meaning. 
The manner of her arrival, enveloped as she was 
in thick clouds, and frightened onwards by hos- 
tile trumpets, may also have more or less pro- 
priety. And who is Lynceus, the mad Watch- 
man? We cannot but suspect him of being a 
Schoolman Philosopher, or School Philosophy 
itself, in disguise; and thai this wonderful 
"march" of his has a covert allusion to the 
great " march of intellect," which did march 
in those old ages, though only at " ordinary 
time." We observe, the military, one after the 
other, all fell; for discoverers, like other men, 
must die ; but " still the next had prowess 
more," and forgot the thousands that had sunk 
in clearing the way for him. However, Lyn- 
ceus, in his love of plunder, did not take " the 
fairest maid," nor "the steer" fit for burden, 
but rather jewels and other rare articles of 
value; in which quest his high power of eye- 
sight proved of great service to him. Better 
had it been, perhaps, to have done as others 
did, and seized " the fairest maid," or even the 
"steer" fit for burden, or one of the "horses" 
which were in such request: for, when he 
quitted practical Science and the philosophy 
of Life, and addicted himself to curious subtil- 
ties and Metaphysical crotchets, what did it 
avail him T At the first glance of the Grecian 
beauty, he found that it was " naught, poor, and 
misunderstood." His extraordinary obscura- 
tion of vision on Helena's approach ; his nar- 
row escape from death, on that account, at the 



hands of Faust; his pardon by the fair Greek j 
his subsequent magnanimous offer to her, and 
discourse with his master on the .subject, — ■ 
might give rise to various considerations. But 
we must not loiter, questioning the strange 
Shadows of that strange country, who, besides, 
are apt to mystify one. Our nearest business 
is to get across it : we again proceed. 

Whoever or whatever Faust and Helena 
may be, they are evidently fast rising into 
high favour with each other; as, indeed, from 
so generous a gallant, and so fair a dame, was 
to be anticipated. She invites him to sit with 
heron the throne, so instantaneously acquired 
by force of her charms; to which graceful 
proposal he, after kissing her hand in knightly 
wise, fails not to accede. The courtship now 
advances apace. Helena admires the dialect 
of Lynceus, and how " one word seemed to kiss 
the other," for the Warder, as we saw, .speaks 
in doggerel; and she cannot but wish that she 
also had some such talent. Faust assures her 
that nothing is more easy than this same prac- 
tice of rhyme: it is but speaking right from 
the heart, and the rest follows of course. 
Withal, he proposes that they should make a 
trial of it themselves. The experiment suc- 
ceeds to mutual satisfaction: for not only can 
they two build the lofty rhyme, in concert, with 
all convenience, but, in the course of a page 
or tM'o of such crambo, many love-tokens come 
to light; nay, we find by the Chorus, that the 
wooing has well nigh reached a happy end : 
at least, the two are " sitting near and nearer 
each other, — shoulder on shoulder, knee by 
knee, hand in hand, they are swaying over 
the throne's upcushioned lordliness;" which,' 
surely, are promising symptoms. 

Such ill-timed dalliance is abruptly disturb- 
ed by the entrance of Phorcyas, now, as every 
a messenger of evil, with malignant tidings 
that Menelaus is at hand, with his whole force, 
to Storm the Castle, and ferociously avenge 
his new injuries. An immense "explosion 
of signals from the towers, of trumpets, cla- 
rions, military music, and the march of nume- 
rous armies," confirms the news. Faust how- 
ever, treats the matter coolly ; chides the 
unceremonious trepidation of Phorcyas, and 
summons his men of war; who accordingly 
enter, steel-clad, in military pomp, and quitting 
their battalions, gather round him to take his 
orders. In a wild Pindaric ode, delivered with 
due emphasis, he directs them not so much- 
how they are to conquer Menelaus, whom' 
doubtless he knows to be a sort of dream, as 
how they are respectively to manage and par- 
tition the Countr}^ they shall hereby acquire. 
Germanus is to have "the bays of Corinth;" 
while " Achaia, with its hundred dells," is re- 
commended to the care of Goth; the ho.st of 
the Franks must go towards Elis ; Messene is 
to be the Saxon's share; and Nermann is to 
clear the seas, and make Argolis great. Sparta, 
however, is to continue the territory of Helena,' 
and be queen and patroness of these inferior 
Dukedoms. In all this, are we to trace some 
faint changeful shadow of the National Cha- 
racter, and respective Intellectual Performance 
of the several European tribes 1 Or, perhaps, 
of the real History of the Middle Ages ; th?' 



70 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



irruption of the northern swarms, issuing, like 
Faust and his air-warriors, "from Cimmerian 
Night," and spreading over so many fair 
regions? Perhaps of both, and of more; per- 
haps properly of neither: for the whole has a 
chameleon character, changing hue as we look 
on it. However, be this as it may, the Chorus 
cannot sufficiently admire Faust's strategic 
faculty ; and the troops march off, without 
speech indeed, but evidently in the highest 
spirits. He himself concludes with another 
rapid dithyrambic, describing the Peninsula 
of Greece, or rather, perhaps, typically the 
Region of true Poesy, "kissed by the sea- 
waters," and "knit to the last mountain- 
branch" of the firm land. There is a wild 
glowing fire in these two odes; a musical in- 
distinctness, yet enveloping a rugged, keen 
sense, which, were the gift of rhyme so com- 
mon as Faust thinks it, we should haA-^e plea- 
sure in presenting to our readers. Again and 
again, we think of Calderon and his Life a 
Dream. 

Faust, as he resumes his seat by Helena, 
observes that " she is sprung from the highest 
gods, and belongs to the first world alone. It 
is not meet that bolted towers should encircle 
her; and near by Sparta, over the hills, "Ar- 
cadia blooms in eternal strength of youth, a 
blissful abode for them two." " Let thrones 
pass into groves ; Arcadianly free be such 
felicity !" No sooner said, than done. Our 
Fortress, we suppose, rushes asunder lil:e a 
Palace of Air, for, "the scene altogether changes. 
A series of Grottoes now are shut in by close Eoivers. 
Shady Gi-ove, to the foot of the Rocks which encircle 
the place. Faust and Helena are not seen. The 
Chorus, scattered around, lie sleeping^" 

In Arcadia, the business grows wilder than 
ever. Phorcyas, who has now become won- 
derfully civil, and, notwithstanding her ug- 
liness, stands on the best footing with the 
poor light-headed Cicada-Swarm of a Chorus, 
awakes them to hear and see the wonders 
that have happened so shortly. It appears, 
too, that there are certain " Bearded Ones" (we 
suspect, Devils) waiting with anxiety, " sitting 
watchful there below," to see the issue of this 
extraordinary transaction ; but of these Phor- 
cyas gives her silly woman no hint what- 
ever. She tells them, in glib phrase, what 
great things are in the wind. Faust and 
Helena have been happier than mortals in 
these grottoes. Phorcyas, who was in waiting, 
gradually glided away, seeking "roots, moss, 
and rinds," on household duty bent, and so 
" they two remained alone." 

CHORUS. 

1 Uk'st as if within those grottoes lay whole tracts of 

country. 
Wood and meadow, rivers, lakes: what tales thou palni'st 

on us ! 

PHORCYAS. 

Sure enough, ye foolish creatures! These are unexplor- 
ed recesses ; 

Hall runs out on hall, spaces there on spaces: those 1 
musing traced. 

But at once re-echoes from within a peal of laughter: 

Peeping in, what is it f Leaps a boy from mother's breast 
10 Father's, 

from the Father to the Mother : such a fondling, such a 
dandling, 



Foolish Love's caressing, teasing ; cry of jest, and shriek 
of pleasure, 

In their turn do stun me quite. 

Naked, without wings a Genius, Faun in humour with- 
out coarseness. 

Springs he sportful on the ground ; but the ground rever- 
berating, 

Darts him up to airy heights ; and at tlie third, the second 
gambol, 

Touches he the vaulted Roof. 

Frightened cries the Mother : Bound away, away, and as 

thou pleasest, 
But, my Son, beware of Flying; wings nor power of 

flight are thine. 
And the Father thus advises : in the Earth resides the 

virtue 
Wiiich so fast doth send thee upwards; touch but with 

thy toe the surface. 
Like the earth-horn old Antaeus, straightway thou art 

strong again. 
And so skips he, hither, thither, on these jagged rocks; 

from summit 
Still to summit, all about, like stricken ball rebounding, 

springs. 

But at once in cleft of some rude cavern sinking as he 

vanished, 
And so seems it we have lost him. Mother mourning, 

Father cheers her, 
Shrug my shoulders I, and look about me. But again, 

behold, what vision ! 
Are there treasures lying here concealed 7 There he ia 

again, and garments 
Glittering, flower-bestriped has on. 

Tassels waver from his arms, about his bosom flutter 

breastknots, 
In his hand the golden Lyre ; wholly like a little Phoebus, 
Steps he light of heart upon the beetling cliffs: asto- 
nished stand we. 
And the Parents, in their rapture, fly into each other's 

arms. 
For what glittering 's that about his headl Were hard 

to say what glitters, 
Whether Jewels and gold, or Flame of all-subduing 

strength of soul. 
And with such a bearing moves he, in himself this boy 

announces 
Future Master of all Beauty, whom the Melodies Eternal 
Do inform through every fibre; and forthwith so shall ye 

hear him, 
And forthwith so shall ye see him, to your uttermost 

amazement. 

The Chorus suggest, in their simplicity, that 
this elastic little urchin may have some rela- 
tionship to the " Son of Maia," who, in old 
times, whisked himself so nimbly out of his 
swaddling clothes, and stole the "Sea-ruler's 
trident" and " Hephisstos' tongs," and various 
other articles before he was well span-long. 
But Phorcyas declares all this to be superan- 
nuated fable, unfit for modern uses. And now, 
" a beautiful, purely melodious music of stringed in' 
struments resounds from the Cave. Ml listen, and 
soon appear deeply moved. It continues playing in 
full lone ;" -while Euphorion, in person, makes 
his appearance, " in the costume above described ; " 
larger of stature, but no less frolicsome and 
tuneful. 

Our readers are aware that this Euphorion, 
the offspring of Northern Character wedded to 
Grecian Culture, frisks it here not without re- 
ference to Modern Poesy, which had a birth so 
precisely similar. Sorry are we that we can- 
not follow him through these fine warblings 
and trippings on the light fantastic toe : to our 
ears there is a quick, pure, small-toned music 



GOETHE'S HELENA. 



71 



in them, as perhaps of elfin bells when the 
Queen of Faery rides by moonlight. It is, in 
truth, a graceful emblematic dance, this little 
life of Euphorion ; full of meanings and half- 
meanings. The history of Poetry, traits of in- 
dividual Poets ; the Troubadours, the Three 
Italians; glimpses of all things, full vision of 
nothing ! Euphorion grows rapidly, and passes 
from one pursuit to another. Quitting his 
boyish gambols, he takes to dancing and romp- 
ing with the Chorus ; and this in a style of tu- 
mult which rather dissatisfies Faust. The wild- 
est and coyest of these damsels he seizes with 
avowed intent of snatching a kiss; but, alas, 
she resists, and still more singular, "flashes up 
in flame into the air :" inviting him, perhaps in 
mockery, to follow her, and " catch his van- 
ished purpose." Euphorion shakes off the 
remnants of the flame, and now, in a wilder 
humour, mounts on the crags, begins to talk 
of courage and battle ; higher and higher he 
rises, till the Chorus see him on the topmost 
cliff, shining "in harness as for victory;" and 
yet, though at such a distance, they still hear 
his tones, neither is his figure diminished in 
their eyes ; which indeed, as they observe, al- 
ways is, and should be, the case with " sacred 
Poesy," though it mounts heavenward, farther 
and farther, till it "glitter like the fairest star." 
But Euphorion's life-dance is near ending. 
From his high peak, he catches the sound of 
war, and fires at it, and longs to mix in it, let 
Chorus, and Mother, and Father say what they 
will. 

EUPHOniOX. 

And hear ye thunders on the ocean, 

And thunders roll from tower and wall, 

And host with host in fierce commotion, 

See mixing at the trumpet's call : 

And to die in strife 

Is the law of life, 

That is certain once for all. 

HELENA, FAUST, and CHORUS. 

What a horror ! spoken madly ; 
Wilt thou die 7 then what must I 1 

EUPHonioy. 
Shall I view it, safe and gladly ? 
No ! to share it will I hie. 

HELENA, EAUST, and CHORUS. 
Fatal are such haughty things, 
War is for the stout. 

EUPHORION. 

Ha! — and a pair of wings 
Folds itself out ! 
Thither! I must! I must! 
'T is my hest to fly '. 

(He cofts himself into the air : his Garments support 
Jiim for a moment; his Head radiates, a Train uf Light 
follows him.) 

CHORUS. 

Icarus ! earth and dust ! 

O, wo ! thou mount'st too high. 
(A beautiful Youth rushes down at the feet of the Pa- 
rents ; you fancy you recognise in the dead a xreU-knoicn 
Form ;* but the bodily part instantly disappears ; the gold 

* It is perhaps in reference to this phrase, that certain 
sagacious critics among the Germans have hit upon the 
wonderful discovery of Euphorion being— Lord Byron! 
A fact, if it is one, which curiously verifie.s the author's 
prediction in this passage. But unhappily, while we 
fancy that we recognise in the dead a well-known form, 
" the bodily part instantly disappears ; " and the keon- 



Crownlet mounts like a comet to the sky ; Coaty Mintlef 
and Lyre, are left lying.) 

HELENA and FAUST. 

Joy soon changes to wo. 
And mirth to heaviest moan. 

euphorion's voice (from beneath.) 

Let me not to realms below 
Descend, O mother, alone ; 

The prayer is soon granted. The Chorus 
chant a dirge over his remains, and then : 

HELENA (to FAUST.) 

A sad old saying proves itself again in me, 
Good hap with beauty hath no long abode. 
So with love's Band is life's asunder rent : 
Lamenting both, I clasp thee in my arms 
Once more, and bid thee painfully farewell. 
Persephoneia take my boy, and with him me. 

(She embraces Faust ; her Body melts away ; Oarment 
and Veil remain in his arms.) 

PHORCTAS (to FAUST.) 

Hold fast, what now alone remains to thee 

That Garment quit not. They are tugging there, 

These Demons at the skirt of it ; would fain 

To the Nether Kingdoms take it down. Hold fast ! 

The goddess is it not, whom thou hast lost, 

Yet godlike is it. See thou use aright 

The priceless high bequest, and soar aloft : 

'T will lift thee away above the common world. 

Far up to jEther, so thou canst endure. 

We meet again, far, very far from hence. 

(HELENA'S Garments unfold into Clouds, encircle f/lVST; 
raise him aloft and float away with him.) 

(pHoncYAS picks -Mp euphorion's Coat, Mantle, and 
Lyre from the Orouud,comes forward into the Proscenium, 
holds these Remains aloft, and says :) 

Well, foirly found be happily won ! 

'T is true, the Flame is lost and gone : 

But well for us we have still this stuff! 

A gala-dress to dub our poets of merit. 

And make guild-brethren snarl and cuff; 

And can't they borrow the Body and Spirit 

At least, I'll lend them Clothes enough. 

(Sits down in the Proscenium at the foot of a pillar.) 

The rest of the personages are now speedily 
disposed of. Panthalis, the Leader of the 
Chorus, and the only one of them who has 
shown any glimmerings of Reason, or of aught 
beyond mere sensitive life, mere love of Plea- 
sure and fear of Pain, proposes that, being now 
delivered from the soul-confusing spell of the 
"Thessalian Hag," they should forthwith re- 
turn to Hades, to bear Helena company. But 
none will volunteer with her; so she goes her- 
self. The Chorus have lost their taste for 
Asphodel Meadows, and playing so subordinate 
a part in Orcus : they prefer abiding in the 
Light of Day, though, indeed, under rather 
peculiar circumstances ; being no longer " Per- 
sons," they say, but a kind of Occult Qualities, 
as we conjecture, and Poetic Inspirations, re- 
siding in various natural objects. Thus, onn 
division become a sort of invisible Hama 
dryads, and have their being in Trees, and 
their joy in the various movements, beauties, 



est critic finds that he can see no deeper into a millstone 
than another man. Some ullusioii to our English Poet 
there is, or may be, here and in the page that precedes, 
and the page that follows; but Euphorion is no image 
of any person : least of all, one would thihk, of George 
Lord Byron. 



72 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



and products of trees. A second change into 
Echoes ; a third, into the Spirit of Brooks ; 
and a fourth take up their abode in Vineyards, 
and delight in the manufacture of Wine. No 
sooner have these several parties made up their 
minds, than the Curtain falls ; and Phorcyas "in 
the Proscenium rises in gigantic size ; but steps down 
from her rotlnirni, lays her Mask and Veil aside, 
and shows herself as Mephistopheles, in order, so 
far as may be necessary, to comment on the piece, 
by way of Epilogue." 

Such is Helena the interlude in Faiist. We 
have all the desire in the world to hear 
Mephisto's Epilogue: but far be it from us to 
take the word out of so gifted a mouth ! In 
the way of commentary on Helena, we ourselves 
have little more to add. The reader sees, in 
general, that Faust is to save himself from the 
straits and fetters of Worldly Life in the loftier 
regions of Art, or in that temper of mind by 
which alone those regions can be reached, 
and permanently dwelt in. Further, also, that 
this doctrine is to be staled emblematically and 
parabolically ; so that it might seem as if, in 
Goethe's hands, the History of Faust, com- 
mencing among the realities of every-day 
existence, superadding to these certain spiritual 
agencies, and passing into a more aerial charac- 
ter as it proceeds, may fade away, at its termi- 
nation, into a phantasmagoric region, where 
symbol and thing signified are no longer 
clearly distinguished; and thus the final result 
be curiously and significantly indicated, rather 
than directly exhibited. With regard to the 
special purport of Euphorion, Lynceus, and 
the rest, we have nothing more to say at pre- 
sent; nay, perhaps we may have already said 
too much. For it must not be forgotten by the 
commentator, and will not, of a surety, be for- 
gotten by Mephistopheles, whenever he may 
please to deliver his Epilogue, that Helena is 
not an Allegory, but a Phantasmagory ; not a 
type of one thing, but a vague, fluctuating, 
fitful adumbration of many. This is no Pic- 
ture painted on canvas, with mere material 
colours, and steadfastly abiding our scrutiny; 
but rather it is like the Smoke of a Wizard's 
Cauldron, in which as we gaze on its flicker- 
ing tints and wild splendours, thousands of 
strangest shapes unfold themselves, yet no one 
will abide with us; and thus, as Goethe says 
elsewhere, " we are reminded of Nothing and 
of All." 

Properly speaking, Helena is what the Ger- 
mans call a Mdhrchen (Fabulous Tale), a 
species of fiction they have particularly ex- 
celled in, and of which Goethe has already 
produced more than one distinguished speci- 
men. Some day we purpose to translate for 
our readers, that little piece of his, deserving 
to be named, as it is, " The Milhrchen," and 
which we must agree with a great critic in 
reckoning the "Tale of all Tales." As to the 
composition of this Helena, we cannot but per- 
ceive it to be deeply-studied, appropriate, and 



successful. It is wonderful with what fidelity 
the Classical style is maintained throughout 
the earlier part of the poem; how skilfully it 
is at once united to the Romantic style of the 
latter part, and made to re-appear, at intervals, 
to the end. And then the small half-secret 
touches of sarcasm, the curious little traits by 
which we get a peep behind the curtain ! 
Figure, for instance, that so transient allusion 
to these " Bearded Ones sitting watchful there 
below," and then their tugging at Helena's Man- 
tle to pull it down with them. By such light 
hints does Mephistopheles point out our 
Whereabout ; and ever and anon remind us, 
that not on the firm earth, but on the wide and 
airy Deep, has he spread his strange pavilion, 
where, in magic light, so many wonders are 
displayed to us. 

Had we chanced to find that Goethe, in other 
instances, had ever written one line without 
meaning, or many lines without a deep and 
true meaning, we should not have thought this 
little cloud-picture worthy of such minute de- 
velopment, or such careful study. In that 
case, too, we should never have seen the true 
Helena of Goethe, but some false one of our 
own too indolent imagination ; for this Drama, 
as it grows clearer, grows also more beautiful 
and complete ; and the third, the fourth perusal 
of it pleases far better than the first. Few living 
artists would deserve such faith from us; but 
few also Avould so well reward it. 

On the general relation of Helena to Faust, 
and the degree of fitness of the one for the 
other, it were premature to speak more ex- 
pressly at present. We have learned, on 
authority which we may justly reckon the best, 
that Goethe is even now engaged in preparing 
the entire Second Part of Faust, into which 
this Helena passes as a component part. With 
the third Licferuvg of his Works, we under- 
stand, the beginning of that Second Part is to 
be published: we shall then, if need be, feef 
more qualified to speak. 

For the present, therefore, we take leave of 
Helena and Faust, and of their Author : but with 
regard to the latter, our task is nowise ended; 
indeed, as yet, hardly begun, for it is not in the 
province of the Mahrchcn, that Goethe will ever 
become most interesting to English readers. 
But, like his own Euphorion, though he rises 
aloft into ^ther, he derives, Antocus-like, his 
strength from the earth. The dullest plodder 
has not more practical understanding, or a 
sounder or more quiet character, than this 
most aerial and imaginative of poets. We 
hold Goethe to be the Foreigner, at this era, 
who, of all others, the best, and the best by 
many degrees, deserves our study and appre- 
ciation. What help we individually can give 
in such a matter, we shall consider it a duty 
and a pleasure to have in readiness. We 
purpose to return, in our next Number, to the 
consideration of his Works and Character in, 
general. 



GOETHE. 



73 



GOETHE.* 



[Foreign Review, 1828.] 



It is not on this " Second Portion" of Goethe's 
works, which at any rate contains nothing new 
to us, that we mean at present to dwell. In our 
last Number, we engaged to make some survey 
of his writings and character in general ; and 
must now endeavour, with such insight as we 
have, to fulfil that promise. 

We have already said that we reckoned this 
no unimportant subject ; and few of Goethe's 
readers can need to be reminded that it is no 
easy one. We hope also that our pretensions 
in regard to it are not exorbitant; the sum of 
our aims being nowise to solve so deep and 
pregnant an inquiry, but only to show that an 
inquiry of such a sort lies ready for solution ; 
courts the attention of thinking men among us, 
nay, merits a thorough investigation, and must 
sooner or later obtain it. Goethe's literary 
history appears to us a matter, beyond most 
others, of rich, subtile, and manifold signifi- 
cance ; which will require and reward the best 
study of the best heads, and to the right expo- 
sition of which not one but many judgments 
will be necessary. 

However, we need not linger, preluding on 
our own inability, and magnifying the difficul- 
ties we have so courageously volunteered to 
front. Considering the highly complex aspect 
which such a mind of itself presents to us ; 
and, still more, taking into account the state 
of English opinion in respect of it, there cer- 
tainly seem few literary questions of our time 
so perplexed, dubious, perhaps hazardous, as 
this of the character of Goethe ; but few also 
on which a well-founded, or even a sincere, 
word would be more likely to profit. For our 
countrymen, at no time indisposed to foreign 
excellence, but at all times cautious of foreign 
singularity, have heard much of Goethe; but 
heard, for the most part, what excited and per- 
plexed rather than instructed them. Vague 
rumors of the man have, for more than half a 
century, been humming through our ears : 
from time to time, we have even seen some 
distorted, mutilated transcript of his own 
thoughts, which, all obscure and hieroglyphi- 
cal as it might often seem, failed not to emit 
here and there a ray of keenest and purest 
sense; travellers also are still running to and 
fro, importing the opinions or, at worst, the 
gossip of foreign countries : so that, by one 
means or another, many of us have come to 
understand, that considerably the most dis- 
tinguished poet and thinker of his age is called 
Goethe, and lives at Weimar, and must, to all 
appearance, be an extremely surprising cha- 

*Ooethe's Sdinmtliche IVerke, VoUstdndige ^iisgabe 

letzter Harid. (Goethe's CoUective Works. Complete 

Edition, with his final Corrections.) Zweite Liefertitig, 

£de.vi.—x. Cotta : Stuttgard and Tiibingen. 1827. 

10 



racter: but here, unhappily, our knowledge 
almost terminates; and still must Curiosity, 
must ingenuous love of Information and mere 
passive Wonder alike inquire: What manner 
of man is this"! How shall we interpret, how 
shall we even see him 1 What is his spiritual 
structure, what at least are the outward form 
and features of his mind? Has he any real 
poetic worth ; and if so, how much ; how much 
to his own people, how much to usl 

Reviewers, of great and of small character, 
have manfully endeavoured to satisfy the Bri- 
tish world on these points: but which of us 
could believe their report? Did it not rather 
become apparent, as we reflected on the mat- 
ter, that this Goethe of theirs was not the real 
man, nay, could not be any real man whatever ? 
For what, after all, were their portraits of him 
but copies, with some retouchings and orna- 
mental appendages, of our grand English 
original Picture of the German genericallyl — 
In itself such a piece of art, as national por- 
traits, under like circumstances, are wont to be ; 
and resembling Goethe, as some unusually ex- 
pressive Sign of the Saracen's Head may re- 
semble the present Sultan of Constantinople ! 

Did we imagine that much information, or 
any very deep sagacity were required for 
avoiding such mistakes, it would ill become 
us to step forward on this occasion. But 
surely it is given to every man, if he will but 
take heed, to know so much as whether or not 
he knows. And nothing can be plainer to us 
than that if, in the present business, we can 
report «Mg/u from our own personal vision and 
clear hearty belief, it will be a useful novelty 
in the discussion of it. Let the reader be 
patient with us then ; and according as he finds 
that we speak honestly and earnestly, or loosely 
and dishonestly, consider our statement, or dis- 
miss it as unworthy of consideration. 

Viewed in his merely external relations, 
Goethe exhibits an appearance such as seldom 
occurs in the history of letters, and indeed, 
from the nature of the case, can seldom occur. 
A man, who, in early life, rising almost at a 
single bound into the highest reputation over 
all Europe; by gradual advances, fixing him- 
self more and more firmly in the reverence of 
I his countrymen, ascends silently through many 
vicissitudes to the supreme intellectual place 
among them ; and now, after half a century, 
distinguished by convulsions, political, moral, 
and poetical, still reigns, full of years and 
honours, with a soft undisputed sway; still 
labouring in his vocation, still forwarding, as 
with knightly benignity, whatever can profit 
the culture of his nation: such a man might 
justly attract our notice, were it only by the 
singularity of his fortune. Supremacies of 
G 



74 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



this son are rare in modern times; so univer- 
sal, and of such continuance, they are almost 
unexampled. For the age of the Prophets and 
Theologic Doctors had long since passed 
away; and now it is hy much slighter, by 
transient and mere earthly ties, that bodies of 
men connect themselves with a man. The 
wisest, most melodious voice cannot in these 
days pass for a divine one; the word Inspira- 
tion still lingers, but only in the shape of a 
poetic figure, from which the once earnest, 
awful, and soul-subduing sense has vanished 
without return. The polity of Literature is 
called a Republic; oftener it is an Anarchy, 
where, by strength or fortune, favourite after 
favourite rises into splendour and authority, 
but like Masaniello, while judging the people, 
is on the third day deposed and shot. Nay, 
few such adventurers can attain even this 
painful pre-eminence ; for at most, it is clear, 
any given age can have but one first man ; 
many ages have only a crowd of secondary 
men, each of whom is first in his own eyes : 
and seldom, at best, can the "Single Person" 
long keep his station at the head of this wild 
commonwealth ; most sovereigns are never 
universally acknowledged, least of all in their 
lifetimes ; few of the acknowledged can reign 
peaceably to the end. 

Of such a perpetual dictatorship Voltaire 
among the French gives the last European 
instance; but even with him it was perhaps a 
much less striking affair. Voltaire reigned 
over a sect, less as their lawgiver than as their 
general; for he was at bitter enmity with the 
great numerical majority of his nation, by 
whom his services, far from being acknow- 
ledged as benefits, were execrated as abomina- 
tions. But Goethe's object has, at all times, 
been rather to unite than to divide ; and though 
he has not scrupled, as occasion served, to 
speak forth his convictions distinctly enough 
on many delicate topics, and seems, in general, 
to have paid little court to the prejudices or 
private feelings of any man or body of men, 
we see not at present that his merits are any- 
where disputed, his intellectual endeavours 
controverted, or his person regarded otherwise 
than with affection and respect. In later years, 
too, the advanced age of the poet has invested 
him with another sorfof dignity; and the ad- 
miration to which his great qualities give him 
claim, is tempered into a milder, grateful feel- 
ing, almost as of sons and grandsons to their 
common father. Dissentients, no doubt, there 
are and must be; but, apparently, their cause 
is not pleaded in words : no man of the small- 
est note speaks on that side ; or at most, such 
men may question, not the worth of Goethe, 
but the cant and idle affectation with which, in 
many quarters, this must be promulgated and 
bepraised. Certainly there is not, probably 
there never was, in any European country, a 
writer who, with so cunning a style, and so 
■deep, so abstruse a sense, ever found so many 
readers. For, from the peasant to the king, 
from the callow dilettante and innamorato, to 
the grave transcendental philosopher, men of 
all degrees and dispositions are familiar with 
the writings of Goethe : each studies them 
with affection, with a faith which, " where it 



cannot unriddle, learns to trust;" each takes 
with him what he is adequate to carry, and de- 
parts thankful for his own allotments. Two 
of Goethe's intensest admirers are Schelling 
of Munich, and a worthy friend of ours in 
Berlin; one of these among the deepest men 
in Europe, the other among the shallowest. 

All this is, no doubt, singular enough ; and a 
proper understanding of it would throw light 
on many things. Whatever we may think of 
Goethe's ascendency, the existence of it re- 
mains a highly curious fact; and to trace its 
history, to discover by what steps such in- 
fluence has been attained, and how so long 
preserved, were no trivial or unprofitable in- 
quiry. It would be worth while to see so 
strange a man for his own sake ; and here we 
should see, not only the man himself, and his 
own progress and spiritual development, but 
the progress also of his nation ; and this at no 
sluggish or even quiet era, but in times marked 
by strange revolutions of opinions, by angry 
controversies, high enthusiasm, novelty of en- 
terprise, and doubtless, in many respects, by 
rapid advancement : for that the Germans have 
been, and still are, restlessly struggling for- 
ward, with honest unwearied effort, sometimes 
with enviable success, no one, who knows 
them, will deny ; and as little, that in every 
province of Literature, of Art, and humane 
accomplishment, the influence, often the direct 
guidance of Goethe may be recognised. The 
history of his mind is, in fact, at the same time, 
the history of German culture in his day; 
for whatever excellence this individual might 
realize has sooner or later been acknowledged 
and appropriated by his country; and the title 
of 3Iu>:agclcs, which his admireis give him, is 
perhaps, in sober strictness, not unmerited. 
Be it for good or for evil, there is certainly no 
German, since the days of Luther, whose life 
can occupy so large a space in the intellectual 
history of that people. 

In this point of view, were it in no other, 
Goethe's Dirhtimg vnd Wuhrhcit, so soon as it 
is completed, may deserve to be reckoned one 
of his most interesting works. We speak not 
of its literary merits, though in that respect, 
too, we must say that few Autobiographies 
have come in our way, where so difficult a 
matter was so successfully handled; where 
perfect knowledge could be found united so 
kindly with perfect tolerance; and a personal 
narrative, moving along in soft clearness, 
showed us a man, and the objects that en- 
vironed him, under an aspect so verisimilar, 
yet so lovely, with an air dignified and earnest, 
yet graceful, cheerful, even gay : a story as of 
a Patriarch to his children ; such indeed, as 
few men can be called upon to relate, and few, 
if called upon, could relate so well. What 
would we give for such an Autobiography of 
Shakspeare, of Milton, even of Pope or Swift! 
Dirhlun<r und Wohrheit has been censured con- 
siderably in England ; but not, we are inclined 
to believe, with any insight into its proper 
meaning. The misfortune of the work among 
us was, that we did not know the narrator be- 
fore his narrative ; and could not judge what 
sort of narrative he was bound to give, in these 
circumstances, or whether he was bpund to 



GOETHE. 



75 



give any at all. We say nothing of his situa- 
tion ; heard only the sound of his. voice ; and 
hearing it, never doubted that he must be per- 
orating in official garments from the rostrum, 
instead of speaking trustfully by the fireside. 
For the chief ground of offence seemed to be, 
that the story was not noble enough ; that it 
entered on details of loo poor and private a 
nature ; verged here and there towards garru- 
lity ; was not, in one word, written in the style 
of what we call a gentleman. Whether it might 
he written in the style of a man, and how far 
these two styles might be compatible, and 
what might be their relative worth and prefer- 
ableness, was a deeper question, to which ap- 
parently no heed had been given. Yet herein 
lay the very cream of the matter; for Goethe 
was not writing to " persons of quality" in 
England, but to persons of heart and head in 
Europe : a somewhat different problem perhaps, 
and requiring a somewhat ditTerent solution. 
As to this ignobleness and freedom of detail, 
especially, we may say, that, to a German, few 
accusations could appear more surprising than 
this, which, with us, constitutes the head and 
front of his offending. Goeihe, in his own 
country, far from being accused of undue 
familiarity towards his readers, had, up to that 
date, been labouring under precisely the oppo- 
site charge. It was his stateliness, his reserve, 
his indifference, his contempt for the public, 
that were censured. Strange, almost inexpli- 
cable, as many of his works might appear ; 
loud, sorrowful, and altogether stolid as might 
be the criticisms they underwent, no word of 
explanation could be wrung from him ; he had 
never even deigned to write a preface. And 
in later and juster days, when the study of 
Poetry came to be prosecuted in another spirit, 
and it was found that Goethe was standing, not 
like a culprit to plead for himself before the 
literary plebeians, but like a higher teacher and 
preacher, speaking for truth, to whom both 
plebeiiins a.nd patricians were bound to give all 
ear, the outward difficulty of interpreting his 
works began ijideed to vanish ; but enough still 
remained, nay, increased curiosity had given 
rise to new difficulties, and deeper inquiries. 
Not only rvhat were these works, but how did 
they originate, became questions for the critic. 
Yet several of Goethe's chief productions, and, 
of his smaller poems, nearly the whole, seemed 
so intimately interwoven with his private his- 
tory, that without some knowledge of this, no 
answer to such questions could be given. Nay, 
commentaries have been written on single 
pieces of his, endeavouring, by way of guess, 
to supply this deficiency.* We can thus judge 
whether, to the Germans, such minuteness of 
exposition in this Dichtnng uml Wahrheit may 
have seemed a sin. Few readers of Goethe, 
we believe, but would wish rather to see it ex- 
tended than curtailed. 

It is our duty also to remark, if any one be 
still unaware of it, that the Memoirs of Goethe, 
published some years ago in London, can have 
no real concern with this autobiography. The 
rage of hunger is an excuse for much ; other- 



wise that German translator, whom indignant 
Reviewers have proved to know no German, 
were a highly reprehensible man. His work, 
it appears, is done from the French, and shows 
subtractions, and, what is worse, additions. 
But the unhappy Dragoman has already been 
chastised, perhaps too sharply. If warring 
with the reefs and breakers and cross eddies 
of Life, he still hover on this side the shadow 
of Night, and any word of ours might reach 
him, we would rather say : Courage, Brother ! 
Grow honest, and times will mend! 

It would appear, then, that for inquirers into 
Foreign Literature, for all men, anxious to see 
and understand the European world as it lies 
around them, a great problem is presented in 
this Goethe ; a singular, highly significant phe- 
nomenon, and now, also, means more or less 
complete for ascertaining its significance. A 
man of wonderful, nay unexampled reputation 
and intellectual influence among forty millions 
of reflective, serious, and cultivated men, in- 
vites us to study him ; and to determine for 
ourselves whether and how far such influence 
has been salutary, such reputation merited. 
That this call will one day be answered, that 
Goethe will be seen and judged of in his real 
character among us, appears certain enough. 
His name, long familiar everywhere, has now 
awakened the attention of critics in all Eu- 
ropean countries to his works : he is studied 
wherever true study exists; eagerly studied 
even in France ; nay, some considerable know- 
ledge of his nature and spiritual importance 
seems already to prevail there.* 

For ourselves, meanwhile, in giving all due 
weight to so curious an exhibition of opinion, 
it is doubtless our part, at the same time, to 
beware that we do not give it too much. This 
universal sentiment of admiration is wonder- 
ful, is interesting enough; but it must not 
lead us astray. We English stand as yet 
without the sphere of it ; neither will we plunge 
blindly in, but enter considerately, or, if we see 
good, keep aloof from it altogether. Fame, we 
may understand, is no sure test of merit, but 
only a probability of such : it is an accident, 
not a property, of a man ; like light, it can 
give little or nothing, but at most may show 
what is given; often, it is but a false glare, daz- 
zling the eyes of the vulgar, lending by casual, 
extrinsic splendour the brightness and mani- 
fold glance of the diamond to the pebbles of no 
value. A man is in all cases simply the man, 
of th« same intrinsic worth and weakness, 
whether his worth and weakness lie hidden in 
the depths of his own consciousness, or be be- 
trumpeted and beshouted from end to end of 
the habitable globe. These are plain truths, 
which no one should lose sight of; though, 
whether in love or in anger, for praise or for 
condemnation, most of us are too apt to forget 
them. But least of all can it become the critic 
to "follow a multitude to do evil," even when 
that evil is excess of admiration; on the con- 
trary, it will behove him to lift up his voice, 
how feeble soever, how unheeded soever, 
against the common delusion ; from which, if 



* See, in particular. Dr. Kannengiesser Ueber Ooetlie's 
Hausreise in Winter, 1820. 



* Witnes.s Le Tasse, Drame par Duval, and the Criti- 
cisms on it. See also tlie Essays in the QJobe, Nos. 55, 
64, (1826.) 



76 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS- 



he can save, or help to save, any mortal, his 
endeavours will have been repaid. 

With these things in some measure before 
us, we must remind our readers of another in- 
fluence at work in this affair, and one acting, 
as we think, in the contrary direction. That 
pitiful enough desire for " originality," which 
lurks and acts in all minds, will rather, we 
imagine, lead the critic of Foreign Literature 
to adopt the negative than the affirmative with 
regard to Goethe. If a writer, indeed, feel that 
he is writing for England alone, invisibly and 
inaudibly to the rest of the Earth, the tempta- 
tions may be pretty equally balanced ; if he 
write for some small conclave, which he mis- 
takenly thinks the representative of England, 
they may sway this way or that, as it chances. 
But writing in such isolated spirit is no long- 
er possible. Traffic, with its SM'ift ships, is 
uniting all nations into one; Europe at large 
is becoming more and more one public: and 
in this public, the voices for Goethe, compared 
with those against him, are in the proportion, 
as we reckon them, both as to the number and 
value, of perhaps a hundred to one. We take 
in, not Germany alone, but France and Italy; 
not the Schlegels and Schellings, but the Man- 
zonis and de Staels. The bias of originality, 
therefore, may lie to the side of the censure : 
and whoever among us shall step forward, 
with such knowledge as our common critics 
have of Goethe, to enlighten the European 
public, by contradiction in this matter, displays 
a heroism, which, in estimating his other 
merits, ought nowise to be forgotten. 

Our own view of the case coincides, we con- 
fess, in some degree with that of the majority. 
We reckon that Goethe's fame has, to a conside- 
rable extent, been deserved; that his influence 
has been of high benefit to his own country ; 
nay more, that it promises to be of benefit to 
us, and to all other nations. The essential 
grounds of this opinion, which to explain 
minutel)' were a long, indeed boundless task, 
we may state without many words. We find, 
then, in Goethe, an Artist, in the high and an- 
cient meaning of that term ; in the meaning 
which it may have borne long ago among the 
masters of Italian painting, and the fathers of 
Poetry in England ; we say that we trace in the 
creations of this man, belonging in every sense 
to our own time, some touches of that old, 
divine spirit, which had long passed away from 
among us, nay, which, as has often been la- 
boriously demonstrated, was not to return to 
this world an)' more. 

Or perhaps we come nearer our meaning, if 
we say that in Goethe we discover by far the 
most striking instance, in our time, of a writer 
who is, in strict speech, what Philosophy can 
call a Man. He is neither noble nor plebeian, 
neither liberal nor servile, nor infidel, nor de- 
votee ; but the best excellence of all these, 
joined in pure union; "a clear and universal 
Man." Goethe's poetry is no separate facult}', 
no mental handicraft; but the voice of the 
whole harmonious manhood : nay it is the very 
harmony, the living and life-giving harmony 
of that rich manhood which forms his poetry. 
All good men may be called poets in act, or in 
word; all good poets are so in both. But 



Goethe besides appears to us a person of that 
deep endowment, and gifted vision, of that ex- 
perience also and sympathy in the ways of all 
men, which qualify him to stand forth, not only 
as the literary ornament, but in many respects 
too as the Teacher and exemplar of his age. 
For, to say nothing of his natural gifts, he has 
cultivated himself and his art, he has studied 
how to live and write, with a fidelity, an un- 
wearied earnestness, of which there is no other 
living instance ; of which, among British 
poets especially, Wordsworth alone offers any 
resemblance. And this in our view is the re- 
sult : To our minds, in these soft, melodious 
imaginations of his, there is embodied the Wis- 
dom which is proper to this time ; the beauti- 
ful, the religious Wisdom, which may still, 
with something-of its old impressiveness, speak 
to the whole soul; still, in these hard, unbe- 
lieving, utilitarian days, reveal to us glimpses 
of the Unseen but not unreal World, that so 
the Actual and the Ideal may again meet to- 
gether, and clear Knowledge be again wedded 
to Religion, in the life and business of men. 

Such is our conviction or persuasion with 
regard to the poetry of Goethe. Could we de- 
monstrate this opinion to be true, could we 
even exhibit it with that degree of clearness 
and consistency which it has attained in our 
own thoughts, Goethe were, on our part, suffi- 
ciently recommended to the best attention of 
all thinking men. But, unhappily, it is not a 
subject susceptible of demonstration : the merits 
and characteristics of a Poet are not to be set 
forth by logic ; but to be gathered by personal, 
and as, in this case, it must be, by deep and 
careful inspection of his works. Nay, Goethe's 
world is every way so different from ours; it costs 
us such effort, we have so much to remember and 
so much to forget, before we can transfer our- 
selves in any measure into his peculiar point of 
vision, that a right study of him, for an English- 
man, even of ingenuous, open, inquisitive mind, 
becomes unusually difficult; for a fixed, decided, 
contemptuous Englishman, next to impossible. 
To a reader of the first class, helps may be 
given, explanations will remove many a diffi- 
culty; beauties that lay hidden may be made 
apparent; and directions, adapted to his actual 
position, will at length guide him into the proper 
track for such an inquiry. All this, however, 
must be a work of progression and detail. To 
do our part in it, from time to time, must rank 
among the best duties of an English Foreign 
Review. Meanwhile, our present endeavour 
limits itself within far narrower bounds. We 
cannot aim to make Goethe known, but only to 
prove that he is worthy of being known; at 
most, to point out, as it were afar off, the path 
by which some knowledge of him ma)' be ob- 
tained. A slight glance at his general literary 
character and pi'ocedure, and one or two of 
his chief productions, which throw light on 
these, must fur the present suffice. 

A French diplomatic personage, contem- 
plating Goethe's physiognomy, is said to have 
observed : Vmla vn homme qui a eit beauroup de 
chagrins. A truer version of the matter, Goethe 
himself seems to think, would have been: 
Here is a man who has struggled toughly; who 
has es sich recht sauer iverden lassen, Gcethe'^s 



GOETHE. 



77 



life, whether as a writer and thinker, or as a 
living, active man, has indeed been a life of 
effort, of earnest toilsome endeavour after all 
excellence. Accordingly, his intellectual pro- 
gress, his spiritual and moral history, as it may 
be gathered from his successive works, fur- 
nishes, with us, no small portion of the plea- 
sure and profit we derive from perusing them. 
Participating deeply in all the influences of 
his age, he has from the first, at every new 
epoch, stood forth to elucidate the new circum- 
stances of the time: to offer the instruction, the 
solace, which that time required. His literary 
life divides itself into two portions widely dif- 
ferent in character: the products of the first, 
once so new and original, have long, either 
directly or through the thousand, thousand 
imitations of them, been familiar to us; with 
the products of the second, equally original, 
and, in our day, far more precious, we are yet 
little acquainted. These two classes of works 
stand curiously related with each other; at first 
view, in strong contradiction, yet, in truth, 
connected together by the strictest sequence. 
For Goethe has not only suffered and mourned 
in bitter agony under the spiritual perplexities 
of his time; but he has also mastered these, he 
is above them, and has shown others how to 
rise above them. At one time, we found him 
in darkness, and now, he is in light; he was 
once an Unbeliever; and now he is a Believer; 
and he believes, moreover, not by denying his 
unbelief, but by following it out ; not by stop- 
ping short, still less turning back, in his inqui- 
ries, but by resolutely prosecuting them. This, 
it appears to us, is a case of singular interest, 
and rarely exemplified, if at all, elsewhere, in 
these our days. How has this man, to whom 
the world once offered nothing but blackness, 
denial, and despair, attained to that better 
vision which now shows it to him, not tolerable 
only, but full of solemnity and loveliness? 
How has the belief of a Saint been united in 
this high and true mind with the clearness of a 
Skeptic; the devout spirit of a Fenelon made 
to blend in soft harmony with the gayety, the 
sarcasm, the shrewdness of a Voltaire] 

Goethe's two earliest works are Goetz von 



produce of his twenty-fourth year. Wcrler 
appeared to seize the hearts of men in all 
quarters of the world, and to utter for them the 
word which they had long been waiting to hear. 
As usually happens, too, this same word, once 
uttered, was soon abundantly repeated ; spokea 
in all dialects, and chanted through all notes 
of the gamut, till the soiind of it had grown a 
weariness rather than a pleasure. Skeptical 
sentimentality, view-hunting, love, friendship, 
suicide, and desperation, became the staple of 
literary ware; and though the epidemic, after 
a long course of years, subsided in Germany, 
it reappeared with various modifications in. 
other countries, and everywhere abundant 
traces of its good and bad effects are still to be 
discerned. The fortune of Berlirhivgen inththe 
Iron Hand, though less sudden, was by no 
means less exalted. In his own country, Goetz, 
though he now stands solitary and childless, 
became the parent of an innumerable progeny, 
of chivalry plays, feudal delineations, and po- 
etico-antiquarian performances ; which, though 
long ago deceased, made noise enough in their 
day and generation: and with ourselves, his 
influence has been perhaps still more remark- 
able. Sir Walter Scott's first literary enter- 
prise was a translation oi Gnetzvon EcrUchingen ; 
and, if genius could be communicated like in- 
struction, we might call this work of Goethe's 
the prime cause of Marmion and the Lady of 
the Lake, with all that has followed from the 
same creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed 
that has lighted on the right soil! For if not 
firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and 
broader than any other tree ; and all the nations 
of the earth are still yearly gathering of its 
fruit. 

" But overlooking these spiritual genealogies, 
which bring little certainty and little profit, it 
may be sufficient to observe of BerUrhingen and 
Wertcr, that they stand prominent among the 
causes, or at the very least, among the signals 
of a great change in modern literature. The 
former directed men's attention with a new 
force to the picturesque eflects of the Past; 
and the latter, for the first time, attempted the 
more accurate delineation of a class of feelings 



Berlirhivgcn and The Sorrows of Wertrr. The deeply important to modern minds, but for 
boundless influence and popularity they gained, I which our elder poetry offered no exponent, 
both at home and abroad, is well known. It I and perhaps could offer none, because they 



was they that established almost at once his 
literary fame in his own country; and even 
determined his subsequent private history, for 
they brought him into contact with the Duke 
of Weimar; in connection with whom, the Poet, 
engaged in manifold duties, political as well as 
literary, has lived for fifty-four years, and still, 
in honourable retirement, continues to live.* 
Their effects over Europe at large were not less 
striking than in Germany. 

"It would be difficult," observes a writer on 
this subject, " to name two books which have 
exercised a deeper influence on the subsequent 
literature of Europe than these two perform- 
ances of a young author; his first-fruits, the 



♦ Sincf the above was written, that worthy Prince, 
worthy, we have understood, in all respects, exemplary 
in whatever roncerned Literature and the Arts, has been 
called suddenly away. He d'ed on his road from Berlin, 
near Torgau, on the 24lh of June. 



are feelings that arise from Passion incapable 
of being converted into Action, and belong 
chiefly to an age as indolent, cultivated, and 
unbelieving as our own. This, notwithstanding 
the dash of falsehood which may exist in Wcr- 
ter itself, and the boundless delirium of extra- 
vagance which it called forth in others, is a 
high praise which cannot justly be denied it. 
The English reader ought also to understand 
that our current version of Werler is mutilated 
and inaccurate: it comes to us through the 
all-subduing medium of the French, shorn of 
its caustic strength, with its melancholy ren- 
dered maudlin, its hero reduced from the state- 
ly gloom of a broken-hearted poet to the tear- 
ful wrangling of a dyspeptic tailor."* 

To the same dark, wayward mood, which, 
in Werler, pours itself forth in bitter wailings 

* German Romance, vol. iv. pp. 5 — 7. 
G 2 



78 



CARLYLE S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



over human life ; and, in Bcrlichwgen, appears as 
a fond and sad looking back into the Past, be- 
long various other productions of Goethe's ; 
for example, the MitscJmldigcn, and the first 
idea of Faust, which, however, was not realized 
in actual composition, till a calmer period of 
his history. Of this early "harsh and crude," 
yet fervid and genial period, Werler may stand 
here as the representative ; and, viewed in its 
external and internal relation, will help to il- 
lustrate both the writer and the public he was 
writing for. 

At the present day, it would be difficult for 
us, satisfied, nay, sated to nausea, as we have 
been with the doctrines of Sentimentality, to 
estimate the boundless interest which Wnier 
must have excited when first given to the 
world. It was then new in all senses; it was 
wonderful, yet wished for, both in its own 
country and in every other. The literature 
of Germany had as yet but partially awakened 
from its long torpor: deep learning, deep re- 
flection, have at no time been wanting there : 
but the creative spirit had for above a century 
'been almost extinct. Of late, however, the 
Ramlers, Rabeners, Gellerts, had attained to no 
inconsiderable polish of style; Klopstock's 
Messias had called forth the admiration, and 
perhaps still more the pride, of the country, as 
a piece of art ; a high enthusiasm was abroad ; 
Lessing had roused the minds of men to a 
deeper and truer interest in literature, had 
even decidedly begun to introduce a heartier, 
warmer, and more e>,pressive. style. The 
Germans were on the alert; in expectation, or 
at least in full readiness for some far bolder 
impulse ; waiting for the Poet that might speak 
to them from the heart to the heart. It was in 
Goethe that such a Poet was to be given them. 

Nay, the literature of other countries, placid 
self-satisfied as they might seem, was in an 
equally expectant condition. Everywhere, as 
in Germany, there was polish and languor, 
external glitter and internal vacuity; it was 
not fire, but a picture of fire, at which no soul 
could be warmed. Literature had sunk from 
its former vocation : it no longer held the mir- 
ror up to nature; no longer reflected, in man)'- 
coloured expressive symbols, the actual pas- 
sions, the hopes, sorrows, joys of Living men ; 
but dwelt in a remote conventional world, in 
Castles of Olranto, in Epigoniads and Lconidascs, 
among clear, metallic heroes, and white, high, 
stainless beauties, in whom the drapery and 
elocution were nowise the least important 
qualities. Men thought it right that the heart 
should swell into magnanimity with Caracta- 
cus and Cato, and melt into sorrow with many 
an Eliza and Adelaide; but the heart was in 
no haste either to swell or to melt. Some 
pulses of heroical sentiment, a few jomatural 
tears might, with conscientious readers, be ac- 
tually squeezed forth on such occasions : but 
they came only from the surface of the mind ; 
nay, had the conscientious man considered of 
the matter, he would have found that they 
ought not to have come at all. Our only Eng- 
lish poet of the period was Goldsmith ; a pure, 
clear, genuine spirit, had he been of depth or 
strength sufficient: his Vicar of Wakefield re- 



mains the best of all modern Idyls ; but it is 
and was nothing more. And consider our 
leading writers ; consider the poetry of Gray, 
and the prose of Johnson. The first a labo- 
rious mosaic, through the hard, stifi" linea- 
ments of which little life or true grace could 
be expected to look : real feeling, and all free- 
dom of expressing it, are sacrificed to pomp, 
to cold splendour; for vigour we have a cer- 
tain mouthing vehemence, too elegant indeed 
to be tumid, yet essentially foreign to the 
heart, and seen to extend no deeper than the 
mere voice and gesture. Were it not for his 
Letters, which are full of warm, exuberant 
power, we might almost doubt whether Gray 
was a man of genius ; nay, was a living man 
at all, and not rather some thousand-times 
more cunningly devised poetical turning-loom, 
than that of Swift's Philosophers in Laputa. 
Johnson's prose is true, indeed, and sound, 
and full of practical sense: few men have 
seen more clearly into the motives, the inte- 
rests, the whole walk and conversation of the 
living busy world as it lay before him ; but 
farther than this busy, and, to most of us,, 
rather prosaic world, he seldom looked: his 
instruction is for men of business, and in re- 
gard to matters of business alone. Prudence 
is the highest Virtue he can inculcate; and for 
that finer portion of our nature, that portion 
of it which belongs essentially to Literature 
strictly so called ; where our highest feelings, 
our best joys and keenest sorrows, our Doubt, 
our Love, our Religion reside, he has no word 
to utter; no remedy, no counsel to give us in 
our straits ; or at most, if, like poor Boswell, 
the patient is importunate, will answer: "My 
dear Sir, endeavour to clear your mind of 
Cant." 

The turn which Philosophical speculation 
had taken in the preceding age corresponded 
with this tendency, and enhanced its narcotic 
influences ; or was, indeed, properly speaking, 
the root they had sprung from. Locke, him- 
self, a clear, humble-minded, patient, reverent, 
nay, religious man, had paved the way for 
banishing religion from the world. Mind, by 
being modelled in men's imaginations into a 
Shape, a Visibility ; and reasoned of as if it 
had been some composite, divisible and re- 
unitable substance, some finer chemical salt, 
or curious piece of logical joinery, — began to 
lose its immaterial, mysterious, divine though 
invisible character: it was tacitly figured as 
something that might, were our organs fine 
enough, be seen. Yet who had ever seen it? 
Who could ever see it? Thus by degrees it 
passed into a Doubt, a Relation, some faint 
p(jssibility ; and at last into a highly-probable 
Nonentity. Following Locke's. footsteps, the 
French had discovered that " as the stomach 
secretes Chyle, so does the brain secrete 
Thought." And what then was Religion, what 
was Poetry, what was all high and heroic 
feeling? Chiefly a delusion ; often a false and 
pernicious one. Poetry, indeed, was still to 
be preserved; because Poetry was a useful 
thing : men needed amusem.ent, and loved to 
amuse themselves with Poetry: the playhouse 
was a pretty lounge of an evening; then there 



GOETHE. 



79 



were so many precepts, satirical, didactic, so 
much more impressive for the rh3'me ; to say 
nothing of your occasional verses, birth-day 
odes, epithalamiums, epicediums, by which 
"the dream of existence may be so highly 
sweetened and embellished." Nay, does not 
Poetry, acting on the imaginations of men, 
excite them to daring purposes ; sometimes, as 
m the case of Tyrtsus, to fight better; in 
which wise may it not rank as a useful stimu- 
lant to man, along whh Opium and Scotch 
Whisky, the manufacture of which is allowed 
by law? In Heaven's name, then, let Poetry 
be preserved. 

With Religion, however, it fared somewhat 
worse. In the eyes of Voltaire and his dis- 
ciples. Religion was a superfluity, indeed a 
nuisance. Here, it is true, his followers have 
since found that he went too far; that Religion, 
being a great sanction to civil morality, is of 
use for keeping society in order, at least the 
lower classes, who have not the feeling of 
Honour in due force ; and therefore, as a con- 
siderable help to the Constable and Hangman, 
ought decidedly to be kept up. But such tolera- 
tion is the fruit only of later days. In those 
times, there was no question but how to get 
rid of it, root and branch, the sooner the better. 
A gleam of zeal, nay, we will call it, however 
basely alloyed, a glow of real enthusiasm and 
love of truth, may have animated the minds of 
these men, as they looked abroad on the pesti- 
lent jungle of Superstition, and hoped to clear 
the earth of it for ever. This little glow, so -il- 
loyed, so contaminated with pride and other 
poor or bad admixtures, was the last which 
thinking men were to experience in Europe 
for a time. So is it always in regard to Reli- 
gious Belief, how degraded and defaced soever: 
the delight of the Destroyer and Denier is no 
pure delight, and must soon pass away. With 
bold, with skilful hand, Voltaire set his torch 
to the jungle: it blazed aloft to heaven; and 
the flame exhilarated and comforted the incen- 
diaries ; but, unhappily, such comfort could not 
continue. Ere long this flame, with its cheer- 
ful light and heat, was gone: the jungle, it is 
true, had been consumed ; but, with its en- 
tanglements, its shelter and spots of verdure 
also; and the black, chill, ashy swamp, left in 
its stead, seemed for the time a greater evil 
than the other. 

In such a state of painful obstruction, ex- 
tending itself everywhere over Europe, and 
already master of Germany, lay the general 
mind, when Goethe first appeared in Litera- 
ture. Whatever belonged to the finer nature 
of man had withered under the Harmattan 
breath of Doubt, or passed away in the confla- 
gration of open Infidelity; and now, where the 
Tree of Life once bloomed and brought fruit 
of goodliest savour, there was only barrenness 
and desolation. To. such as could find suffi- 
cient interest in the day-labour and day-wages 
of earthly existence; in the resources of the 
five bodily Senses, and of Vanity, the only 
mental sense which yet flourished, which 
flourished indeed with gigantic vigour, matters 
were still not so bad. Such men helped them- 
selves forward, as they will generally do; and 
found the world, if not an altogether proper 



sphere, (for every man, disguise it as he may, 
has a soul in him,) at least a tolerable enough 
place ; where, by one item and another, some 
comfort, or show of comfort, might from time 
to time be got up, and these few years, espe- 
cially since they were s(i few, be spent with- 
out much murmuring. But to men afflicted 
with the " malady of Thought," some devout- 
ness of temper was an inevitable heritage : to 
such the noisy forum of the world could ap- 
pear but an empty, altogether insuflicient con 
cern ; and the whole scene of life had become 
hopeless enough. Unhappily, such feelings 
are yet by no means so infrequent with our- 
selves, that we need stop here to depict them. 
That state of Unbelief from which the Ger- 
mans do seem to be in some measure deliver- 
ed, still presses with incubus force on the 
greater part of Europe; and nation after 
nation, each in its own way, feels that the first 
of all moral problems is how to cast it off, or 
how to rise above it. Governments naturally 
attempt the first expedient; Philosophers, in 
general, the second. 

The poet, says Schiller, is a citizen not only 
of his country, but of his time. Whatever oc- 
cupies and interests men in general, will in- 
terest him still more. That nameless Unrest, 
the blind struggle of a soul in bondage, that 
high, sad, longing Discontent, which was agi- 
tating every bosom, had driven Goethe almost 
to despair. All felt it; he alone could give it 
voice. And here lies the secret of his popu- 
larity; in his deep, susceptive heart, he felt a 
thousand times more keenly what every one 
was feeling; with the creative gift which be- 
longed to him as a poet, he bodied it forth into 
visible shape, gave it a local habitation and a 
name ; and so made himself the spokesman of 
his generation. Werter is but the cry of that 
dim, rooted pain, under which all thoughtful 
men of a certain age were languishing: it 
paints the misery, it passionately utters the 
complaint; and heart and voice, all over Eu- 
rope, loudly and at once respond to it. True, 
it prescribes no remedy ; for that was a far 
different, far harder enterprise, to which other 
years and a higher culture were required ; but 
even this utterance of the pain, even this little, 
for the present, is ardently grasped at, and 
with eager sympathy appropriated in every 
bosom. If Byron's life-weariness, his moody 
melancholy, and mad, stormful indignation, 
borne on the tones of a wild and quite artless 
melody, could pierce so deep into many a Bri- 
tish heart, now that the whole matter is no 
longer new, — is indeed old and trite, — we may 
judge with what vehement acceptance this 
Werter must have been welcomed, coming as 
it did like a voice from unknown regions, the 
first thrilling peal of that impassioned dirge, 
which, in country after country, men's ears 
have listened to, till they were deaf to all else. 
For Werter, infusing itself into the core and 
whole spirit of Literature, gave birth to a race 
of Sentimentalists, who have raged and wailed 
in every part of the world; till better light 
dawned on them, or at worst exhausted Nature 
laid herself to sleep, and it was discovered 
that lamenting was an unproductive labour. 
These funereal choristers, in Germany, a loud, 



80 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



haggard, tumultuous, as well as tearful class, 
were named the Kraftviiinner, or Power-men ; 
but have all long since, like sick children, 
cried themselves to rest. Byron was our 
English Sentimentalist and Power-man ; the 
strongest of his kind in Europe; the wildest, 
the gloomiest, and it may he hoped, the last. 
For what good is it to " whine, put finger i' the 
eye, and sob," in such a case? Still more, to 
snarl and snap in malignant wise, " like dog 
distract, or a monkey sick?" Why should 
we quarrel with our existence, here as it lies 
before us, onr field and inheritance, to make 
or to mar, for better or for worse ; in which, 
too, so many noblest men have, ever from the 
beginning, warring with the very evils we war 
with, both made and been what will be vene- 
rated to all time 1 

What Bhapest thou here at the World 1 'Tis shapen 

lonp ago ; 
The Maker shaped it, and thoiipht it were best even so. 
Thy lot is appointed, go follow its hest ; 
Thy journey's begun, thou must move and not rest ; 
For sorrow and care cannot alter thy case, 
And running, not raging, will win thee the race. 

Meanwhile, of the philosophy which reigns 
in Werter, and which it has been our lot to 
hear so often repeated elsewhere, we may here 
produce a short specimen. The following 
passage will serve our turn ; and be, if we 
mistake not, new to the mere English reader. 

"That the life of man is but a dream, has 
come into many a head ; and with me, too, 
some feeling of that sort is ever at work. 
When I look upon the limits within which 
man's powers of action and inquiry are hem- 
med in ; when I see how all effort issues sim- 
ply in procuring supply for wants, which again 
have no object but continuing this poor exist- 
ence of ours; and then, that all satisfaction 
on certain points of inquiry is but a dreaming 
resignation, while you paint, with many-co- 
loured figures and gay prospects, the walls 
you sit imprisoned by, — all this, Wilhelm, 
makes me dumb. I return to my own heart, 
and find there such a world ! Yet a world too, 
more in forecast and dim desire, than in vision 
and living power. And then all swims before 
my mind's eye; and so I smile, and again go 
dreaming on as others do. 

" That children know not what they want, all 
conscientious tutors and education-philoso- 
phers have long been agreed : but that full- 
grown men, as well as children, stagger to and 
fro along this earth; like these, not knowing 
whence they come or whither they go; aiming, 
just as little, after true objects : governed just 
as well by biscuit, cakes, and birch-rods : this is 
what no one likes to believe ; and yet, it seems 
to me, the fact is lying under our very nose. 

"I will confess to thee, for I know what thou 
wouldst say to me on this point, that those are the 
happiest, who, likechildren, live fromonedayto 
the other, carrying their dolls about with them, 
to dress and undress: gliding, also, with the 
highest respect, before the drawer where mam- 
ma has locked the gingerbread: and, when 
they do get the wished-for morsel, devouring 
it with puffed-out cheeks, and crying. More! — 
These are the fortunate of the earth. Well is 



it likewise with those who can label their rag- 
gathering employments, or perhaps their pas- 
sions, with pompous titles, and represent them 
to mankind as gigantic undertakings for its 
welfare and salvation. Happy the man who 
can live in such wise! But he who, in his 
humility, observes where all this issues, who 
sees how featly any small thriving citizen can 
trim his patch of garden into a Paradise, and 
with what unbroken heart even the unhappy 
crawls along under his burden, and all are 
alike ardent to see the light of this sun but 
one minute longer: — yes, he is silent, and he 
too forms his world out of himself, and he too 
is happy because he is a man. And then, hem- 
med in as he is, he ever keeps in his heart the 
sweet feeling of freedom, and that this dungeon 
— can be left when he likes." * 

What Goethe's own temper and habit of 
thought must have been, while the materials 
of such a work were forming themselves with- 
in his heart, might be in some degree conjec- 
tured, and he has himself informed us. We 
quote the following passage from his Dkhlung 
und Wahrhtit. The writing of Wcrlcr, it would 
seem, vindicating so gloomy, almost desperate 
a state of mind in the author, was at the same 
time a symptom, indeed a cause, of his now 
having got delivered from such melancholy. 
Far from recommending suicide to others, as 
Werler has often been accused of doing, it was 
'he first proof that Goethe himself had aban- 
doned these " hypochondriacal crotchets: " the 
imaginary "Sorrows" had helped to free him 
from many real ones. 

"Such weariness of life," he says, "has its 
physical and spiritual causes; those we shall 
leave to the Doctor, these to the Moralist, for 
investigation; and in this so trite matter, touch 
only on the main point, when that phenome- 
non expresses itself most distinctly. All plea- 
sure in life is founded on the regular return of 
external things. The alternations of day and 
night, of the seasons, of the blossoms and 
fruits, and whatever else meets us from epoch 
to epoch with the ofl^er and command of en- 
joyment, — these are the essential springs of 
earthly existence. The more open we are to 
such enjoyments, the happier we feel our- 
selves; but, should the vicissitude of these ap- 
pearances come and go without our taking 
interest in it, should such benignant invi- 
tations address themselves to us in vain, 
then follows the greatest misery, the heaviest 
malady; one grows to view life as a sickening 
burden. We have heard of the Englishman 
who hanged hjmself, to be no more troubled 
with daily putting off and on his clothes. I 
knew an honest gardener, the overseer of some 
extensive pleasure-grounds, who once splenet- 
ically exclaimed : Shall I see these clouds for 
ever passing, then, from east to west 1 It is 
told of one of our most distinguished men,j- 
that he viewed with dissatisfaction the spring 
again growing green, and wished that, by way 
of change, it would for once be red. These 
are specially the symptoms of life-weariness, 

*Jieiden des jilngren fVerther. JIvi'i'i May. 

+ Lessing, we believe: but perhaps it was less the 
sreenness of spring that vexed him than Jacobi'a too 
lyric admiration of it. — Ed. 



GOETHE. 



81 



which not seldom issues in suicide, and, at 
this time, among men of meditative, secluded 
character, was more frequent than might be 
supposed. 

" Nothing, however, will sooner induce this 
feeling of satiety than the return of love. The 
first love, it is said justly, is the only one ; for 
in the second, and by the second, the highest 
significance of love is in fact lost. That idea 
of infinitude, of everlasting endurance, which 
supports and bears it aloft, is destroyed ; it 
seems transient, like all that returns. * * * 

" Further, a young man soon comes to find, 
if not in himself, at least in others, that moral 
epochs have their course, as well as the sea- 
sons. The favour of the great, the protection 
of the powerful, the help of the active, the 
good-will of the many, the love of the few, all 
fluctuates up and down ; so that we cannot 
hold it fast, any more than we can hold sun, 
moon, and stars. And yet these things are 
not mere natural events : such blessings flee 
away from us, by our own blame or that of 
others, by accident or destiny; but they flee 
away, they fluctuate, and we are never sure of 
them. 

" But what most pains the young man of sen- 
sibility is the incessant return of our faults : 
for how long is it before we learn, that in cul- 
tivating our virtues, we nourish our faults 
along with them 1 The former rests on the 
latter, as on their roots ; and these ramify 
themselves in secret as strongly and as wide 
as those others in the open light. Now, as we 
for the most part practise our virtues with 
forethought and will, but by our faults are 
overtaken unexpectedly, the former seldom 
give us much joy, the latter are continually 
giving us sorrow and distress. Indeed, here 
lies the subtilest difliculty in Self-knowledge, 
the difficulty which almost renders it impossi- 
ble. But figure, in addition to all this, the heat 
of youthful blood, an imagination easily fasci- 
nated and paralyzed by individual objects ; 
further, the wavering commotions of the day, 
and you will find that an impatient striving to 
free one's self from such a pressure was no 
unnatural state. 

"However, these gloomy contemplations, 
which, if a man yield to them, will lead him to 
boundless lengths, could not have so decidedly 
developed themselves in our young German 
minds, had not some outward cause excited 
and forwarded us in this sorrowful employ- 
ment. Such a cause existed for us in the Lit- 
erature, especially the Poetical Literature, of 
England, the great qualities of which are ac- 
companied by a certain earnest melancholy, 
which it imparts to every one that occupies 
himself with it. 

****** 

"In such an element, with such an environ- 
ment of circumstances, with studies and tastes 
of this sort, harassed by unsatisfied desires, 
externally nowhere called forth to important 
action ; with the sole prospect of dragging on a 
languid, spiritless, mere civic life, we had re- 
curred, in our disconsolate pride, to the thought 
that life, when it no longer suited one, might 
be cast aside at pleasure ; and had helped our- 
selves hereby, stintedly enough, over the 
11 



crosses and tediums of the time. These sen- 
timents were so universal, that Wertci; on this 
very account, could produce the greatest ef- 
fect; striking in everywhere with the domi- 
nant humour, and representing the interior of 
a sickly, youthful heart, in a visible and pal- 
pable shape. How accurately the English 
have known this sorrow, might be seen from 
these few significant lines, written before the 
appearance of Werler : 

To !»riefs congenial prone 

More wounds than nature gave he knew, 

While misery's form his fancy drew 

In dark ideal hues, and horrors not its own.* 

''Self-murder is an occurrence in men's af- 
fairs, which, how much soever it may have 
already been discussed and commented upon, 
excites an interest in every mortal; and, at 
every new era, must be discussed again. Mon- 
tesquieu confers on his heroes and great men 
the right of putting themselves to death when 
they see good; observing, that it must stand 
at the will of every one to conclude the Fifth 
Act of his Tragedy whenever he thinks best. 
Here, however, our business lies not with per- 
sons who, in activity, have led an important 
life, who have spent their days for some mighty 
empire, or for the cause of freedom : and whom 
one may forbear to censure, when, seeing the 
high ideal purpose which had inspired them 
vanish from the earth, they meditate pursuing 
it to that other undiscovered country. Our 
business here is with j^ersons to whom, pro- 
perly for want of activity, and in the peace- 
fullest condition imaginable, life has, never- 
theless, by their exorbitant requisitions on 
themselves, become a burden. As I myself 
was in this predicament, and know best what 
pain I suffered in it, what efforts it cost me to 
escape from it, I shall not hide the specula- 
tions, I from time to time considerately prose- 
cuted, as to the various modes of death one 
had to choose from. 

" It is something so unnatural for a man to 
break loose from himself, not only to hurt, but 
to annihilate himself, that he for the most part 
catches at means of a mechanical sort for put- 
ting his purpose in execution. When Ajax 
falls on his sword, it is the weight of his body 
that performs this service for him. When 
the warrior adjures his armour-bearer to slay 
him, rather than that he come into the hands 
of the enemy, this is likewise an external force 
which he secures for himself; only a moral 
instead of a physical one. Women seek in 
the water a cooling for their desperation; and 
the highl}' mechanical means of pistol-shoot- 
ing insures a quick act with the smallest effort. 
Hanging is a death one mentions unwillingly, 
because it is an ignoble one. In England it may 
happen more readily than elsewhere, because 
from youth upwards you there see that punish- 
ment frequent without being specially ignomini- 
ous. Bv poison, by opening of veins, men aim 
but at parting slowly from life ; and the most re- 
fined the speediest, the mof t painless death, by 
means of an asp, was worthy of a Queen, who 
had spent her life in pomp and luxurious plea- 
sure. All these, however, are external helps; 



♦ .So in the original. 



82 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



are enemies, with which a man, that he may 
fight against himself, makes league. 

" When I considered these various methods, 
and, further, looked abroad over history, I 
could find among all suicides no one that had 
gone about this deed with such greatness and 
freedom of spirit as the Emperor Otho. This 
man, beaten indeed as a general, yet nowise 
reduced to extremities, determines for the good 
of the Empire, which already in some measure 
belonged to him, and for the saving of so many 
thousands, to leave the world. With his 
friends he passes a gay, festive night, and 
next morning it is found that with his own 
hand he has plunged a sharp dagger into his 
heart. This sole act seemed to me worthy of 
imitation; and I convinced myself that who- 
ever could not proceed herein as Otho had 
done, was not entitled to resolve on renouncing 
life. By this conviction, I saved myself from 
the purpose, or indeed, more properly speaking, 
from the whim, of suicide, which in those fair 
peaceful times had insinuated itself into the 
mind of indolent youth. Among a considera- 
ble collection of arms, I possessed a costly 
well-ground dagger. This I laid down nightly 
beside my bed ; and before extinguishing the 
light, I tried v/hether I could succeed in send- 
ing the sharp point an inch or two deep into 
my breast. But as I truly never could suc- 
ceed, I at last took to laughing at myself; threw 
away all these hypochondriacal crotchets, and 
determined to live. To do this with cheerful- 
ness, however, I required to have some poetical 
task given me, wherein all that I had felt, 
thought, or dreamed on this weighty business, 
might be spoken forth. With such view, I 
endeavoured to collect the elements which for 
a year or two had been floating about in me ; 
I represented to myself the circumstances 
which had most oppressed and afflicted me ; 
but nothing of all this would take form ; there 
was wanting an incident, a fable, in which I 
might imbody it. 

"All at once I hear tidings of Jerusalem's 
death; and directly following the general 
rumour, came the most precise and circum- 
stantial description of the business; and in 
this instant the plan of Water was invented ; 
the whole shot together from all sides, and be- 
came a solid mass ; as the water in the vessel, 
which already stood on the point of freezing, 
is by the slightest motion changed at once into 
firm ice."* 

A wide, and every way most important, in- 
terval divides Wertcr, with its skeptical philo- 
sophy, and " hypochondriacal crotchets," from 
Goethe's next novel, Wilhelm Mcister's Appren- 
ticeship, published some twenty years after- 
wards. This work belongs, in all senses, to 
the second and sounder period of Goethe's 
life, and may indeed serve as the fullest, if 
perhaps not the purest, impress of it; being 
written with due forethought, at various times, 
during a period of no less than ten years. 
Considered as a piece of Art, there were much 
to be said on Meister ; all which, however, lies 
beyond our present purpose. We are here 
looking at the work chiefly as a document for 

♦ Dichtung und Wahrheit, b. jii. s. 200—213. 



the writer's history ; and in this point of view, 
it certainly seems, as contrasted with its 
more popular precursor, to deserve our best 
attention : for the problem which had been 
stated in Werttr, with despair of its solution, is 
here solved. The lofty enthusiasm, which, 
wandering wildly over the universe, found no 
resting place, has here reached its appointed 
home ; and lives in harmony with what long 
appeared to threaten it with annihilation. 
Anarchy has now become Peace; the once 
gloomy and perturbed spirit is now serene, 
cheerfully vigorous, and rich in good fruits. 
Neither, which is most important of all, has 
this Peace been attained by a surrender to 
Necessity, or any compact with Delusion ; a 
seeming blessing, such as years and dispirit- 
ment will of themselves bring to most men, 
and which is indeed no blessing, since even 
continued battle is better than destruction or 
captivity ; and peace of this sort is like that of 
Galgacus's Romans, who " called it peace when 
they had made a desert." Here the ardent, 
high aspiring youth has grown into the calmest 
man, yet with increase and not loss of ardour, 
and with aspirations higher as well as clearer. 
For he has conquered his unbelief; the Ideal 
has been built on the actual; no longer floats 
vaguely in darkness and regions of dreams, 
but rests in light, on the firm ground of human 
interest and business, as in its true scene, on 
us true basis. 

It is wonderful to see with what softness the 
skepticism of Jarno, the commercial spirit of 
Werner, the reposing, polished manhood of 
Lothario and the Uncle, the unearthly enthu- 
siasm of the Harper, the gay, animal vivacity 
of Philina, the mystic, ethereal, almost spiritual 
nature of Mignon, are blended together in this 
work ; how justice is done to each, how each 
lives freely in his proper element, in his proper 
form; and how, as Wilhelm himself, the 
mild-hearted, all-hoping, all-believing Wilhelm, 
struggles forward towards his world of Art 
through these curiously complected influences, 
all this unites itself into a multifarious, yet 
so harmonious Whole, as into a clear poetic 
mirror, where man's life and business in this 
age, his passions and purposes, the highest 
equally with the lowest, are imaged back to 
us in beautiful significance. Poetry and 
Prose are no longer at variance, for the poet's 
eyes are opened : he sees the changes of many- 
coloured existence, and sees the loveliness and 
deep purport which lies hidden under the very 
meanest of them ; hidden to the vulgar sight, 
but clear to the poet's; because the "open 
secret," is no longer a secret to him, and he 
knows that the Universe is full of goodness ; 
that whatever has being has beauty. 

Apart from its literary merits or demerits, 
such is the temper of mind we trace in Goethe's 
Meister, and, more or less expressly exhibited, 
in all his later works. We reckon it a rare 
phenomenon, this temper; and worthy, in our 
times, if it do exist, of best study from all in- 
quiring men. How has such a temper been 
attained in this so lofty and impetuous mind, 
once, too, dark, desolate, and full of doubt, 
more than any other? How may we, each of 
us in his several sphere, attain it, or strengthen 



GOETHE. 



83 



it, for ourselves 1 These are questions, this 
last is a question, in which no one is uncon- 
cerned. 

To answer these questions, to begin the 
answer of them, would lead us very far beyond 
our present limits. It is not, as we believe, 
without long, sedulous study, without learning 
much, and unlearning much, that, for any man, 
the answer of such questions is even to be 
hoped. Meanwhile, as regards Goethe, there 
is one feature of the business which, to us, 
throws considerable light on his moral per- 
suasions, and will not, in investigating the 
secret of them, be overlooked. We allude to 
the spirit in which he cultivates his Art; the 
noble, disinterested, almost religious love with 
which he looks on Art in general, and strives 
towards it as towards the sure, highest, nay, 
only good. We extract one passage from 
Wilhclm Meister : it may pass for a piece of fine 
declamation, but not in that light do we offer 
it here. Strange, unaccountable as the thing 
may seem, we have actually evidence before 
our mind that Goethe believes in such doc- 
trines, nay, has, in some sort, lived and en- 
deavoured to direct his conduct by them. 

"'Look at men,' continues Wilhelm, 'how 
they struggle after happiness and satisfaction ! 
Their wishes, their toil, their gold, are ever 
hunting restlessly ; andafter what ] After that 
which the Poet has received from nature ; the 
right enjoyment of the world: the feeling of 
himself in others ; the harmonious conjunction 
of many things that will seldom go together. 

" ' What is it that keeps men in continual dis- 
content and agitation 1 It is that they cannot 
make realities correspond with their concep- 
tions, that enjoyment steals away from among 
their hands, that the wished-for comes too late, 
and nothing reached and acquired produces on 
the heart the effect which their longing for it at 
a distance led them to anticipate. Now fate 
has exalted the Poet above all this, as if he 
Avere a god. He views the conflicting tumult 
of the passions ; sees families and kingdoms 
raging in aimless commotion ; sees those per- 
plexed enigmas of misunderstanding, which 
often a single syllable would explain, occa- 
sioning convulsions unutterably baleful. He 
has a fellow-feeling of the mournful and the 
joyful in the fate of all mortals. When ihe man 
of the world is devoting his days to wasting 
melancholy for some deep disappointment; or, 
in the ebullience of joy, is going out to meet 
his happy destiny, the lightly-moved and all- 
conceiving spirit of the Poet steps forth, like 
the sun from night to day, and with soft transi- 
tion tunes his harp to joy or wo. From his 
heart, its native soil, springs, the fair flower of 
Wisdom ; and if others while waking dream, 
and are pained with fantastic delusions from 
their every sense, he passes the dream of life 
like one awake, and the strangest event is to 
him nothing, save a part of the past and of the 
future. And thus the Poet is a teacher, a pro- 
phet, a friend of gods and men. How! Thou 
wouldst have him descend from his height to 
some paltry occupation ? He who is fashioned, 
like a bird, to hover round the world, to nestle on 
the lofty summits, to feed on flowers and fruits, 
exchanging gaily one bough for another, he 



ought also to work at the plough like an ox^ 
like a dog to train himself to the harness and 
draught; or, perhaps, tied up in a chain, to 
guard a farm-yard by his barking V 

" Werner, it may well be supposed, had list- 
ened with the greatest surprise. ' All true,' he 
rejoined, ' if men were but made like birds ; 
and, though they neither spun nor weaved, 
could spend peaceful days in perpetual enjoy- 
ment ; if, at the approach of winter, they could 
as easily betake themselves to distant regions ; 
could retire before scarcity, and fortify them- 
selves against frost.' 

" ' Poets have lived so,' exclaimed Wilhelm, 
' in times when true nobleness was better re- 
verenced; and so should they ever live. Suffi- 
ciently provided for within, they had need of 
little from without; the gift of imparting lofty 
emotions, and glorious images to men, in melo- 
dies and words that charmed the ear, and fixed 
themselves inseparably on whatever they might 
touch, of old enraptured the world, and served 
the gifted as a rich inheritance. At the courts 
of lungs, at the tables of the great, under the 
windows of the fair, the sound of them was 
heard, while the ear and the soul were shut for 
all beside; and men feh, as we do when de- 
light comes over us, and we pause with rap- 
lure if, among the dingles we are crossing, the 
voice of the nightingale starts out, touching 
and strong. They found a home in every ha- 
bitation of the world, and the lowliness of their 
condition but exalted them the more. The 
hero listened to their songs, and the Conqueror 
of the Earth did reverence to a Poet; for he 
felt that, without poets, his own wild and vast 
existence would pass away like a whirlwind, 
and be forgotten for ever. The lover wished 
that he could feel his longings and his jo3^s so 
variedly and so harmoniously as the Poet's in- 
spired lips had skill to show them forth ; and 
even the rich man could not of himself discern 
such costliness in his idol grandeurs, as when 
they were presented to him shining in the 
splendour of the Poet's spirit, sensible to all 
worth, and ennobling all. Nay, if thou wilt 
have it, who but the Poet was it that first form- 
ed Gods for us; that exalted us to them, and 
brought them down to us V "* 

For a man of Goethe's talent to write many 
such pieces of rhetoric, setting forth the dignity 
of poets, and their innate independence on ex- 
ternal circumstances, could be no very hard 
task: accordingly, we find such sentiments- 
again and again expressed, sometimes with 
still more gracefulness, still clearer emphasis, 
in his various writings. But to adopt these 
sentiments into his sober practical persuasion ; 
in any measure to feel and believe that such 
was still, and must always be, the high voca- 
tion of the poet; on this ground of universal 
humanity, of ancient and now almost forgotten' 
nobleness, to take his stand, even in these tri- 
vial, jeering, withered, unbelieving days; and 
through all their complex, dispiriting, mean, 
yet tumultuous influences, to "make his light 
shine before men," that it might beautify even 
our "rag-gathering age" with some beams of 
that mild, divine splendour, which had long 

* Wilhdiii Meister'' s .Apprenticeship, book ii. chap. 2; 



mi 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



3eft us — the very possibility of which, was de- 
nied; heartily and in eanie3t to meditate all 
this, was no common proceeding; to bring it 
into practice, especially in such a life as his 
Jias been, was among the highest and hardest 
enterprises, which any man whatever could 
-engage in. We reckon this a greater novelty, 
ihan all the novelties which as a mere writer 
be ever put forth, whether for praise or cen- 
.sure. We have taken it upon us to say that if 
such is, in any sense, the state of the case with 
regard to Goethe, he deserves not mere approval 
as a pleasing poet and sweet singer; but deep, 
grateful study, observance, imitation, as a Mo- 
ralist and Philosopher. If there be any proba- 
bility that such is the state of the case, we can- 
»ot.but reckon it a matter well worthy of being 
iD4uired into. And it is for this only that we 
are here pleading and arguing. 

On the literary merit and meaning of Wdhchn 
Meistcr we have already said that we must not 
£nter at present. The book has been trans- 
lated into English; it underwent the usual 
judgment from our Reviews and Magazines ; 
was to some a stone of stumbling, to others 
foolishness, to most an object of wonder. On 
the whole, it passed smoothly through the criti- 
cal Assaying-house, for the Assayers have 
■Christian dispositions, and very little time ; so 
Mcister was ranked, without umbrage, among the 
legal coin of the Minerva Press; and allowed 
Jo circulate as copper currency among the rest. 
That in so quick a process, a German Frcid- 
rich cTor might not slip through unnoticed 
.among new and equally brilliant British brass 
Farthings, there is no warranting. For our 
critics can now criticise impromptv, which, 
though far the readiest, is nowise the surest 
plan. Mcister is the mature product of the first 
genius in our times ; and must, one would think, 
be different, in various respects, from the im- 
mature products of geniuses who are far from 
the first, and whose works spring from the 
brain in as many weeks as Goethe's cost him 
years. 

Nevertheless, we quarrel with no man's ver- 
dict; for Time, which tries all things, will try 
this also, and bring to light the truth, both as 
regards criticism and the thing criticised ; or 
sink both into final darkness, which likewise 
wUibe the truth as regards them. But there 
iSifinae censure which we must advert to for a 
moment, so singular does it seem to us. Mcis- 
ter, it appears, is a " vulgar" work ; no " gen- 
Jleman," we hear in certain circles, could have 
■written it ; few real gentlemen, it is insinuated, 
«an like to read it; no real lady, unless pos- 
sessed of considerable courage, should profess 
having read it at all. Of Goethe's " gentility" 
we shall leave all men to speak that have any, 
£vea the faintest knowledge of him ; and with 
regard to the gentility of his readers, state only 
the following fact. Most of us hav^e heard of 
the late Queen of Prussia, and know whether 
or not she was genteel enough, and of real 
ladyhood : nay, if we must prove every thing, 
her character can be read in the Life of Napo- 
leon, by Sir Walter Scott, who passes for a 
judge of those matters. And yet this is what we 
^nd written in the K unstimdAUerthvm for 1824.* 
* Band v. 3. 8. 



" Books, too, have their past happiness, 
which no chance can take away : 

Wer vie sein Brod wit T/iranen ass, 
Wer nicht die kummervollen JVciclite 
Auf seinem Bette weinend sass, 
Der kennt euch nicht, ilir himinlischen Jlldchte. * 

" These heart-broken lines a highly noble- 
minded, venerated Queen repeated in the cruel-, 
est exile, when cast forth to boundless misery. 
She made herself familiar with the Book in 
which these words, with many other painful 
experiences, are communicated, and drew from 
it a melancholy consolation. This influence, 
stretching of itself into boundless time, what is 
there that can obliterate 1" 

Here are strange diversities of taste; "na- 
tional discrepancies" enough, had we time to 
investigate them ! Nevertheless, wishing each 
party to retain his own special persuasions, so 
far as they are honest, and adapted to his in- 
tellectual position, national or individual, we 
canno.t but believe that there is an inward and 
esseniial Truth in Art; a Truth far deeper 
than the dictates of mere Mode, and which, 
could we pierce through these dictates, would 
be true for all nations and all men. To arrive 
at this Truth, distant from every one at first, 
approachable by most, attainable by some 
small number, is the end and aim of all real 
study of Poetry. For such a purpose, among 
others, the comparison of English with foreign 
judgment, on works that will bear judging, 
forms no unprofitable help. Some day, we 
may translate Friedrich Schlegel's Essay on 
Mcister, by way of contrast to our English ani- 
madversions on that subject. Schlegel's praise, 
whatever ours might do, rises sufficiently high : 
neither does he seem, during twenty years, to 
have repented of what he said ; for we observe 
in the edition of his works, at present publish- 
ing, he repeats the whole Character, and even 
appends to it, in a separate sketch, some new 
assurances and elucidations. 

It may deserve to be mentioned here that 
Mcister, at its first appearance in Germany, was 
received very much as it has been in England. 
Goethe's known character, indeed, precluded 
indiflTerence there; but otherwise it was much 
the same. The whole guild of criticism was 
thrown into perplexity, into sorrow ; every- 
where was dissatisfaction open or concealed. 
Official duty impelling them to speak, some 
said one thing, some another; all felt in secret 
that they knew not what to say. Till the ap- 
pearance of Schlegel's Character, no word, that 
we have seen, of the smallest chance to be de- 
cisive, or indeed to last beyond the day, had 
been uttered regarding it. Some regretted that 
the fire of IVcrter was so wonderfully abated; 
whisperings there might be about " lowness," 
" heaviness ;" some spake forth boldly in be- 
half of suffering "virtue." Novalis was not 
among the speakers, but he censured the work 
in secret, and this for a reason which to us 
will seem the strangest; for its being, as we 
should say, a Benthamite work! Many are 
the bitter aphorisms we find, among his Frag- 

* Who never atp his bread in sorrow ; 

Who never spent the dirksonie hours 
Weeping and watching for the morrow, 

He knows yo>i not, ye unseen Powers. 

Withelm Meister, book ii. chap. 13. 



goethe; 



ments, directed against Meister for its prosaic, 
mechanical, economical, cold-hearted, alto- 
gether Utilitarian character. We English 
again call Goethe a mystic : so ditficult is it to 
please all parties ! But the good, deep, nobl 
Novalis made the fairest amends ; for notwith- 
standing all this, Tieck tells us, if we remem- 
ber rightly, he regularly perused Meister twice 
a year. 

On a somewhat different ground, proceeded 
quite another sort of assault from one Pust- 
kucher of Quedlinburg. Heir Pustkucher felt 
afHicted, it would seem, at the want of Patriot- 
ism and Religion too manifest in Meister ; and 
determined to take what vengeance he could. 
By way of sequel to the Apprenticeship, Goethe 
had announced his Wilhelm Meislers Wan/ici-- 
jahre,* as in a state of preparation ; but the 
book still lingered: whereupon, in the interim, 
forth comes this Pustkucher with a pseudo- 
Wanderjahrc of his own ; satirizing, according 
to ability, the spirit and principles of the Jlp- 
prenticeship. We have seen an epigram on 
Pustkucker and his Wanderjahre, attributed, 
with what justice we know not, to Goethe him- 
self; whether it is his or not, it is written in 
his name ; and seems to express accurately 
enough for such a purpose the relation between 
the parties, — in language which we had rather 
not translate : 

ff'ill denn von Q_uedlinhurg aiis 
F.in neuer Wanderer trabcn ! 
Hat dock dis Wallfisch seine Laus, 
Muss auch die meine hubeii. 

So much for Pustkucher, and the rest. The 
true Wanderjahre has at length appeared : the 
first volume has been before the world since 
1821. This fragment, for it still continues 
such, is in our view one of the most perfect 
pieces of composition that Goethe has ever 
produced. We have heard something of his 
being at present engaged in extending or com- 
pleting it: what the whole may in his hands 
become, we are anxious to see ; but the 
Wanderjahre, even in its actual state, can 
hardly be called unfinished, as a piece of 
■writing ; it coheres so beautifully within it- 
self; and yet we see not whence the wonder- 
ous landscape came, or whither it is stretch- 
ing; but it hangs before us as a fairy region, 
hiding its borders on this side in light sunny 
clouds, fading away on that into the infinite 
azure: already, we might almost say, it gives 
us the notion of a completed fragment, or the 
state in which a fragment, not meant for com- 
pletion, might be left. 

But apart from its environment, and con- 
sidered merely in itself, this TrM«r/r)7(///?T seems 
to us a most estimable work. There is, in 
truth, a singular gracefulness in it; a high, 
melodious Wisdom; so light is it, yet so earn- 

* '■^Wanderjahre denotes the period which a German 
artisan is, liy law or usage, obliged to pass in travelling, 
to perfect himself in his craft, af\er the conclusion of his 
Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship), and before his Masterslii|) 
can begin. In many guilds this custom is as old as their 
existence, and continues still to be indispensable : it is 
said to have originated in the frequent journeys of the 
German Emperors to Italy, and the consequent improve- 
ment observed in such workmen among their menials as 
had attended them thither. Most of the guilds are what 
is cviWeA geschenkten, that is, prescntw^, having presents 
to give to needy wandering brothers." 



est; so calm, so gay, yet so strong and aeepc 
for the purest spirit of all Art rests over it ancf 
breathes through it ; " mild Wisdom is weddecl- 
in living union to Harmony divine;" the 
Thought of the Sage is melted, we might say, 
and incorporated in the liquid music of the 
Poet. " It is called a Romance," observes the 
English Translator; "but it treats not of to-' 
mance characters or subjects ; it has less re^ 
lation to Fielding's Tom Jones, than to Spenser's 
Faery Queen." We have not forgotten what i.s^ 
due to Spenser; yet, perhaps, beside his im^ 
mortal allegory this Wanderjahre may, in fact,; 
not unfairly be named ; and with this advan- 
tage, that it is an allegory, not of the Seven- 
teenth century, but of the Nineteenth ; a pic- 
ture full of expressiveness, of what men are 
striving for, and ought to strive for in these 
actual days. " The scene," we are further 
told, "is not laid on this firm earth ; but in a 
fair Utopia of Art and Science and free Activity 5 
the figures, light and auriform, come unlooked 
for, and melt away abruptly, like the pageants 
of Prospero, in his Enchanted Island." We 
venture to add, that, like Prospero's Island^ 
this too is drawn from the inward depths, the 
purest sphere of poetic inspiration: ever, asF 
we read it, the images of old Italian Art flit 
before us ; the gay tints of Titian ; the quaint 
grace of Domenichino; sometimes the clear,' 
yet unfathomable depth of Rafaelle ; and what-- 
ever else we have known or dreamed of i» 
that rich old genial world. 

As it is Goethe's moral sentiments, and cul^ 
ture as a man, that we have made our chief 
object in this survey, we would fain give some' 
adequate specimen of the Wanderjahre, whsreji 
as appears to us, these are to be traced in their" 
last degree of clearness and complcteTiess,' 
But to do this, to find a specimen' that should 
be adequate, weredifficult, or rather impossible-- 
How shall we divide what is in itself one anci 
indivisible ? How shall the fraction of a com- 
plex picture give us any idea of the so beauti- 
ful whole ■? Nevertheless, we shall refer our' 
readers to the Tenth and Eleventh Chapters of 
the Wanderjahre ; where in poetic and symbolic 
style, they will find a sketch of the nature^ 
objects, and present ground of Religious Belief^ 
which, if they have ever reflected duly on that 
matter, will hardly fail to interest them. Thejr 
will find these chapters, if we mistake not,- 
worthy of deep consideration ; for this is the 
merit of Goethe : his maxims ■wall bear study^ 
nay, they require it, and improve by it more 
and more. They come from the depths of his 
mind, and are not in their place till they have" 
reached the depths of ours. The vWsest man,. 
we believe, may see in them a reflex of his own- 
wisdom: but to him Avho is still learning, they 
become as seeds of knowledge ; they take root 
in the mind, and ramify, as we meditate them,. 
into a Avhole garden of thought. The sketch 
we mentioned is far too long for being extracted 
here : however, we give some scattered portions 
of it, which the reader will accept with fair' 
allowance. As the wild suicidal Night-thoughts 
of Werier formed our first extract, this by way 
of counterpart may be the last. We muss 
fancy Wilhelm in the " Pedagogic province,"', 
proceeding towards the " Chief, or the Ture.e,!*' 
H 



66 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



with intent to place liis son under tlieir charge, 
in that wondrrlul rc'^ion, " wlicrc he was to see 
so many sin,;rMlariliL',s." 

"WillielMi luid already nolircd that in ilir 
cut and colour of the yotiiiir jx-ople's clotiies, a 
variety prevtiiied, which j^ave liie whole liny 
population a peculiar aspect: he was aboiil to 
rpieslion his alleiiihiiit on this jxiiiit, when a 
still slianf,'er observation ('diced ilsell' upon 
him; all the children, how employed soever, 
laid down their work, and turned, with sinf^'ular 
yet diverse gestures, towards the party ridinj^ 
past them; or ratlier. as it was easy to inter, 
towards the Overseer, who was in it. The 
youngest laid their arms crosswise over their 
breasts and looked cheerfully up to the sky ; 
thosi! of middle si/e held their hands on their 
backs, and looked smiliiii^ on the i^Mound; the 
eldest stood with a frank and spirited air; their 
nrms .stretched down, they turned their heads 
lo the right, and formed themselves into a line; 
whereas the others kept se])arate, each where 
he chanced to be. 

"'I'he riilers having stojjped and dismounted 
here, as several childien, in their various 
modes, were slandinu forth to he inspected by 
the Overseer, Wilheltn asked the meaniiit;: of 
these <iestures; but Felix struck in and cried 
gaily: 'What posture am I to take then!' 
•'Without doubt,' said the Overseer, ' llie first 
posture; the arms ovi'\- the In east, the face 
jcarnest and cheerful towards the sky.' l''elix 
obeyed, but soon cried: 'This is not much to 
my taste; I sec nothing; up theie: does it last 
long! IJut yes !' exclaimed he joyfully, ' yon- 
<ler are a pair of falcons Hying from the west 
lo tiie east; that is a good sign tool' — 'As 
thou takest it, as thou hehavest,' said the other : 
'Now mingle among them as they mingle.' 
He gave a signal, and the children left their 
postures, and again betook them to work or 
sport as before." 

Wilhelm a stu-und lime "asks the mi'aniug 
of these gestures;" but the Overseer is not at 
liberty to throw much light on the matter; 
mentions only that they are symbolical, " iui- 
wise mere grimaces, but have a moral purport, 
vhich jierhaps the (viiikk or the Tuukk may 
<"urther explain to him." The children them- 
selves, it would seem, only know it iii part; 
"secrecy having many atlvaniages; for when 
yon tell a man at once and straight forward 
the purpose of any object, he l'ai\cies there is 
nothing ill it." Uy and by, however, having 
lefl Felix by the way, and parted with the 
Overseer, Wilhelm arrives a! the abode of the 
Three " who preside over sacred things," and 
from whom further satisfaction is to be looked 
lor. 

"ANillielm had now itMched the gate of a 
Avoodeil vale, surrounded with high walls: on 
a certain sign, the little door iipcned and a 
jnan of earnest, imposing look received our 
travelliM". 'i'he latter fouiul himself in a large 
beautifully umbrageous s}>ace, decked with the 
richest foliage, shadeil with trees and bushes 
*if all sorts ; while stately walls and magnificent 
buildings were iliscerned only in glimpses 
ihrouiih this thick natural boscage. A frieiully 
recei>lion from the Three, who by and by ap- 
j»eaicil. at last turned into a general conversa- 



tion, the substance of which we now present 
in an abbreviated shape. 

"'Since you intrust your son to us,' said 
they, 'it is fair that we admit you to a closer 
view of our procedure. Of what is external 
you have seen much that does not bear its 
meaning on its front. What part of this do 
you wish lo have explained?' 

'• ' Digiiilied yet singular gestures of saluta- 
tion 1 have noticed; ihe imjjort of which I 
would gladly learn : with you, doubtless, the 
exterior has a reference to the interior, and 
inversely : let me know what this reference is.' 

" ' Well-formed healthy children,' replied the 
Three, ' bring much into the world along with 
them ; nature has given lo each whatever he 
retiuires for lime and duration ; lo unfold this 
is our duly; oAen it unfolds itself belter of its 
own accord. One thing there is, however, 
which no child brings into the world with him ; 
and yet it is on this one thing that all depends 
for making man in every jxtint a num. If you 
can discover it yourself, s])eak it out.' Wil- 
helm thought a little while, then shook his 
head. 

"The 'I'hree, after a suitable pause, ex- 
claimed, ' Reverence !' Wilhelm seemed to 
hesitate. ' Reverence !' cried they, a second 
lime. ' All want it, perhaps yourself.' 

"''I'hree kinds of gestures y(ui have seen; 
and we inculcate a threefold reverence, which 
when commingled and formed into one whole, 
attains its full force and ctfect. The iirst is 
Reverence for what is Above us. 'i'hat pos- 
ture, the arms crossed over the breast, the look 
turned j<iyfnlly towards heaven ; that is what 
we have enjoined mi young children ; requiring 
from them thereby a testimony that there is a 
(>od above, who images and reveals himself in 
parents, teachers, superiors. Then comes the 
second; Reverence for wh;U is Under \is. 
Those hands folded over the back, and as it 
were lied logelher, that down-luriied smiling 
look', anmnmce that we are to regard the earth 
with attcntitm and cheerfulness: fnun the 
bounty of the earth we arc nourished ; ihe earlh 
adiu'ds unutterable joys ; but disproportionate 
sorrows she also brings us. Should one of 
our children do himself external hurt, blamably 
or blamelessly; should others hurl him acci- 
ilenlally tu' purposely ; .should dead involuntary 
mailer do him hurt; then let him well con- 
sider it; for such dangers will attend him all 
his days. Uut from this jiosture we delay not 
to free our pupil, the instant we become con- 
vinced that the instruction connected with it 
has produced sutlicient intluence on him. 
Then, on the contrary, we bid him gather 
courage, and, turning to his comrades, range 
himself .alimg with them. Now, at last, he 
stands forth, frank and bohl ; not selfishly 
ist>latcd ; only in combination with his etjuals 
does he front the world. Further we have 
nothing to add.' 

" ' I see a glimpse of it !' said Wilhelm. ' Are 
not the mass of men so marred and stinted 
because they take pleasure only in the element 
of evil-wishing and evil-sjieakingl Whoever 
gives himself to this, soon comes to be indif- 
ferent towards God, contemptuous towards the 
world, spiteful towards his equals ; and the true, 



GOETHE. 



ST 



genuine, indispensable sentiment of self-esti- 
mation corrupts into self-conceit and prc^sump- 
tion. Allow me, however,' continued he, ' to 
state one diliiculty. You say that reverence is 
not natural to man : now has not the reverence 
or fear of rude people for violent convulsions 
of nature, or other inexplicable mysteriously 
foreboding occurrences, been heretofore re- 
garded as the germ out of which a higher feel- 
ing, a purer sentiment, was by degrees to be 
developed 1' 

" ' Nature is indeed adequate to fear,' replied 
they, ' but to reverence not adequate. Men fear 
a known or unknown powerful being; the 
strong seeks to conquer it, the weak to avoid 
it : both endeavour to get quit of it, and feel 
themselves happy when for a short season 
they have put il aside, and their nature has in 
some degree restored itself to freedom and in- 
dependence. The natural man repeats this 
operation millions of times in the course of 
his life; from fear he struggles to freedom; 
from freedom he is driven back to fear, and so 
makes no advancement. To fear is easy, but 
grievous; to reverence is difficult, but satis- 
factory. Man does not willingly submit liimself 
to reverence, oi- rather he never so submits him- 
self : it is a higher sense which must be com- 
municated to his nature ; which only in some 
favoured individuals unfolds itself spontane- 
ously, who on this account too have of old been 
looked upon as Saints and Gods. Here lies 
the wt)rth, here lies the business of all true 
Religions, \vhereof there are likewise only 
three, according to the objects towards which 
they direct our devotion.' 

"The men paused; Wilhelm reflected for a 
time in silence; but feeling in himself no pre- 
tensions to unfold these strange words, he re- 
quested the Sages to proceed with their e.xpo- 
sition. They immediately complied. ' No 
Religion that grounds itself on fear,' said they, 
' is regarded among us. With the reverence 
to which a man should give dominion in his 
mind, he can, in paying honour, Keep his own 
honour; he is not disunited with himself as in 
the former case. The Religion, which depends 
on Reverence for what is Above us, we deno- 
minate the Ethnic; it is the Religion of the 
Nations, and the first happy deliverance from 
a degrading fear; all Heathen religions, as we 
call them, are of this soil, whatsoever names 
they may bear. The Second Religion, which 
founds itself on Reverence for wljat is Around 
us, we denominate the Philosophical; for the 
Philosopher stations himself in the middle, 
and must draw down to him all that is higher, 
and up to him all that is lower, and only in this 
medium condition does he merit the title of 
Wise. Here, as he surveys with clear sight 
his relation to his equals, and therefore to the 
whole human race, his relation likewise to all 
other earthly circumstances and arrangements 
necessary or accidental, he alone, in a cosmic 
sense, lives in Truth. But now we have to 
speak of the Third Religion, grounded on Re- 
verence for what is Under us; this we name 
the Christian ; as in the Christian Religion 
such a temper is the most distinctly manifest- 
ed ; it is a last step to which mankind weie 
fitted and destined to attain. But \\ hat a task 



was it not only to be patient with the Earth, 
and let it lie beneath us, we appealing to a 
higher birthplace; but also to recognise hu- 
mility and poverty, mockery and despite, dis- 
grace and wretchedness, sullering and death, 
to recognise these things as divine; nay, even 
on sin and crime to look not as hindrances, 
but to honour and love them as furtherances, 
of what is holy. Of this, indeed, we find some 
traces in all ages ; but the trace is not the goal ; 
and this being now attained, the human spe- 
cies cannot retrograde; and we may say that 
the Christian Religion, having once appeared, 
cannot again vanish ; having once assumed its 
divine shape, can be subject to no dissolution.' 

" ' To which of these Religions do you spe- 
cially adhere?' inquired Wilhelm. 

"'To all the three,' replied they, 'for in their 
union they jiroduce what may properly be 
called the true Religion. Out of those three 
Reverences springs the highest Reverence, Re- 
verence for One's self, and these again unfold 
themselves from this ; so that man attains the 
highest elevation of which he is capable, that 
of being justified in reckoning himself the Best 
that God and Nature have produced; nay, of 
being able to continue on this lofty eminence, 
without being again by self-conceit and pre- 
sumption drawn down from it into the vulgar 
level.'" 

The Three undertake to admit him into the 
interior of their Sanctuary; whither, accord- 
ingly, he, " at the hand of the Eldest," proceeds 
on the morrow. Sorry are we that we cannot 
follow them into the "octagonal hall," so full 
of paintings, and the "gallery open on one 
side, and stretching round a spacious, gay, 
flowery garden." It is a beautiful figurative re- 
presentation, by pictures and symbols of Art, 
of the First and the Second Religions, the Ethnic 
and the Philosophical ; for the former of which 
the pictures have been composed from the Old 
Testament ; for the latter from the New. We 
can only make room for si)me .small portions. 

"'I observe,' said Wilhelm, 'you have done 
the Israelites the honour to select their history 
as the groundwork of this delineation, or ra- 
ther you have made it the leading object there.' 

"'As you see,' replied the Eldest; 'foryou will 
remark, that on the socles and friezes we have 
introduced another series of transactions and 
occurrences, not so much of a synchronistic as 
of a symphronistic kind; since, among all na- 
tions, we discover records of a similar import, 
and grounded on the same facts. Thus you 
perceive here, while, in the main field of the 
picture, Abraham receives a visit from his 
gods in the form of Aiir youths, Apollo among 
the herdsmen of Admelus is painted above on 
the frieze. From which we may learn, that 
the gods, when they appear to men, are com- 
monly unrecognised of them.' 

" The friends walked on. Wilhelm, for the 
most part, met with well-known objects ; but 
they were here exhibited in a livelier, more 
expressive manner, than he had been used to 
see them. On some few matters, he requested 
explanation, and at last could not help return- 
ing to his former question: 'Why the Isra- 
eliiish history had been chosen in preference 
to all others!' 



88 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



"The Eldest answered: 'Among all Heathen 
religions, for such also is the Israelitish, this 
has the most distinguished advantages; of 
■which I shall mention only a few. At the Eth- 
nic judgment-seat, at the judgment-seat of the 
God of Nations, it is not asked whether this is 
best, the most excellent nation; but whether it 
lasts, whether it has continued. The Isra- 
elitish people never was good for much, as its 
own leaders, judges, rulers, prophets, have a 
thousand times reproachfully declared; it pos- 
sesses few virtues, and most of the faults of 
other nations : but in cohesion, steadfastness, 
valour, and, when all this would not serve, in 
obstinate toughness, it has no match. It is the 
most perseverant nation in the world ; it is, it 
was, and it will be, to glorify the name of Je- 
hovah through all ages. We have set it up, 
therefore, as the pattern figure ; as the main 
figure, to which the others only serve as a 
frame.' 

" ' It becomes not me to dispute with you,' 
said Wilhelm, 'since you have instruction to 
impart. Open to me, therefore, the other ad- 
vantages of this people, or rather of its history, | 
of its religion.' | 

" ' One chief advantage,' said the other, ' is 
its excellent collection of Sacred Books. These 
stand so happily combined together, that even 
out of the most diverse elements, the feeling 
of a whole still rises before us. They are com- 
plete enough to satisfy; fragmentary enough 
to excite ; barbarous enough to rouse ; tender 
enough to appease ; and for many other con- 
tradicting merits might not these Books, might 
not this one Book, be praised V 

***** 

" Thus wandering on, they had now reached 
the gloomy and perplexed periods of the His- 
tory, the destruction of the City and the Temple, 
the murder, exile, slavery of whole masses of 
this stiff-necked people. Its subsequent for- 
tunes were delineated in a cunning allegorical 
way; a real historical delineation of them 
would have lain without the limits of true Art. 

"At this point, the gallery abruptly termi- 
nated in a closed door, and Wilhelm was sur- 
prised to see himself already at the end. 'In 
your historical series,' said he, ' I find a chasm. 
You have destroyed the Temple of Jerusalem, 
and dispersed the people ; yet you have not in- 
troduced the divine Man who taught there 
shortly before ; to whom, shortly before, they 
would give no ear.' 

'"To have done this, as you require it, 
would have been an error. The life of that 
divine Man, whom you allude to, stands in no 
connection with the general history of the 
world in his time. It was a private life; his 
teaching was a teaching for individuals. What 
has publicly befallen vast masses of people, 
and ihe minor parts which compose them, be- 
longs to the general History of the World, to 
the general Religion of the World; the Reli- 
gion we have named the First. What inwardly 
befalls individuals belongs to the Second Re- 
ligion, the Philosophical : such a Religion 
was it that Christ taught and practised, so long 
as he went about on earth. For this reason, 
the external here closes, and I now open to 
you the internal.' 



"A door went back, and they entered a 
similar gallery; where Wilhelm soon recog- 
nised a corresponding series of Pictures from 
the New Testament. They seemed as if by 
another hand than the first: all was softer; 
forms, movements, accompaniments, light, and 
colouring." 

Into this second gallery, with its strange 
doctrine about " Miracles and Parables," the 
characteristic of the Philosophical Religion, 
we cannot enter for the present, yet must give 
one hurried glance. Wilhelm expresses some 
surprise that these delineations terminate 
"with the Supper, with the scene where the 
Master and his Disciples part." He inquires 
for the remaining portion of the history. 

" 'In all sorts of instruction,' said the Eldest, 
' in all sorts of communication, we are fond 
of separating whatever it is possible to sepa- 
rate; for by this means alone can the notion 
of importance and peculiar significance arise 
in the young mind. Actual experience of it- 
self mingles and mixes all things together: 
here, accordingly, we have entirely disjoined 
that sublime Man's life from its termination. 
In life, he appears as a true Philosopher, — let 
not the expression stagger you, — as a Wise 
Man in the highest sense. He stands firm to 
this point: he goes on his way inflexibly, and 
while he exalts the lower to himself, while he- 
makes the ignorant, the poor, the sick, par- 
takers of his wisdom, of his riches, of his 
strength, he, on the other hand, in nowise con- 
ceals his divine origin ; he dares to equal 
himself with God, na}^ to declare that he him- 
self is God. In this manner is he wont, from 
youth upwards, to astound his familiar friends ; 
of these he gains a part to his own cause; 
irritates the rest against him; and shows to 
all men, who are aiming at a certain elevation 
in doctrine and life, what they have to look for 
from the world. And thus, for the noble por- 
tion of mankind, his walk and conversation 
are even more instructive and profitable than 
his death : for to those trials every one is called, 
to this trial but a few. Now, omitting all that 
results from this consideration, do but look at 
the touching scene of the Last Supper. Here 
the Wise Man, as it ever is, leaves those, that 
are his own, utterly orphaned behind him ; 
aad while he is careful for the Good, he feeds 
along with them a traitor, b)^ whom he and 
the Better are to be destroyed.' " 

This seems to us to have " a deep, still 
meaning;" and the longer and closer we ex- 
amine it, the more it pleases us. Wilhelm is 
not admitted into the shrine of the Third Re- 
ligion, the Christian, or that of which Christ's 
sufferings and death were the symbols, as his 
walk and conversation had been the symbol 
of the Second, or Philosophical Religion. 
"That last Religion," it is said, — 

'"That last Religion which arises iVom the 
Reverence of what is Beneath us ; that venera- 
tion of the contradictory, the hated, the avoided, 
we give to each of our pupils, in small por- 
tions, by way of outfit, along with him into 
the world, mereh' that he may know where 
more is to be had, should such a want spring 
up w-ithin him. I invite you to return hither 
at the end of a year, to attend our general 



GOETHE. 



89- 



Festival, and see how far your son is advanced : 
then shall you be admitted into the Sanctuary 
of Sorrow.' 

'"Permit me one question,' said Wilhelm : 
' as you have set up the life of this divine 
Man for a pattern and example, have you like- 
wise selected his sufferings, his death, as a 
model of exalted patience 1' 

'"Undoubtedly we have,' replied the Eldest. 
'Of this we make no secret; but we draw a 
veil over these sufferings, even because we 
reverence them so highly. We hold it a damna- 
ble audacity to bring forth that torturing 
Cross, and the Holy One who suffers on it, or 
to expose them to ihe light of the Sun, which 
hid its face when a reckless world forced such 
a sight on it; to take these mysterious secrets, 
in which the divine depth of Sorrow lies hid, 
and play Avith them, fondle them, trick them 
out, and rest not till the most reverend of all 
solemnities appears vulgar and paltry. Let 
so much for the present suffice — * * * The 
rest we must still owe you for a twelvemonth. 
The instruction, which in the interim we give 
the children, no stranger is allowed to witness : 
then, however, come to us, and you will hear 
what our best Speakers think it serviceable to 
make public on those matters.' " 

Could we hope that, in its present disjointed 
state, this emblematic sketch would rise before 
the minds of our readers, in any measure as it 
stood before the mind of the writer; that, in 
considering it, they might seize only an out- 
line of Ihosfe many meanings which, at less or 
greater depth, lie hidden under it, we should 
anticipate their thanks for having, a first or a 
second time, brought it before them. As it is, 
believing that to open-minded, truth-seeking 
men, the deliberate words of an open-minded, 
truth-seeking man can in no case be wholly 
unintelligible, nor the words of such a man as 
Goethe indifferent, we have transcribed it for 
their perusal. If we induce them to turn to 
the original, and study this in its completeness, 
with so much else that environs it, and bears 
on it, they will lhat\k us still more. To our 
own judgment, at least, there is a fine and pure 
significance in this whole delineation: such 
phrases even as " the Sanctuary of Sorrow," 
"the divine depth of Sorrow," have of them- 
selves pathetic wisdom for us ; as indeed a 
tone of devoutness, of calm, mild, priestlike 
dignity pervades the whole. In a time like 
ours, it is rare to see, in the writings of culti- 
vated men, any opinion whatever, bearing any 
mark of sincerity, on such a subject as this: 
yet it is and continues the highest subject, and 
they that are highest are most fit for studying 
it, and helping others to stud)' it. 

Goethe's Wmidcrjahre was published in his 
seventy-second year; Wcrlcr in his twenty-fifth : 
thus in passing between these two works, and 
over Mcis!ers Leltrjchrr, which stands nearly 
midway, we have glanced over a space oJF 
almost fifty years, including within them, of 
course, whatever was most important in his 
public or private history. By means of these 
quotations, so diverse in their tone, we meant 
to make it visible that a great change had 
taken place in the moral disposition of the 
man ; a change from inward imprisonment, 
12 



doubt, and discontent, into freedom, belief, and 
clear activity: such a change as, in our opinion, 
must take place, more or less consciously, 
in every character that, especially in these 
times, attains to spiritual manhood; and in 
characters possessing any thoughtfulness and- 
sensibility, will seldom take place without a 
too painful consciousness, without bitter con- 
flicts, in which the character itself is too often- 
maimed and impoverished, and which end too 
often not in victory, but in defeat, or fatal 
compromise with the enemy. Too often, we 
may well say; for though many gird on the 
harness, few bear it warrior-like ; still fewer 
put it off with triumph. Among our own poets, 
Byron was almost the only man we saw faith- 
fully and manfully struggling, to the end, in 
this cause ; and he died while the victory was 
still doubtful, or at best, only beginning to be 
gained. We have already stated our opinion, 
that Goethe's success in this matter has been 
more complete than that of any other man in 
his age; nay, that, in the strictest sense, he- 
may also be called the only one that has so 
succeeded. On this ground, were it on no 
other, w have ventured to say, that his spiritual 
history and procedure must deserve attention ^ 
that his opinions, his creations, his mode of 
thought, his whole picture of the world as it 
dwells within him, must to his contemporaries 
be an inquiry of no common interest; of an 
interest altogether peculiar, and not in this 
j degree exampled in existing literature. These 
things can be hut imperfectly stated here, and 
must be left, not in a state of demonstration, 
but, at the utmost, of loose fluctuating proba- 
bility; nevertheless, if inquired into, they will 
be found to have a precise enough meaning, 
and, as we believe, a highly important one. 

For the rest, what sort of mind it is that has 
passed through this change, that has gained 
this victory; how rich and high a mind ; how 
learned by study in all that is wisest, by expe- 
rience in "all that is most complex, the bright- 
est as well as the blackest, in man's existence; 
gifted with what insight, with what grace 
and power of utterance, we shall not for 
the present attempt discussing. All these the 
reader will learn, who studies his writings with 
such attention as they merit : and by no other 
means. Of Goethe's dramatic, lyrical, didac- 
tic poems, in their thousandfold expressiveness, 
for they are full of expressiveness, we can 
here say nothing. But in every department 
of Literature, of^Art ancient and modern, in 
many provinces of Science, we shall often 
meet him; and hope to have other occasions 
of estimating what, in these respects, we and 
all men owe him. 

Two circumstances, meanwhile we have re- 
marked, which to us throw light on the nature 
of his original faculty fur Poetry, and go far 
to convince us of the Mastery he has attained 
in that art; these we may here state briefly, 
for the judgment of such as already know his 
writings, or the help of such as are beginning 
to know them. The first is his singularly em- 
blematic intellect; his perpetual never-failing 
tendency to transform into shape, into life, the 
opinion, the feeling that may dwell in him ; 
Avhich, in its widest sense, we reckon to be 
H 2 



90 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



essentia ly the grand problem of the Poet. 
We do not mean mere metaphor and rheto- 
rical trope : these are but the exterior concern, 
often but the scaffolding^ of the edifice, which 
is to be built up (within our thoughts) by 
means of them. In allusions, in similitudes, 
though no one known to us is happier, many 
are more copious, than Goethe. But we find 
this faculty of his in the very essence of his 
intellect ; and trace it alike in the quiet, cun- 
ning epigram, the allegory, the quaint device, 
reminding us of some Quarlcs or Bnnyan ; 
and in the Fuusts, the Tassos, the Mignoiis, which, 
in their pure and genuine personality, may al- 
most remind us of the Jlriels and ILimlcis of 
■Shakspeare. Ever}' thing has form, every thing 
has visual existence; the poet's imagination 
bodies fori h the forms of things unseen, his pen 
turns them to shape. This, as a natural endow- 
ment, exists in Goethe, we conceive, to a very 
high degree. 

The other characteristic of his mind, which 
proves to us his acquired mastery in art, as 
this shows us the extent of his original capa- 
city for it, is his wonderful variety, nay, uni- 
versality ; his entire freedom from Mannerism. 
We read Goethe for years before we come to 
see wherein the distinguishing peculiarity of 
his understanding, of his disposition, even of 
his way of writing, consists. It seems quite a 
simple style — that of his ; remarkable chiefly 
for its calmness, its perspicuity, in short, its 
commonness : and yet it is the most uncom- 
mon of all styles : we feel as if every one 
might imitate it, and yet it is inimitable. As 
hard is it to discover in his writings, — though 
there also, as in every man's writings, the 
character of the writer must lie recorded, — 
what sort of spiritual construction he has. 
what are his temper, his affections, his indivi- 
dual specialities. For all lives frcelv within 
him ; Philina and Cliirchen, Mephistopheles 
and Mignon, are alike indifferent, or alike dear 
to him ; he is of no sect or caste : he seems 
not this man or that man, but a man. We 
reckon this to be the characteristic of a Mas- 
ter in Art of any sort ; and true especially of 
all great Poets. How true is it of Shakspeare 
and Homer! Who knows, or can figure what 
the Man Shakspeare was, by the first, by the 
twentieth perusal of his works? He is a 
Voice coming to us from the Land of Melody : 
his old, brick dwelling-place, in the mere 
earthly burgh of Stratford-on-Avon, offers us 
the most inexplicable enigma. And what is 
Homer in the Uuis? He is. the avit>'ess ; he 
has seen, and he reveals it ; we hear and be- 
lieve, but do not behold him. Now compare, 
with these two poets, any other two ; not of 
equal genius, lor there are none such, but of 
equal sincerity, who wrote as earnestly, and 
from the heart, like them. Take, for instance, 
Jean Paul and Lord Byron. The good Richter 
begins to show himself, in his broad, massive, 
kindly, quaint significance, before we have 
read many pages of even his slightest work; 
and to the last, he paints himself much better 
than his subject. Byron may almost be said 
to have painted nothing else than himself, be 
his subject what it might. Yet as a test for 
the culture of a Poet, in his poetical capacity. 



for his pretensions to mastery and complete- 
ness in his heart, we can but reckon this 
among the surest. Tried by this, there is no 
living writer that approaches within many 
degrees of Goethe. 

Thus, it would seem, we consider Goethe to 
be a richly educated Poet, no less than a richly 
educated Man : a master both of Humanity, 
and of Poetry; one to whom Experience has 
given true wisdom, and the " Melodies Eternal " 
a perfect utterance for his wisdom. Of the 
particular form which this humanity, this 
wisdom has assumed; of his opinions, cha- 
racter, personalit}', — for these, with whatever 
difficulty, are and must be decipherable in his 
writings, — we had much to say : but this also 
we must decline. In the present state of mat- 
ters, to .speak adequately would be a task too 
hard for us, and one in which our readers 
could afford little help, nay, in which many of 
them might take little interest. Meanwhile, 
we have found a brief cursor}' sketch on this 
subject, already written in our language : some 
parts of it, by way of preparation, we shall 
here transcribe. It is written by a professed 
admirer of Goethe; nay, as might almost seem, 
by a grateful learner, whom he taught, whom 
he had helped to lead out of spiritual obstruc- 
tion, into peace and light. Making due allow- 
ance for all this, there is little in the paper 
that we object to. 

" In Goethe's mind," observes he, " the first 
aspect that strikes us is its calmness, then its 
beauty; a deeper inspection reveals to us its 
vastness and unmeasured strength. This man 
rules, and is not ruled. The stern and fiery 
energies of a most passionate soul lie silent 
in the centre of its being; a trembling sensi- 
bility has been enured to stand, without flinch- 
ing or murmur, the sharpest trials. Nothing 
outward, nothing inward, shall agitate or con- 
trol him. The brightest and most capricious 
fancy, the most piercing and inquisitive intel- 
lect, the wildest and deepest imagination ; the 
highest thrills of joy, the bitterest pangs of 
sorrow : all these are his, he is not theirs. 
While he moves every heart from its stead- 
fastness, his own is fiim and still : the words 
that search into the inmost recesses of our 
nature, he pronounces with a tone of coldness 
and equanimity : in the deepest pathos he 
weeps not, or his tears are like water trickling 
from a rock of adamant. He is a king of 
himself and of this world ; nor does he rule 
it like a vulgar great man, like Napoleon or 
Charles the Twelfth, by the mere brute exer- 
tion of his will, grounded on no principle, or 
on a false one : his faculties and feelings are 
not fettered or prostrated under the iron sway 
of Passion, but led and guided in kindly union 
under the mild sway of Reason ; as the fierce 
primeval elements of Chaos were stilled at the 
coming of liight, and bound together, under 
its soft vesture, into a glorious and beneficent 
Creation. 

"This is the true rest of man ; the dim aim 
of every human soul, the full attainment of 
only a chosen few. It comes not unsought to 
any ; but the wise are wise because they think 
no price too high for it. Goethe's inward 
home has been reared by slow and laborious 



GOETHE. 



91 



efforts; but it stands on no hollow or deceitful 
basis: for his peace is not from blindness, but 
from clear vision ; not from uncertain hope 
of alteration, but from sure insight into what 
cannot alter. His world seems once to have 
been desolate and baleful as that of the dark- 
est skeptic: but he has covered it anew with 
beauty and solemnity, derived from deeper 
sources, over which Doubt can have no sway. 
He has acquired fearlessly, and fearlessly 
searched out and denied the False; but he has 
not forgotten, what is equally essential and in- 
finitely harder, to search out and admit the 
True. His heart is still full of warmth, though 
his head is clear and cold ; the world for him 
is still full of grandeur, though he clothes it 
with no false colours ; his fellow-creatures are 
still objects of reverence and love, though their 
basenesses are plainer to no eye than to his. 
To reconcile these contradictions is the task 
of all good men, each for himself, in his own 
way and manner; a task which, in our age, 
is encompassed with difiiculties peculiar to 
the time ; and which Goethe seems to have ac- 
complished with a success that few can rival. 
A mind so in unity with itself, even though it 
were a poor and small one, would arrest our 
attention, and win some kind regard from us; 
but when this mind ranks among the strong- 
est and most complicated of the species, it 
becomes a sight full of interest, a study full of 
deep instruction. 

"Such a mind as Goethe's is the fruit not 
only of a royal endowment by nature, but also 
of a culture proportionate to her bounty. In 
Goethe's original form of spirit, we discern the 
highest gifts of manhood, without any defi- 
ciency of the lower : he has an eye and a heart 
equally for the sublime, the common, and the 
ridiculous ; the elements at once of a poet, a 
thinker, and a wit. Of his culture we have 
often spoken already; and it deserves again to 
be held up to praise and imitation. This, as 
he himself unostentatiously confesses, has 
been the soul of all his conduct, the great 
enterprise of his life; and few that understand 
him will be apt to deny that he has prospered. 
As a writer, his resources have been accumu- 
lated from nearly all the provinces of human 
intellect and activity ; and he has trained him- 
self to use these comph'cated instruments, with 
a light expertness which we might have ad- 
mired in the professor of a solitary depart- 
ment. Freedom, and grace, and smiling 
earnestness are the characteristics of his 
works : the matter of them flows along in 
chaste abundance, in the softest combination; 
and their style is referred to by native critics 
as the highest specimen of the German tongue. 
***** 

" But Goethe's culture as a writer is perhaps 
less remarkable than his culture as a man. 
He has learned not in head onl}% but also in 
heart ; not from Art and Literature, but also 
by action and passion, in the rugged school of 
Experience. If asked what was the grand 
characteristic of his writings, we should not 
say knowledge, but wisdom. A mind that has 
seen, and sulfcred, and done, speaks to us of 
what it has tried and conquered. A gay de- 
lineation will give us notice of dark and toil- 



some experiences, of business done in the 
great deep of the spirit ; a maxim, trivial to the 
careless eye, will rise with light and solution 
over long perplexed periods of our own history. 
It is thus that heart speaks to heart, that the 
life of one man becomes a possession to all. 
Here is a mind of the most subtile and tumultu- 
oiis elements ; but it is governed in peaceful 
diligence, and its impetuous and ethereal fa- 
culties work softly together for good and noble 
ends. Goethe may be called a Philosopher; 
for he loves and has practised as a man the 
wisdom which, as a poet, he inculcates. Com- 
posure and cheerful seriousness seem to 
breathe over all his character. There is no 
whining over human woes : it is understood 
that we must simply all strive to alleviate or 
remove them. There is no noisy battling for 
opinions; but a persevering etibrt to make 
Truth lovely, and recomineiul her, by a thou- 
sand avenues, to the hearts of all men. Of his 
I personal manners we can easily believe the 
universal report, as often given in the way of 
censure as of praise, that he is a man of con- 
summate breeding and the stateliest presence : 
for an air of polished tolerance, of courtly, we 
might almost say, majestic repose, and serene 
humanity, is visible throughout his works. In 
no line of them does he speak with asperity of 
any man: scarcely ever even of a thing. He 
knows the good, and loves it; he knows the 
bad and hateful, and rejects it; but in neither 
case Avith violence: his love is calm and 
active; his rejection is implied, rather than 
pronounced; meek and gentle, though we see 
that it is thorough, and never to be revoked. 
The noblest and the basest he not only seems 
to comprehend, but to personate and body 
forth in their most secret lineaments: hence 
actions and opinions appear to him as they 
are, with all the circumstances which extenu- 
ate or endear them to the hearts where they 
originated and are entertained. This also is 
the spirit of our Shakspearc, and perhaps of 
every great dramatic poet, ^hakspeare is no 
sectarian; to all he deals with equity and 
mercy ; because he knows all, and his heart 
is wide enough for all. In his mind the world 
is a whole; he figures it as Providence go- 
verns it ; and to him it is not strange that the 
sun should "be caused to shine on the evil and 
the good, and the rain to fall on the just and 
the unjust.'" 

Considered as a transient, far-off view of 
Goethe in his personal character, all this, from 
the writer's peculiar point of vision, may have 
its true grounds, and wears at least the aspect 
of sincerity. We may also quote something 
of what follows on Goethe's character as a poet 
and thinker, and the contrast he exhibits in 
this respect with another celebrated, and now 
altogether European author. 

" Goethe," observes this critic, " has been 
called the 'German Voltaire,' but it is a 
name which does him wrong and describes 
him ill. Except in the corresponding variety 
of their pursuits and knowledge, in which, per- 
haps, it does Voltaire wrong, the two cannot 
be compared. Goethe is all, or the best of all, 
that Voltaire was, and he is much that Voltaire 
did not dream of. To say nothing of his dig- 



92 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



nified and truthful character as a man, he be- 
longs, as a thinker and a writer, to a far higher 
class than this enfant gate du monde qii'il gala. 
He is not a questioner and a despiser, but a 
teacher and a reverencer ; not a destroyer, but 
a builder up; not a wit only, but a wise man. 
Of him Montesquieu could not have said, with 
even epigrammatic truth : II a plus que persormc 
Vesprit que tout le mandc a. Voltaire is the cle- 
verest of all past and present men ; but a great 
man is something more, and this he surely 
was not." 

Whether this epigram, which Ave have seen 
in some Biographical Dictionar)^ really be- 
longs to Montesquieu, we know not; but it 
does seem to us not wholly inapplicable to 
Voltaire, and at all events, highly expressive 
of an important distinction among men of 
talent generally. In fact, the popular man, 
and the man of true, at least of great origin- 
ality, are seldom one and the same; we sus- 
pect that, till after a long struggle on the part 
of the latter, they are never so. Reasons are 
obvious enough. The popular man stands on 
our own level, or a hair's breadth higher ; he 
shows us a truth which we can see without 
shifting our present intellectual position. This 
is a highly convenient arrangement. The 
original man, again, stands above us ; he 
wishes to wrench us from our old fixtures, and 
elevate us to a higher and clearer level : but 
to quit our old fixtures, especially if we have 
sat in Ihcni wilh moderate comfort for some 
score or two of years, is no such easy business ; 
accordingly we demur, we resist, we even give 
battle ; we still suspect that he is above us, 
but try to persuade ourselves (Laziness and 
Vanit}' earnestly assenting) that he is below. 
For is it not the very essence of such a man 
that he be nctv? And who will warrant us 
that, at the same time, he shall only be an in- 
tensation and continuation of the o?(/, which, in 
general, is what we long and look fori No 
one can warrant us. And, granting him to be 
a man of real genius, real depth, and that 
speaks not till after earnest meditation, what 
sort of a philosophy were his, could we esti- 
mate the length, breadth, and thickness of it at 
a single glance ? And when did Criticism 
give two glances ? Criticism, therefore, opens 
on such a man its greater and its lesser bat- 
teries, on every side: he has no security but 
to go on disregarding it; and "in the end," 
says Goethe, "Criticism itself comes to relish 
that method." But now let a speaker of the 
other class come forward; one of those men 
that " have more than any one, the opinion 
which all men have !" No sooner does he 
speak, than all and sundry of us feel as if we 
had been wishing to speak that very thing, as 
if we ourselves might have spoken it; and 
forthwith resounds from the united universe a 
celebration of that surprising feat. What clear- 
ness, brilliancy, justness, penetration ! Who 
can doubt that this man is right, when so 
many thousand votes are ready to back him 1 
Doubtless, he is right ; doubtless, he is a clever 
man; and his praise will long be in all the 
Magazines. 

Clever men are good, but they are not the 
dest. " The instruction they can give us is 



like baked bread, savoury and satisfying for a 
single day;" but, unhappily, "flour cannot be 
sown, and seed-corn ought not to be ground." 
We proceed with our Critic in his contrast of 
Goethe with Voltaire. 

"As poets," continues he, " the two live not in 
the same hemisphere, not in the same world. 
Of Voltaire's poetry, it were blindness to deny 
the polished, intellectual vigour, the logical 
symmetry, the flashes that from time to time 
give it the colour, if not the warmth, of fire : but 
it is in a far other sense than this that Goethe 
is a poet; in a sense of which the French 
literature has never afforded any example. We 
may venture to say of him, that his province is 
high and peculiar; higher than any poet but 
himself, for several generations, has so far 
succeeded in, perhaps even has steadfastly at- 
tempted. In reading Goethe's poetry, it per- 
petually strikes us that we are reading the 
poetry of our own day and generation. No 
demands are made on our credulity : the light, 
the science, the skepticism of our age, is not 
hid from us. He does not deal in antiquated 
mythologies, or ring changes on traditionary 
poetic forms ; there are no supernal, no infernal 
influences, for Faust is an apparent, rather 
than a real exception ; but there is the barren 
prose of the nineteenth centur}', the vulgar life 
which we are all leading, and it starts into 
strange beauty in his hands, and we pause in 
delighted wonder to behold the flowerage of 
poesy blooming in that parched and rugged 
soil. This is the end of his Mignons and 
Harpers, of his Hermanns and Meisters. Poetry, 
as he views it, exists not in time or place, but 
in the spirit of man; and Art with Nature is 
now to perform for the poet what Nature alone 
performed of old. The divinities and demons, 
the witches, spectres, and fairies, are vanished 
from the world, never again to be recalled : but 
the Imagination, which created these, still lives, 
and will for ever live, in man's soul; and can 
again pour its wizard light over the Universe, 
and summon forth enchantments as lovely or 
impressive, and which its sister faculties will 
not contradict. To say that Goethe has ac- 
complished all this, would be to say that his 
genius is greater than was ever given to any 
man : for if it was a high and glorious mind, 
or rather series of minds, that peopled the first 
ages yith their peculiar forms of poetry, it must 
be a series of minds much higher and more 
glorious that shall so people the present. The 
angels and demons, that can lay prostrate our 
hearts in the nineteenth century must be of ano- 
ther, and more cunning fashion, than those that 
subdued us in the ninth. To have attempted, 
to have begun this enterprise, may be account- 
ed the greatest praise. That Goethe ever me- 
ditated it, in the form here set forth, we have no 
direct evidence : but, indeed, such is the end and 
aim of high poetry at all times and seasons ; 
for the fiction of the poet is not falsehood, but 
the purest truth ; and, if he would lead captive 
our whole being, not rest satisfied with a part 
of it, he must address us on interests that are, 
not that were, ours ; and in a dialect which finds 
a response, and not a contradiction, within our 

bosoms."* 

* German Romance, vol. iv. pp. 17—25. 



GOETHE. 



93 



Here, however, we must terminate our pil- 
ferings, or open robberies, and bring these 
straggling lucubrations to a close. In the ex- 
tracts we have given, in the remarks made on 
them, and on the subject of ihem, we are aware 
that we have held the attitude of admirers and 
pleaders: neither is it unknown to us that the 
critic is, in virtue of his office, a judge, and not 
an advocate; sits there, not to do favour, but 
to dispense justice, which in most cases will 
involve blame as well as praise. But we are 
firm believers in the maxim that, for all right 
judgment of any man or thing, it is useful, nay, 
essential, to see his good qualities before pro- 
nouncing on his bad. This maxim is so clear 
to ourselves, that, in respect of poetry at least, 
■we almost think we could make it clear to other 
men. In the first place, at all events, it is a 
much shallower and more ignoble occupation 
to detect faults than to discover beauties. The 
■" critic fly," if it do but alight on any plinth or 
■single cornice of a brave, stately building, shall 
be able to declare, with its half-inch vision, that 
here is a speck, and there an inequality ; that, 
in fact, this and the other individual stone are 
nowise as they should be ; for all this the 
" critic fly" will be suthcient : but to take in 
the fair relations of the Whole, to see the build- 
ing as one object, to estimate its purpose, the 
adjustment of its parts, and their harmonious 
co-operation towards that purpose, will require 
the eye and the mind of a Vitruvius, or a Pal- 
ladio. But further, the faults of a poem, or 
other piece of art, as we view them at first, will 
by no means continue unaltered when we view 
them after due and final investigation. Let us 
consider what we mean by a fault. By the word 
fault, we designate something that displeases us, 
that contradicts us. But here the question might ! 
arise. Who are we? This fault displeases, j 
contradicts us ; so far is clear ; and had u-c, had i 
/, and mij pleasure and confirmation, been the [ 
chief end of the poet, then doubtless he has j 
failed in thatend,and his faultremainsafault ir- [ 
remediably, and without defence. But who shall | 
say whether such really was his object, whether i 
such ought to have been his object? And I 
if it was not, and ought not to have been, what j 
becomes of the fault ] It must hang altogether 
undecided; we as yet know nothing of it; per- i 
haps it may not be the poet's but our own fault ; I 
perhaps it may be no fault whatever. To see I 
rightly into this matter, to determine with any | 
infallibility, whether what we call a fault is in j 
very deed a fault, we must previously have set- j 
tied two points, neither of which may be so | 
readily settled. First, we must have made 1 
plain to ourselves what the poet's aim really 
and truly was, how the task he had to do stood | 
before his own eye, and how far, with such ! 
means as it afforded him, he has fulfilled it. | 
Secondly, we must have decided whether and 
how far this aim, this task of his, accorded, — 
not with MS, and our individual crotchets, and 
the crotchets of our little senate where we p;ive 
or take the law, — but with human nature, and 
the nature of things at large; with the univer- 
sal principles of poetic beauty, not as they stand 
written in our text-books, but in the hearts and 
imaginations of all men. Does the answer in 
£ither case come out unfavourable ; was there 



an inconsistency between the means and the 
end ; a discordance between the end and truth, 
there is a fault : was there not, there is no fault. 
Thus it would appear that the detection of 
faults, provided they be faults of any depth and 
consequence, leads us of itself into that region 
where also the higher beauties of the piece, if 
it have any true beauties, essentially reside. In 
fact, according to our view, no man can pro- 
nounce dogmatically, with even a chance of 
being right, on the faults of a poem, till he has 
seen its very last and highest beauty; the last 
in becoming visible to any one, which few ever 
look after, which indeed in most pieces it were 
very vain to look after; the beauty of the poem 
as a Whole, in the strict sense ; the clear view 
of it as an indivisible Unity; and whether it 
has grown up naturally from the general soil 
of Thought, and stands there like a thousand- 
years Oak, no leaf, no bough superfluous ; or 
is nothing but a pasteboard Tree, cobbled to- 
gether out of size and waste-paper and water- 
colours ; altogether unconnected with the soil 
of Thought, except by mere juxtaposition, or 
at best united with it by some decayed slump 
and dead boii,gli.<, which the more cunning De- 
corationist (as in your Historic Novel) may 
have selected for the basis and support of his 
agglutinations. It is true, most readers judge 
of a poem by pieces, they praise and blame by 
pieces : it is a common prtictice, and for most 
poems and most readers may be perfectly 
suflicient; yet we would advise no man to fol- 
low this practice, who traces in himself even 
the slightest capability of folio wing a better one; 
and if possible, we would advise him to prac- 
tise only on worthy subjects ; to read few poems 
that will not bear being studied as well as read. 
That Goethe has his faults cannot be doubt- 
ful ; for we believe it was ascertained long ago 
that there is no man free from them. Neither 
are we ourselves without some glimmering of 
certain actual limitations and inconsistencies 
by which he too, as he really lives, and writes, 
and is, may be hemmed in ; which beset him 
too, as they do meaner men ; which show us 
that he too is a son of Eve. But to exhibit 
these before our readers, in the present state 
of matters, we should reckon no ea.sy labour, 
were it to be adequately, to be justly done; 
and done any how, no profitable one. Better 
is it we should first study him ; better "to see 
the great man before attempting to oversee him." 
We are not ignorant that certain objections 
against Goethe already float vaguely in the 
English mind, and here and there, according to 
occasion, have even come to utterance: these, 
as the study of him proceeds, v/e shall hold our- 
selves ready, in due season, to discuss ; but 
for the present we must beg the reader to be- 
lieve, on our word, that we do not reckon 
them unanswerable, nay, that we reckon them 
in general the most answerable things in the 
world; and things which even a little increase 
of knowledge will not fail to answer without 
other help. 

For furthering such increase of knowledge 
on this matter, may we beg the reader to ac- 
cept two small pieces of advice, which we 
ourselves have found to be of use in studying 
Goethe. They seem applicable to the study 



94 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of Foreign Literature generally; indeed to the 
study of all Literature that deserves the name. 
The first is, nowise to suppose that Poetry 
is a superficial, cursory business, which may 
be seen through to the very bottom, so soon 
as one inclines to cast his eye on it. We 
reckon it the falsest of all maxims that a true 
Poem can be adequately tasted: can be judged 
of "as men judge of a dinner," by some inter- 
nal tongue, that shall decide on the matter at 
once and irrevocably. Of the poetry which 
supplies spouting-clubs, and circulates in cir- 
culating libraries, we speak not here. That 
is quite another species ; which has circulated, 
and will circulate, and ought to circulate, in 
all times; but for the study of which no man 
is required to give rules, the rules being al- 
ready given by the thing itself. We speak of 
that Poetry which Masters write, which aims 
not "at furnishing a languid mind with fan- 
tastic shows and indolent emotions," but at 
incorporating the everlasting Reason of man 
in forms visible to his Sense, and suitable to 
it: and of this we say that to knoV it is no 
slight task ; but rather that being the essence 
of all science, it requires the purest of all study 
for knowing it. "What!" cries the reader, 
" are we to study Poetry? To pore over it as 
we do over Fluxions ?" Reader, it depends 
upon your object: if you want only amusement, 
choose your book, and you get along, without 
study, excellently well. " But is not Shakspeare 
plain, visible to the very bottom, without 
study 1" cries he. Alas, no, gentle Reader; 
we cannot think so ; we do not find that he is 
"visible to the very bottom," even to those 
that profess the study of him. It has been our 
lot to read some criticisms on Shakspeare, and 
to hear a great many ; but for most part they 
amounted to no such "visibility." Volumes 
we have seen that were simply one huge In- 
terjection printed over three hundred pages. 
Nine tenths of our critics have told us little 
more of Shakspeare, than what honest Franz 
Horn says our neighbours used to tell of him, 
-'that he was a great spirii, and stept majes- 
tically along." Johnson's Preface, a sound 
and solid piece for its purpose, is a complete 
exception to this rule ; and, so far as we re- 
member, the only complete one. Students of 
noetry admire Shakspeare in their tenth year ; 
lout go on admiring him more and more, un- 
derstanding him more and more, till their 
..hreescore-and-tenth. Grotius said, he read 



Terence otherwise than boys do. " Happy 
contractedness of youth," adds Goethe, "nay, 
of men in general ; that at all moments of their 
existence they can look upon themselves as 
complete ; and inquire neither after the True 
nor the False, nor the High nor the Deep ; but 
simply after what is proportioned to them- 
selves." 

Our second advice we shall state in a few 
words. It is to remember that a Foreigner is 
no Englishman; that in judging a foreign 
work, it is not enough to ask whether it is 
suitable to our »»oie.?,but whether it is suitable 
to foreign wants : above all, whether it is suit- 
able to itself. The fairness, the necessity of 
this can need no demonstration :. yet how often 
do we find it, in practice, altogether neglected! 
We could fancy we saw some Bond-street 
Tailor criticising the costume of an ancient 
Greek; censuring the highly improper cut of 
collar and lapel; lamenting, indeed, that col- 
lar and lapel were nowhere to be seen. He 
pronounces the costume, easily and decisive- 
Ij^ to be a barbarous one ; to know whether it 
is a barbarous one, and how barbarous, the 
judgment of a Winkelmann might be required, 
and he would find it hard to give a judgment. 
For the questions set before the two were radi- 
cally different. The Fraction asked himself: 
How will this look in Almacks, and before 
Lord Mahogany? The Winklemann asked 
himself: How will this look in the Universe, 
and before the Creator of Man 1 

Whether these remarks of ours may do 
any thing to forward a right appreciation of 
Goethe in this country, we know not; neither 
do we reckon this last result to be of any vital 
importance. Yet must we believe that, in re- 
commending Goethe, we are doing our part to 
recommend a truer study of Poetry itself: and 
happj' were we to fancy that any efforts of 
ours could promote such an object. Promoted, 
attained it will be, as we believe, by one means 
and another. A deeper feeling for Art is 
abroad over Europe; a purer, more earnest 
purpose in the study, in the practice of it. In 
this influence we too must participate: the 
time will come v/hen our own ancient noble 
Literature will be studied and felt, as well as 
talked of; when Dilettantism will give place 
to Criticism in respect of it; and vague won- 
der end in clear knowledge, in sincere reve- 
rence, and, what were best of all, in hearty 
emulation. 



BURNS. 



95 



EUIINS.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1828.] 



ly the modern arrangemenls of societ3% it is 
no uncommon thing that a man of genius must, 
like Biitier, "ask for bread and receive a 
stone ;" for, in spite of our grand maxim of 
supply and demand, it is by no means the 
highest excellence that men are most forward 
to recognise. The inventor of a spinning- 
jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own 
day; but the writer of a true poem, like the 
apostle of a true religion, is nearly as sure of 
the contrarj'. We do not know whether it is 
not an aggravation of the injustice, that there 
is generally a posthumous retribution. Robert 
Burns, in the course of nature, might yet have 
been living; but his short life was spent in 
toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of 
his manhood, miserable and neglected ; and 
yet already a brave mausoleum shines over his 
dust, and more than one splendid monument 
has been reared in other places to his fame : 
the street where he languished in poverty is 
called by his name ; the highest personages in 
our literature have been proud to appear as 
his commentators and admirers, and here is 
the sixth narrative of his Life, that has been 
given to the world ! 

Mr. Lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize 
for this new attempt on such a subject: but his 
readers, we believe, will readily acquit him; 
or, at worst, will censure only the performance 
of his task, not the choice of it. Tiie character 
of Burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily 
become either trite or exhausted; and will pro- 
bably gain rather than lose in its dimensions 
by the distance to which it is removed by 
Time. No man, it has been said, is a hero to 
his valet: and this is probably true; but the 
fault is at least as likely to be the valet's as 
the hero's : For it is certain, that to the vulgar 
eye few things are wonderful that are not 
distant. It is difficult for men to believe that 
the man, the mere man whom they see, nay, 
perhaps, painfully feel, toiling at their side 
through the poor jostlings of existence, can be 
made of finer clay than themselves. Suppose 
that some dining acquaintance of Sir Thomas 
Lucy's, and neighbour of John a Combe's, had 
snatched an hour or two from the preservation 
of his game, and written us a Lite of Shak- 
speare ! What dissertations should we not 
have had,— not on Humlet and The Tempest, but 
on the wool-trade, and deer-stealing, and the 
libel and vagrant laws ! and how the Poacher 
became a Player; and how Sir Thomas and 
Mr. John had Christian bowels, and did not 
push him to extremities ! In like manner, we 
believe, with respect to Burns, that till the 
companions of his pilgrimage, the honourable 
Excise Commissioners, and the Gentlemen of 
the Caledonian Hunt, and the Dumfries Aris- 

*The Life of Robert Burns. By J. G. Lockhart, LL. B. 

Edinburgh, 1828. 



tocracy, and all the Squires and Earls, equally 
with the Ayr Writers, and the New and Old 
Light Clergy, whom he had to do with, sliall 
have become invisible in the darliness of the 
Past, or visible only by light borrowed from his 
juxtaposition, it will be difficult to measure 
him by any true standard, or to estimate what 
he really was and did, in the eighteenth cen- 
tury, for his country and the world. It will be 
difficult, we say; but still a fair problem for 
literary historians; and repeated attempts will 
give us repeated approximations. 

His former biographers have done some- 
thing, no doubt, but by no means a great deal, 
to assist us. Dr. Currie and Mr. Walker, the 
principal of these writers, have both, we think, 
mistaken one essentially important thing: — 
Their own and the world's true relation to 
their author, and the style in which it became 
such men to think and to speak of such a 
man. Dr. Currie loved the poet truly ; more- 
perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even 
to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him 
with a certain patronizing, apologetic air; as 
if the polite public might think it strange and 
half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, 
a scholar, and gentleman, should do such 
honour to a rustic. In all this, however, we 
readily admit that his fault was not want of 
love, but weakness of faith ; and regret that 
the first a'nd kindest of all our poet's biogra- 
phers should not have seen farther, or believed 
more boldly what he saw. Mr. Walker ofl^ends 
more deeply in the same kind : and both err 
alike in presenting us with a detached cata- 
logue of his several supposed attributes, vir- 
tues, and vices, instead of a delineation of the 
resulting character as a living unity. This, 
however, is not painting a portrait; but gaug- 
ing the length and breadth of the several fea- 
tures, and jotting down their dimensions in 
arithmetical ciphers. Nay,-it is not so much 
as this : for we are yet to learn by what arts or 
instruments the mind co?(/rf be so measured and 
gauged. 

Mr. Lockhart, we are happy to say, has 
avoided both these errors. He uniformly treats 
Burns as the high and remarkable man the 
public voice has now pronounced him to be: 
and in delineating him, he has avoided the 
method of separate generalities, and rather 
sought for characteristic incidents, habits, 
actions, sayings ; in a word, for aspects which 
exhibit the whole man, as he looked and lived 
among his fellows. The book accordingly, 
with all its deficiencies, gives more insight, we 
think, into the true character of Burns, than 
any prior biography : though, being written on 
the very popular and condensed scheme of an 
article for Constahle^s Miscellany, it has less 
depth than we could have wished and expected 
from a writer of such power; and contains 
rather more, and more multifarious, quotations. 



96 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



than belong of right to an original production. 
Indeed, Mr. Lockhart's own writing is gene- 
rally so good, so clear, direct, and nervous, 
that we seldom wish to see it making place 
for another man's. However, the spirit of the 
work is throughout candid, tolerant, and anx- 
iously conciliating; compliments and praises 
are liberally distributed, on all hands, to great 
and small; and, as Mr. Morris Birkbeck ob- 
serves of the society in the backwoods of 
America, "the courtesies of polite life are 
never lost sight of for a moment." But there 
are better things than these in the volume ; 
and we can safely testify, not only that it is 
easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may 
even be without difficulty read again. 

Nevertheless, we are far from thinking that 
the problem of Burns's Biography has yet 
been adequately solved. We do not allude so 
much to deficiency of facts or documents, — 
though of these we are still every day receiv- 
ing some fresh accession, — as to the limited 
and imperfect application of them to the great 
end of Biography. Our notions upon this sub- 
ject may perhaps appear extravagant; but if 
an individual is really of consequence enough 
to have his life and character lecorded for 
public remembrance, we have always been of 
opinion, that the public ought to be made ac- 
quainted with all the inward springs and rela- 
tions of his character. How did the world and 
man's life, from his particular position, repre- 
sent themselves to his mindl How did coex- 
isting circumstances modify him from without ; 
how did he modify these from within 1 With 
what endeavours and what efficacy rule over 
them ; with what resistance and what suffer- 
ing sink under them 1 In one word, what and 
how produced was the effect of society on him; 
what and how produced was his effect on 
society ? He who should answer these ques- 
tions, in regard to any individual, would, as 
we believe, furnish a model of perfection in 
biography. Few individuals, indeed, can de- 
serve such a study; and many /ires will be 
written, and, for the gratification of innocent 
curiosity, ought to be written, and read, and 
forgotten, which are not in this sense biogra- 
phies. But Burns, if we mistake not, is one of 
these few individuals; and such a study, at 
least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. 
Our own contributions to it, we are aware, can 
be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them 
with good-will, and trust they may meet with 
acceptance from those for whom they are in- 
tended. 

Burns first came upon the world as a prodi- 
gy ; and was, in that character, entertained by 
it, in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tu- 
multuous wonder, speedily subsiding into cen- 
sure and neglect; till his early and most 
mournful death again awakened an enthu- 
siasm for him, which, especially as there was 
now nothing to be done, and much to be 
spoken, has prolonged itself even to our own 
time. It is true, the "nine days" have long 
.since elapsed ; and the very continuance of 
this clamour proves that Burns was no vulgar 
wonder. Accordingly, even in sober judg- 
ments, where, as years passed by, he has 
come to rest more and more exclusively on his 



own intrinsic merits, and may now be well 
nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he appears 
not only as a true British poet, but as one of 
the most considerable British men of the 
eighteenth century. Let it not be objected that 
he did little : He did much, if we consider where 
and how. If the work performed was small, 
we must remember that he had his very ma- 
terials to discover; for the metal he worked 
in lay hid under the desert, where no eye but 
his had guessed its existence; and we may al- 
most say, that with his own hand he had to 
construct the tools for fashioning it. For he 
found himself in deepest obscurity, without 
help, without instruction, without model; or 
with models only of the meanest sort. An 
educated man stands, as it were, in the midst 
of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled 
with all the weapons and engines which man's 
skill has been able to devise from the earliest 
time ; and he works, accordingly, with a 
strength borrowed from all past ages. How 
different is his state who stands on the outside 
of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must 
be stormed, or remain for ever shut against 
himl His means are the commonest and 
rudest; the mere work done is no measure of 
his strength. A dwarf behind his steam- 
engine may remove mountains ; but no dwarf 
will hew them down with the pick-axe; and 
he must be a Titan that hurls them abroad 
with his arms. 

It is in this last shape that BurnS presents 
himself. Born in an age the most prosaic 
Britain had yet seen, and in a condition the 
most disadvantageous, where his mind, if it 
accomplished aught, must accomplish it un- 
der the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay, 
of penury and desponding apprehension of 
the worst evils, and with no furtherance but 
such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, 
and the rhymes of a Ferguson or Ramsay for 
his standard of beauty, he sinks not under all 
these impediments: Through the fogs and 
darkness of that obscure region, his eagle eye 
discerns the true relations of the world and 
human life ; he grows into intellectual strength, 
and trains himself into intellectual expertness. 
Impelled by the irrepressible movement of his 
inward spirit, he struggles forward into the 
general view, and with haughty modesty'lays 
down before us, as the fruit of his labour, a 
gift, which Time has now pronounced im- 
perishable. Add to all this, that his darksome, 
drudging childhood and youth was by far the 
kindliest era of his whole life ; and that he died 
in his thirty-seventh year : and then ask if it 
be strange that his poems are imperfect, and 
of small extent, or that his genius attained no 
mastery in its art] Alas, his Sun shone as 
through a tropical tornado; and the pale 
Shadow of Death eclipsed it at noon ! Shroud- 
ed in such baleful vapours, the genius of Burns 
was never seen in clear azure splendour, en- 
lightening the world: But some beams from it 
did, by fits, pierce through; and it tinted those 
clouds with rainbow and orient colours into a 
glory and stern grandeur, which men silently 
gazed on with wonder and tears ! 

We are anxious not to exaggerate; for it xa 
exposition rather than admiration that our 



BURNS, 



9T 



Teaders require of us here ; and yet to avoid 
some tendency to that side is no easy matter. 
We love Burns, and we pity him; and love 
and pity are prone to magnify. Criticism, it 
is sometimes thought, should be a cold busi- 
ness ; we are not so sure of this ; but, at all 
events, our concern with Burns is not exclu- 
sively that of critics. True and genial as his 
poetry must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet, 
but as a man, that he interests and affects us. 
He was often advised to write a tragedy: time 
and means were not lent him for this; but 
through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of 
the deepest. We question whether the world 
has since witnessed so utterly sad a scene; 
whether Napoleon himself, left to brawl with 
Sir Hudson Lowe, and perish on his rock, 
"amid the melancholy main," presented to the 
reflecting mind such a "spectacle of pity and 
fear," as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler, 
and perhaps greater soul, wasting itself away 
in a hopeless struggle with base entangle- 
ments, which coiled closer and closer round 
him, till only death opened him an outlet. 
Conquerors are a race with whom the world 
could well dispense ; nor can the hard intel- 
lect, the unsympathizing loftiness, and high 
but selfish enthusiasm of such persons, inspire 
us in general with any affection ; at best it ma} 
excite amazement ; and their fall, like that oif 
a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain sad 
ness and awe. But a true Poet, a man ir 
whose heart resides some effluence of Wis- 
dom, some tone of the "Eternal Melodies," if 
the most precious gift that can be bestowed 
on a generation: we see in him a freer, purer, 
development of whatever is noblest in our- 
selves; his life is a rich lesson to us, and we 
mourn his death, as that of a benefactor M'ho 
loved and taught us. 

Such a gift had Nature in her bounty be- 
stowed on us in Robert Burns ; but with queen- 
like indifference she cast it from her hand, 
like a thing of no moment; and it was defaced 
and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before we 
recognised it. To the ill-starred Burns was 
given the power of making man's life more 
venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own 
was not given. Destiny, — for so in our igno- 
rance we must speak, — his faults, the faults 
of others, proved too hard for him; and that 
spirit, which might have soared, could it but 
have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glori- 
ous faculties trodden under foot in the blos- 
som, and died, we may almost say, without 
ever having lived. And so kind and warm a 
soul; so full of inborn riches, of love to all 
living and lifeless things ! How his heart 
flows out in sympathy over universal nature; 
and in her bleakest provinces discerns a 
beauty and a meaning! The "Daisy" falls 
not unheeded under his ploughshare; nor the 
ruined nest of that "wee, cowering, timorous 
beastie," cast forth, after all its provident 
pains, to " thole the sleety dribble, and cran- 
reuch cauld." The "hoar visage" of Winter 
delights him: he dwells with a sad and oft- 
returning fondness in these scenes of solemn 
desolation ; but the voice of the tempest be- 
comes an anthem to his ears ; he loves to walk 
in the sounding woods, for " it raises his 
13 



thoughts to Him that walkcth on the unngs of the 
imid." A true Poet-soul, for it needs but to be 
struck, and the sound it yields will be music! 
But observe him chiefly as he mingles with 
his brother men. What warm, all-compre- 
hending, fellow-feeling, what trustful, bound- 
less love, what generous exaggeration of the 
object loved ! His rustic friend, his nut-brown 
maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but 
a hero and a queen, whom he prizes as the 
paragons of Earth. The rough scenes of 
Scottish life, not seen by him in any Arcadian 
illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the 
smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still 
lovely to him : Poverty is indeed his compa- 
nion, but liove also, and Courage ; the simple 
feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell 
under the straw roof, are dear and venerable 
to his heart; and thus over the lowest pro- 
vinces of man's existence he pours the glory 
of his own soul; and they rise, in shadow and 
sunshine, softened and brightened into a 
beauty which other eyes discern not in the 
highest. He has a just self-consciousness, 
which too often degenerates into pride; yet it 
is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence, 
no cold, suspicious feeling, but a frank and 
social one. The peasant Poet bears himself, 
we might say, like a King in exile: he is cast 
among the low, and feels himself equal to the 
highest; yet he claims no rank, that none may 
be disputed to him. The forward he can re- 
pel, the supercilious he can subdue; preten- 
sions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail 
with him ; there is a fire in that dark eye, un- 
der which the "insolence of condescension" 
cannot thrive. In his abasement, in his ex- 
treme need, he forgets not for a moment the 
majesty of Poetry and Manhood. And yet, far 
as he feels himself above common men, he 
wanders not apart from them, but mixes 
warmly in their interests; nay, throws himself 
into their arms ; and, as it were, entreats them 
to love him. It is moving to see how, in his 
darkest despondency, this proud being still 
seeks relief from friendship; unbosoms him- 
self, often to the unworihy ; and, amid tears, 
strains to his glowing heart a heart that knows 
only the name of friendship. And yet he was 
"quick to learn ;" a man of keen vision, before 
whom common disguises afforded no conceal- 
ment. His understanding saw through the 
hoUowness even of accomplished deceivers; 
but there was a generous credulity in his 
Heart. And so did our Peasant show himself 
among us ; "a soul like an ^olian harp, ia I 
whose strings the vulgar wind, as it passed I 
through them, changed itself into articulate! 
melody." And this was he for whom the 
world found no fitter business than quarrelling 
wiih smugglers and vintners, computing ex- 
cise dues upon tallow, and gauging alebarrels ! 
In such toils was that mighty Spirit sorrow- 
fully wasted: and a hundred years may pass 
on, before another such is given us to waste. 

All that remains of Burns, the Writings he 
has left, seem to us, as we hinted above, no 
more than a poor mutilated fraction of what 
was in him; brief, broken glimpses of a genius 
that could never show itself complete ; that 



98 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■wanted all things for completeness: culture, 
leisure, true effort, nay, even length of life. 
His poems are, with scarcely any exception, 
mere occasional effusions, poured forth with 
little premeditation, expressing, by such means 
as offered, the passion, opinion, or humour of 
the hour. Never in one instance was it per- 
mitted him to grapple with any subject with 
the full collection of his strength, to fuse and 
mould it in the concentrated fire of his genius. 
To try by the strict rules of Art such imperfect 
fragments, would be at once unprolltable and 
unfair. Nevertheless, there is something in 
these poems, marred and defective as they are, 
which forbids the most fastidious student of 
poetry to pass them by. Some sort of enduring 
quality they must have; for, after fifty years 
of the wildest vicissitudes in poetic taste, they 
still continue to be read; nav, are read more 
and more eagerly, more and more extensively; 
and this not only by literary virtuosos, and that 
class upon whom transitory causes operate 
most strongly, but by all classes, down to the 
most hard, unlettered, and truly natural class, 
who read little, and especially no poetry, ex- 
cept because they find pleasure in it. The 
grounds of so singular and wide a popularity, 
which extends, in a literal sense, from the 
palace to the hut, and over all regions where 
the English tongue is spoken, are well worth 
inquiring into. After every just deduction, it 
seems to imply some rare excellence in these 
works. What is that excellence T 

To answer this question will not lead us far. 
The excellence of Burns is, indeed, among the 
rarest, whether in poetry or prose ; but, at the 

I same time, it is plain and easily recognised: 
his Sincerity, his indisputable air of Truth. 
Here are no fabulous woes or joys ; no hollow 
fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn re- 
finings, either in thought or feeling : the pas- 
sion that is traced before us has glowed in a 
living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in 
his own understanding, and been a light to his 
own steps. He does not write from hearsay, 
but from sight and experience ; it is the scenes 
he has lived and laboured amidst, that he 
describes : those scenes, rude and humble as 
they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in 
his soul, noble thoughts, and definite resolves ; 
and he speaks forth what is in him, not from 
any out\vard call of vanity or interest, but 
because his heart is too full to be silent. He 
speaks it, too, with such melody and modula- 
tion as he can ; " in homely rustic jingle ;" but 
it is his own, and genuine. This is the grand 
secret for finding readers and retaining them : 
let him who would move and convince others, 
be first moved and convinced himself. Horace's 
rule, Si vis me flerc, is applicable in a wider 
sense than the literal one. To every poet, to 
every Writer, we might say: Be true, if you 
' would be believed. Let a man but speak forth 
with genuine earnestness the thought, the emo- 
tion, the actual condition, of his own heart; 
and other men, so strangely are we all knit 
together by the tie of sympathy, must and 
■will give heed to him. In culture, in extent 
of view, we may stand above the speaker, or 
below him; but in either case, his words, if 
they are earnest and sincere, will find some 



response within us ; for in spite of all casual 
varieties in outward rank, or inward, as face 
answers to face, so does the heart of man to 
man. 

This may appear a very simple principle, 
and one which Burns had little merit in dis- 
covering. True, the discovery is easy enough : 
but the practical appliance is not easy; is 
indeed the fundamental difficulty which all 
poets have to strive with, and which scarcely 
one in the hundred ever fairly surmounts. A 
head too dull to discriminate the true from the 
false : a heart too dull to love the one at all 
risks, and to hate the other in spite of all 
temptations, are alike fatal to a writer. With 
either, or, as more commonly happens, with 
both, of these deficiencies, combine a love of 
distinction, a wish to be original, which is sel- 
dom wanting, and we have Affectation, the 
bane of literature, as Cant, its elder brother, is 
of morals. How often does the one and the 
other front us, in poetrj", as in life ! Great 
poets themselves are not always free of this 
vice ; nay, it is precisely on a certain sort and 
degree of greatness that it is most commonly 
ingrafted. A strong effort after excellence will 
sometimes solace itself with a mere shadow 
of success, and he who has much to unfold, 
will sometimes unfold it imperfectly. Byron, 
for instance, was no common man: yet if we 
examine his poetry with this view, we shall 
find it far enough from faultless. Generally 
speaking, ■"■/e should say that it is not true. 
He refrr-iies us, not with the divine fountain, 
but too often with vulgar strong waters, stimu- 
lating indeed to the taste, but soon ending in dis- 
like or even nausea. Are his Harolds and 
Giaours, we would ask, real men, we mean, 
poetically consistent and conceivable men ? Do 
not these characters, does not the character of 
their author, which more or less shines through 
them all, rather appear a thing put on for the 
occasion ; no natural or possible mode of 
being, but something intended to look much 
grander than nature ? Surely, all these storm- 
ful agonies, this volcanic heroism, superhuman 
contempt, and moody desperation, with so 
much scowling, and teeth-gnashing, and other 
sulphurous humours, is more like the brawling 
of a player in some paltry tragedy, which is to 
last three hours, than the bearing of a man in 
the business of life, which is to last three-score 
and ten years. To our minds, there is a taint 
of this sort, something which we should call 
theatrical, false, and affected, in every one of 
these otherwise powerful pieces. Perhaps Don 
Juan, especially the latter parts of it, is the 
only thing approaching to a sincere work, he 
ever wrote ; the only work where he showed 
himself, in any measure, as he was ; and 
seemed so intent on his subject, as, for mo- 
ments, to forget himself. Yet Byron hated 
this vice; we believe, heartily detested it: nay, 
he had declared formal war against it in words. 
So difficult is it even for the strongest to make 
this primary attainment, which might seem 
the simplest of all : to read its oicn conscimisncss 
wilhiiut mistakes, without errors involuntary or 
wilful ! We recollect no poet of Burns's sus- 
ceptibility who comes before us from the first, 
and abides with us to the last, with such a total 



BURNS. 



99 



want of affectation. He is an honest man, an 
^an honest writer. In his successes and hi 
failures, in his greatness and his littleness, h 
is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no 
lustre but his own. We reckon this to be a 
great virtue ; to be, in fact, the root of most 
other virtues, literary as well as moral. 

It is necessary, however, to mention, that it 
is to the poetry of Burns that we now allude; 
to those writings which he had time to medi- 
tate, and where no special reason existed to 
warp his critical feeling, or obstruct his en- 
deavour to fulfil it. Certain of his Letters, and 
other fractions of prose composition, by no 
means deserve this praise. Here, doubtless, 
there is not the same natural truth of style ; 
but on the contrary, something not only stiff, 
but strained and twisted; a certain high-ilown, 
inflated tone; the stilting emphasis of which 
contrasts ill with the firmness and rugged 
simplicity of even his poorest verses. Thus 
no man, it would appear, is altogether un- 
affected. Does not Shakspeare himself some- 
times premeditate the sheerest bombast ! But 
even with regard to these Letters of Burns, it 
is but fair to state that he had two excuses. 
The first was his comparative deficiency in 
language. Burns, though for most part he 
writes with singular force, and even graceful- 
ness, is not master of English prose, as he is 
of Scottish verse; not master of it, we mean, 
in proportion to the depth and vehemence of 
his matter. These Letters strike us as the 
effort of a man to express something which 
he has no organ fit for expressing. But a 
second and weightier excuse is to be found in 
the peculiarity of Burns's social rank. His 
correspondents are often men whose relation 
to him he has never accurately ascertained ; 
whom therefore he is either forearming him- 
self against, or else unconsciously flattering, 
by adopting the style he thinks will please 
them. At all events, we should remember that 
these faults, even in his Letters, are not the 
rule, but the exception. Whenever he writes, 
as one would ever wish to do, to trusted friends 
and on real interests, his style becomes simple, 
vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beauti- 
ful. His Letters to Mrs. Dunlop are uniform- 
ly excellent. 

But we return to his poetry. In addition to 
its sincerity, it has another peculiar merit, 
which indeed is but a mode, or perhaps a 
means, of the foregoing. It displays itself in 
his choice of subjects, or rather in his in- 
difference as to subjects, and the power he has 
of making all subjects interesting. The ordina- 
ry poet, like the ordinary man, is for ever 
seeking, in external circumstances, the help 
which can be found only in himself. In what 
is familiar and near at hand, he discerns no 
form or comeliness : home is not poetical but 
prosaic ; it is in some past, distant, conven- 
tional world, that poetry resides for him ; 
were he there and not here, were he thus and 
not so, it would be well with him. Hence our 
innumerable host of rose-coloured novels and 
iron-mailed epics, with their locality not on the 
Earth, but somewhere nearer to the Moon. 
Hence our Virgins of the Sun, and our Knights 
of the Cross, malicious Saracens in turbans. 



and copper-coloured Chiefs in wampum, and so 
many other truculent figures from the heroic 
times or the heroic climates, who on all hands 
swarm in our poetry. Peace be with them! 
But yet, as a great moralist proposed preach- 
ing to the men of this century, so would we 
fain preach to the poets, " a sermon on the 
duty of staying at home." Let them be sure 
that heroic ages and heroic climates can do 
little for them. That form of life has attraction 
for us, less because it is better or nobler than 
our own, than simply because it is different; 
and even this attraction must be of the most 
transient sort. For will not our own age, one 
day, be an ancient one ; and have as quaint 
a costume as the rest; not contrasted with the 
rest, therefore, but ranked along with them, 
in respect of quaintness ? Does Homer in- 
terest us now, because he wrote of what 
passed out of his native Greece, and two cen- 
turies before he was born ; or because he 
wrote of what passed in God's world, and in the 
heart of man, which is the same after thirty 
centuries 1 Let our poets look to this : is their 
feeling really finer, truer, and their vision 
deeper than that of other men, they have no- 
thing to fear, even from the humblest subject ; 
is it not so, — they have nothing to hope, but an 
ephemeral favour, even from the highest. 

The poet, we cannot but think, can never, 
have far to seek for a subject: the elements! 
of his art are in him, and ai"ound him on every! 
hand; for him the Ideal world is not remote| 
from the Actual, but under it and within it: 
nay, he is a poet, precisely because he can I 
discern it there. Wherever there is a skyi 
above him, and a world around him, the poet 
is in his place ; for here too is man's exist- 
ence, with its infinite longings and small 
acquirings ; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed 
endeavours ; its unspeakable aspirations, its 
fears and hopes that wander through Eternity : 
and all the mystery of brightness and of gloom 
that it was ever made of, in any age or cli- 
mate, since man first began to live. Is there 
not the fifth act of a Tragedy in every death- 
bed, though it were a peasant's and a bed of 
heath ? And are wooings and weddings ob- 
solete, that there can be Comedy no longer! 
Or are men suddenly grown wise, that Laugh- 
ter must no longer shake his sides, but be- 
cheated of his Farce ] Man's life and nature- 
is, as it was, and as it will ever be. But the 
poet must have an eye to read these things, 
and a heart to understand them ; or they come 
and pass away before him in vain. He is a 
vatc's, a seer; a gift of vision has been given 
him. Has life no meanings for him, which 
another cannot equally decipher? then he is no 
poet, and Delphi itself will not make him one; 

In this respect, Burns, though not perhaps 
absolutely a great poet, better manifests his 
capability, better proves the truth of his genius, 
than if he had, by his own strength, kept the 
whole Minerva Press going, to the end of his 
literary course. He shows himself at least a 
poet of Nature's own making; and Nature, 
after all, is still the grand agent in making 
poets. We often hear of this and the other 
external condition being requisite for the ex- 
istence of a poet. Sometimes it is a certain 



100 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



sort of training; he must have studied certain 
things, studied for instance " the elder dra- 
matists," and so learned a poetic language ; 
as if poetry lay in the tongue, not in the heart. 
At other times we are told, he must be bred in 
a certain rank, and must be on a confidential 
footing with the higher classes; because, 
above all other things, he must see the world. 
As to seeing the world, we apprehend this 
will cause him little difficulty, if he have but 
an eye to see it with. Without eyes, indeed, 
the task might be hard. But happily every 
poet is "born in the world, and sees it, with or 
against his will, every day and every hour he 
lives. The mysterious workmanship of man's 
heart, the true light and the inscrutable dark- 
ness of man's destiny, reveal themselves not 
only in capital cities, and crowded saloons, 
but in every hut and hamlet where men have 
their abode. Nay, do not the elements of all 
human virtues, and all human vices; the 
passions at once of a Borgia and of a Luther, 
lie written, in stronger or fainter lines, in the 
consciousness of every individual bosom, that 
has practised honest self-examination 1 Truly, 
this same world may be seen in Mossgiel and 
Tarbolton, if we look Avell, as clearly as it 
ever came to light in Crockford's, or the 
Tuileries itself. 

But sometimes still harder requisitions are 
laid on the poor aspirant to poetry; for it is 
hinted that he should have been born two cen- 
turies ago ; inasmuch as poetry, soon after 
that date, vanished from the earth, and became 
no longer attainable by men ! Such cobweb 
speculations have, now and then, overhung 
the field of literature ; but they obstruct not 
the growth of any plant there: the Shakspeare 
or the Burns, unconsciously, and merely as 
he walks onward, silently brushes them away. 
Is not every genius an impossibility till he ap- 
■pear 1 Why do we call him new and original, 
if ive saw where his marble was lying, and 
what fabric he could rear from it 1 It is not 
the material but the workman that is wanting. 
It is not the dark place that hinders, but the 
• dim eye. A Scottish peasant's life was the 
-meanest and rudest of all lives, till Burns be- 
(came a poet in it, and a poet of it ; found it 
a mans life, and therefore significant to men. 
A thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but 
the Wounded Hare has not perished without its 
memorial ; a balm of mercy yet breathes on 
us from its dumb agonies, because a poet was 
there. Our Halloween had passed and repassed, 
in rude awe and laughter, since the era of the 
Druids; but no Theocritus, till Burns, dis- 
cerned in it the materials of a Scottish Idyl : 
neither was the Holy Fair any Council of Trent, 
or Roman /wftiVfc , but nevertheless, Supersli- 
tion, and Hypocrisy, and Fun having been pro- 
pitious to him, in this man's hand it became a 
poem, instinct with satire, and genuine comic 
life. Let but the true poet be given us, we 
repeat it, place him where and how you will, 
and true poetry will not be wanting. 

Independently of the essential gift of poetic 
feeling, as we have now attempted to describe 
it, a certain rugged sterling worth pervades 
whatever Burns has written: a virtue, as of 
green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in 



his poetry; it is redolent of natural life, and 
hardy, natural men. There is a decisive 
strength in him; and yet a sweet native 
gracefulness : he is tender, and he is vehe- 
ment, yet without constraint or too visible ef- 
fort ; he melts the heart, or inflames it, with a 
power which seems habitual and familiar to 
him. We see in him the gentleness, the trem- 
bling pity of a woman, with the deep earnest- 
ness, the force and passionate ardour of a 
hero. Tears lie in him, and consuming fire; 
as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer 
cloud. He has a resonance in his bosom for 
every note of human feeling : the high and the 
low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are wel- 
come in their turns to his "lightly-moved and 
all-conceiving spirit." And observe with what 
a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject, 
be it what it may ! How he fixes, as it were, 
the full image of the matter in his eye ; full 
and clear in every lineament ; and catches the 
real type and essence of it, amid a thousand 
accidents and superficial circumstances, no 
one of which misleads him! Is it of reason; 
some truth to be discovered 1 No sophistry, no 
vain surface-logic detains him ; quick*, reso- 
lute, unerring, he pierces through into the 
marrow of the question ; and speaks his ver- 
dict with an emphasis that cannot be forgot- 
ten. Is it of description ; some visual object 
to be represented 1 No poet of any age or 
nation is more graphic than Burns : the cha- 
racteristic features disclose themselves to him 
at a glance ; three lines from his hand, and 
we have a likeness. And, in that rough dia- 
lect, in that rude, often awkward, metre, so 
clear, and definite a likeness ! It seems a 
draughtsman working with a burnt stick ; and 
yet the burin of a Retzsch is not more expres- 
sive or exact. 

This clearness of sight we may call the 
foundation of all talent; for in fact, unless we 
see our object, how shall we know how to place 
or prize it, in our understanding, our imagi- 
nation, our afl^ections 1 Yet it is not in itself 
perhaps a very high excellence; but capable 
of being united indiiferenlly with the strong- 
est, or with ordinary powers. Homer sur- 
passes all men in this quality: but strangely 
enough, at no great distance below him are 
Richardson and Defoe. It belongs, in truth, 
to what is called a lively mind: and gives no 
sure indication of the higher endowments that 
may exist along with it. In all the three cases 
we have mentioned, it is combined with great 
garrulity; their descriptions are detailed, am- 
ple, and lovingly exact ; Homer's fire bursts 
through, from time to time, as if by accident ; 
but Defoe and Richardson have no fire. 
Burns, again, is not more distinguished by 
the clearness than by the impetuous force of 
his conceptions. Of the strength, the piercing 
emphasis with which he thought, his empha- 
sis of expression may give an humble but the 
readiest proof. Who ever uttered sharper 
sayings than his; words more memorable, now 
by their burning vehemence, now by their cool 
vigour and laconic pith 1 A single phrase de- 
picts a whole subject, a whole scene. Our 
Scottish forefathers in the battle-field struggled 
forward, he says, "red-wat shod:" giving, ia 



BURNS. 



101 



this one word, a full vision of horror and car- 
nage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for Art ! 

In fact, one of the leading features in the 
mind of Burns is this vigour of his strictly 
intellectual perceptions. A resolute force is 
ever visible in his judgments, as in his feel- 
ings and volitions. Professor Stewart says of 
him, with some surprise : " All the faculties 
of Burns's mind were, as far as I could judge, 
equally vigorous ; and his predilection for po- 
etry was rather the result of his own enthusi- 
astic and impassioned temper, than of a genius 
exclusively adapted to that species of compo- 
sition. From his conversation I should have 
pronounced him to be fitted to excel in what- 
ever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert 
his abilities." But this, if we mistake not, is 
at all times the very essence of a truly poet- 
ical endowment. Poetry, except in such cases 
as that of Keats, where the whole consists in 
extreme sensibility, and a certain vague per- 
vading tunefulness of nature, is no separate 
faculty, no organ which can be superadded to 
the rest, or disjoined from them ; but rather 
the result of their general harmony and com- 
pletion. The feelings, the gifts, that exist in 
the Poet, are those that exist, with more or 
less development, in every human soul : the 
imagination, which shudders at the Hell of 
Dante, is the same faculty, weaker in degree, 
which called that picture into being. How 
does the poet speak to all men, with power, but 
by being still more a man than they ? Shak- 
speare, it has been well observed, in the plan- 
ning and completing of his tragedies, has 
shown an Understanding, were it nothing more, 
which might have governed states, or indited 
a Novum Oi-gaiium. What Burns's force of un- 
derstanding may have been, we have less 
means of judging: for it dwelt among the 
humblest objects, never saw philosophy, and 
never rose, except for short intervals, into the 
region of great ideas. Nevertheless, suffi- 
cient indication remains for us in his works: 
we discern the brawny movements of a gigan- 
tic though untutored strength, and can under- 
stand how, in conversation, his quick, sure 
insight into men and things may, as much as 
aught else about him, have amazed the best 
thinkers of his time and country. 

But, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift 
of Burns is fine as well as strong. The more 
delicate relations of things could not well have 
escaped his eye, for they were intimately pre- 
sent to his heart. The logic of the senate and 
the forum is indispensable, but not all-suffi- 
cient; na}', perhaps the highest Truth is that 
which will the most certainly elude it. For 
this logic works by words, and " the highest," 
it has been said, " cannot be expressed in 
words." We are not without tokens of an 
openness for this higher truth also, of a keen 
though uncultivated sense for it, having exist- 
ed in Burns. Mr. Stewart, it will be remem- 
bered, " wonders," in the passage above quoted, 
that Burns had formed some distinct concep- 
tion of the " doctrine of association." We ra- 
ther think that far subtiler things than the 
doctrine of association had from of old been fa- 
miliar to him. Here for instance : 



" We know nothing," thus writes he, " or 
next to nothing, of the structure of our souls, 
so we cannot account for those seeming ca- 
prices in them, that one should be particularly 
pleased with this thing, or struck with that, 
which, on minds of a different cast, makes no 
extraordinary impression. I have some fa- 
vourite flowers in spring, among which are 
the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, 
the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the 
hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over 
with particular delight. I never hear the loud 
solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer- 
noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of 
gray plover in an autumnal morning, without 
feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm 
of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, 
to what can this be owing? Are we a piece 
of machinery, M'hich, like the yEolian harp, 
passive, takes the impression of the passing- 
accident; or do these workings argue some- 
thing within us above the trodden clod 1 I 
own myself partial to such proofs of those 
awful and important realities : a God that made 
all things, man's immaterial and immortal na- 
ture, and a world of weal or wo beyond death 
and the grave." 

Force and fineness of understanding are 
often spoken of as something different from. 
general force and fineness of nature, as some- 
thing partly independent of them. The neces- 
sities of language probably require this ; but 
in truth these qualities are not distinct and in- 
dependent : except in special cases, and from 
special causes, they ever go together. A man- 
of strong understanding is generally a man of 
strong character; neither is delicacy in the 
one kind often divided from delicacy in the 
other. No one, at all events, is ignorant that 
in the poetry of Burns, keenness of insight 
keeps pace with keenness of feeling; that his 
lifrlit is not more pervading than his warmth. 
He is a man of the most impassioned temper ; 
with passions not strong only, but noble, and 
of the sort in which great virtues and great 
poems take their rise. It is reverence, it is 
Love towards all Nature that inspires him, that 
opens his eyes to its beauty, and makes heart 
and voice eloquent in its praise. There is a 
true old saying, that "love furthers know- 
ledge:" but above all, it is the living essence 
of that knowledge which makes poets ; the first 
principle of its existence, increase, activity. 
Of Burns's fervid affection, his generous, all- 
embracing Love, we have spoken already, as 
of the grand distinction of his nature, seen 
equally'in word and deed, in his Life and in 
his Writings. It were easy to multiply ex- 
amples. Not man only, but all that environs 
man in the material and moral universe, is 
lovely in his sisfht: " the hoary hawthorn," the 
"troop of gray plover," the "solitary curlew." 
are all dear to him ; all live in this Earth along 
with him, and to all he is knit as in mysterious 
brotherhood. How touching is it, for instance, 
that, amidst the gloom of personal misery, 
brooding over the -udntry desolation without 
him and within him, he thinks of the " ourie 
cattle" and "silly sheep," and their sufferings 
in the pitiless storm ! 

I 2 



102 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



I thought me on the ourie cattle, 
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle 

O' wintry war; 
Or thro' the drift, deep-lairitig, sprallle, 

Beneath a scaur. 

Ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, 
That in the merry month o' spring 
Delighted me to hear thee sing, 

What conies o' thee 1 
Where wilt thou cow'r ihy chitlering wing, 

And close thy ee f i 

The tenant of the mean hut, with its "ragged 
roof and chinky wall," has a heart to pity even 
these ! This is -worth several homilies on 
Mercy: for it is the voice of Mercy herself. 
Burns, indeed, lives in sympathy ; his soul 
rushes forth into all realms ot being; nothing 
that has existence can be indifferent to him. 
The very Devil he cannot hate with right or- 
thodoxy ! 

But fare you weel, aulil Nickie-ben ; 
O wad ye tak a thought and men' ! 
Ye aihlins might, — I dinna ken, — 

Still hat" a stake; 
I'm wae to think upo' yon den. 

Even for your sake ! 

He did not know, probably, that Sterne had been 
beforehand with him. '"He is the father of 
curses and lies,' said Dr. Slop ; 'and is cursed 
and damned already.' — ' I am sorry for it,' 
quoth my uncle Toby!" — "A poet without 
Love, were a physical and metaphsyical im- 
possibility." 

Why should we speak of Scots, wha Iiac in' 
Wallace bled ; since all know it, from the king 
to the meanest of his subjects 1 This dithyram- 
bic was composed on horseback; in riding in 
the middle of tempests, over the wildest Gallo- 
way moor, in company with a Mr. Syme, who, 
observing the poet's looks, forebore to speak, 
— judiciously enough, — for a man composing 
Brnce^s Address might be unsafe to trifle with 
Doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, 
as he formed it, through the soul of Burns ; 
but to the external ear, it should be sung with 
the throat of the whirlwind. So long as there 
is warm blood in the heart of Scotchman or 
man, it will move in fierce thrills under this 
war-ode, the best, we believe, that was ever 
written by any pen. 

Another wild stormful song, that dwells in 
our ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is 
Marphersons Fareiretl. Perhaps there is some- 
thing in the tradition itself that co-operates. For 
was not this grim Celt, this shaggy Northland 
Cacus, that " lived a life of sturt and strife, and 
died by treacherie," was not he too one of the 
Nimrods and Napoleons of the earth, in the 
arena of his own remote misty glens, for want 
of a clearer and wider one "? Nay, was there 
not a touch of grace given him 1 A fibre of 
love and softness, of poetry itself, must have 
'ived in his savage heart; for he composed 
that air the night before his execution ; on the 
wings of that poor melody, his better soul 
would soar away above oblivion, pain, and all 
the ignominy and despair, which, like an ava- 
lanche, was hurling him to the abyss ! Here 
also, as at Thebes, and in Pelops' line, was 
material Fate matched against man's Free- 
will ; matched in bitterest though obscure duel ; 



and the ethereal soul sunk not, even in its 
blindness, without a cry which has survived it. 
But who, except Burns, could have given 
words to such a soul ; words that we never 
listen to without a strange half-barbarous, half- 
poetic fellow-feeling ' 

Sae rantnirrly, tae wavtnnlij, 

Sae danvtittn-ly gaed he; 
He plaij'd a spring', avd danced it round. 

Below the galluws tree. 

Under a lighter and thinner disguise, the 
same principle of Love, which we have re- 
cognised as the great characteristic of Burns, 
and of all true poets, occasionally manifests 
itself in the shape of Humour. Everywhere, 
indeed, in his sunny moods, a full buoyant 
flood of mirth rolls through the mind of Burns ; 
he rises to the high, and stoops to the low, and 
is brother and playmate to all Nature. We 
speak not of his bold and often irresistible 
faculty of caricature; for this is Drollery 
i-ather than Humour : but a much tenderer 
sporifulness dwells in him ; and comes forth 
here and there, in evanescent and beautiful 
touches ; as in his Jddresa to the Mouse, or the 
Fanner's Mare, or in his Elegy on Poor Mailie, 
which last may be reckoned his happiest effort 
of this kind. In these pieces, there are traits 
of a Humour as fine as that of Sterne ; yet 
altogether different, original, peculiar, — the 
Humour of Burns. 

Of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and 
many other kindred qualities of Burns's poetry, 
much more might be said ; but now, with these 
poor outlines of a sketch, we must prepare to 
quit this part of our subject. To speak of his 
individual writings, adequately, and with any 
detail, M'ould lead us far beyond our limits. As 
already hinted, we can look on but few of these 
pieces as, in strict critical language, deserving 
the name of Poems; they are rhymed elo- 
quence, rhymed pathos, rhymed sense ; yet 
seldom essentially melodious, aerial, poetical. 
Ta7ii o' Shanlcr itselt', which enjoys so high a 
favour, does not appear to us, at all decisively, 
to come under this last categor}'. It is not so 
much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rhetoric ; 
the heart and body of the story still lies hard 
and dead. He has not gone back, much less 
carried us back, into that dark, earnest won- 
dering age, when the tradition was believed, 
and when it took its rise ; he does not attempt, 
by any new modelling of his supernatural 
ware, to strike anew that deep mysterious 
chord of human nature, which once responded 
to such things ; and which lives in us too, and 
will for ever live, though silent, or vibrating 
with far other notes, and to far different issues. 
Our German readers will understand us, when 
we say, that he is not the Tieck but the 
Musaus of this tale. Externally it is all green 
and living ; yet look closer, it is no firm growth, 
but only ivy on a rock. The piece does not 
properly cohere; the strange chasm which 
yawns in our incredulous imaginations be- 
tween the Ayr public-house and the gate of 
Tophet, is nowhere bridged over, nay, the idea 
of such a bridge is laughed at; and thus the 
Tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere 
drunken phantasmagoria, painted on ale- 
vaporus, and the farce alone has any reality 



BURNS. 



103 



We do not say that Burns should have made 
much more of this tradition; we rather think 
that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much 
was to be made of it. Neither are we blind to 
the deep, varied, genial power displayed in 
what he has actually accomplished; but we 
find far more " Shakspearian" qualities, as 
these of Tarn o' Shanltr have been fondly named, 
in many of his other pieces ; nay, we incline 
to believe, that this latter might have been 
written, all but quite as well, by a man who, 
in place of genius, had only possessed talent. 

Perhaps we may venture to say, that the 
most strictly poetical of all his "poems" is 
one, which does not appear in Currie's Edi- 
tion ; but has been often printed before and 
since, under the humble title of The Jolly Beg- 
gars. The subject truly is among the lowest 
in nature; but it only the more shows our 
poet's gift in raising it into the domain of Art. 
To our minds, this piece seems thoroughly 
compacted ; melted together, refined ; and 
poured forth in one flood of true liquid har- 
mony. It is light, airy, and soft of movement; 
yet sharp and precise in its details ; every face 
is a portrait : that rauck carlin, that ivcc Apollo, 
that Son of Mars, are Scottish, yet ideal ; the 
scene is at once a dream, and the very Rag- 
castle of " Poosie-Nansie." Farther, it seems 
in a considerable degree complete, a real self- 
supporting Whole, which is the highest merit 
in a poem. The blanket of the night is drawn 
asunder for a moment; in full, ruddy, and 
flaming light, these rough tatterdemalions are 
seen in their boisterous revel ; for the strong 
pulse of Life vindicates its right to gladness 
even here ; and when the curtain closes, we 
prolong the action without effort; the next day 
as the last, our Caiid and our liaUadiuouger are 
singing and soldiering; their "brats and cal- 
lets" are hawking, begging, cheating; and 
some other night, in new combinations, they 
will wring from Fate another hour of wassail 
and good cheer. It would be strange, doubt- 
less, to call this the best of Bunis's writings ; 
we mean to say only, that it seems to us the 
most perfect of its kind, as a piece of poetical 
•composition, strictly so called. In the Beggar^s 
Opera, in the Beggars Bush, as other critics 
have already remarked, there is nothing which, 
in real poetic vigour, equals this Cantata : no- 
thing, as we think, which comes within many 
degrees of it. 

But by far the most finished, complete, and 
truly inspired pieces of Burns are, without dis- 
pute, to be found among his Smiss. It is here 
that, although through a small aperture, his 
light shines with the least obstruction ; in its 
highest beauty, and pure sunny clearness. The 
reason may be, that Song is a brief and simple 
species of composition : and requires nothingso 
much for its perfection as genuine poetic feel- 
ing, genuine music of heart. The song has its 
rules equally with the Tragedy; rules which in 
most cases are poorly fulfilled, in many cases 
are not so much as felt. We might write a long 
essay on the Songs of Burns; which we reckon 
by far the best that Britain has yet produced ; for, 
indeed, since the era of Queen Elizabeth, we 
know not that, by any other hand, aught truly 
worth attention has been accomplished in this 



department. True, we have songs enough 
"by persons of quality;" we have tawdry, 
hollow, Avine-bred, madrigals ; many a rhymed 
" speech" in the flowing and watery vein of 
Ossorius the Portugal Bishop, rich in sonor- 
ous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps 
with some tint of a sentimental sensuality; 
all which many persons cease not from en- 
deavouring to sing: though for most part, 
we fear, the music is but from the throat out- 
ward, or at best from some region far enough 
short of the Soid ,• not in which, but in a certain 
inane Limbo of the Fancy, or even in some 
vaporous debatable land on the outside of the 
Nervous System, most of such madrigals and 
rhymed speeches seem to have originated. 
With the Songs of Burns we must not name 
these things. Independently of the clear, manly, 
heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades his 
poetry, his Songs are honest in another point 
of view : in form, as well as in spirit. They 
do not affect to be set to music, but they actually 
and in themselves are music ; they have re- 
ceived their life, and fashioned themselves 
together, in the medium of Harmony, as 
Venus rose from the bosom of the sea. The 
story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested ; 
not said, or spouted, in rhetorical completeness 
and coherence ; but sung, in fitful gushes, in 
glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in ivarblings 
not of the voice only, but of the whole mind. 
We consider this to be the essence of a song; 
and that no songs since the little careless 
catches, and, as it were, drops of song, which 
Shakspeare has here and there sprinkled over 
his plays, fulfil this condition in nearly the 
same degree as most of Burns's do. Such grace 
and truth of external movement, too, presup- 
poses in general a corresponding force and 
truth of sentiment, and inward meaning. The 
Songs of Burns are not more perfect in the 
former quality than in the latter. With what 
tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence 
and entireness ! There is a piercing wail in 
his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy : he 
burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the 
loudest or slyest mirth ; and yet he is sweet 
and soft, "sweet as the smile when fond lovers 
meet, and soft as their parting tear!" If we 
farther take into account the immense variety 
of his subjects; how, from the loud flowing 
revel in WilUe brcw'd n peck o' Maut, to the still, 
rapt enthusiasm of sadness for Mary in Heaven; 
from the glad kind greeting of Juld Langsyne, 
or the comic archness of Duncan Gray, to the 
fire-eyed fury of Scots, wha hae ici' Wallace bled, 
he has found a tone and words for every mood 
of man's heart, — it will seem a small praise 
if we rank him as the first of all our song- 
writers ; for we know not where to find one 
woithy of being second to him. 

It is on his Songs, as we believe, that Burns's 
chief influence as an author will ultimately be 
found to depend: nor, if our Fletcher's aphor- 
ism is true, shall we account this a small in- 
fluence. " Let me make the songs of a people," 
said he, " and you shall make its laws." Surely, 
if ever any Poet might have equalled himself 
with Legislators, on this ground, it was Burns. 
His songs are already part of the mother 
tongue, not of Scotland only but of Britain, and 



104 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of the millions that in all the ends of the earth 
speak a British language. In hut and hall, as 
the heart unfolds itself in the joy and wo of 
existence, the name, the voice of that joy and 
that wo, is the name and voice which Burns 
has given them. Strictly speaking, perhaps, 
no British man has so deeply affected the 
thoughts and feelings of so many men as this 
solitary and altogether private individual, with 
means apparently the humblest. 

In another point of view, moreover, we in- 
cline to think that Burns's influence may have 
been considerable : we mean, as exerted spe- 
cially on the Literature of his country, at least 
on the Literature of Scotland. Among the 
great changes which British, particularly Scot- 
tish literature, has undergone since that period, 
one of the greatest will be found to consist in 
its remarkable increase of nationality. Even 
the English writers, most popular in Burns's 
time, were little distinguished for their literary 
patriotism, in this its best- sense. A certain 
attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in good mea- 
sure, taken place of the old insular home- 
feeling; literature was, as it -were, without any 
local environment; was not nourished by the 
aifections which spring from a native soil. 
Our Grays and Glovers seemed to write almost 
as if m vacuo; the thing written bears no mark 
of place ; it is not written so much for English- 
men, as for men ; or rather, which is the inev- 
itable result of this, for certain Generalizations 
■which philosophy termed men. Goldsmith is 
an exception; not so Johnson; the scene of 
his Rambler is little more English than that of 
his Rnsselag. But if such was, in some degree, 
the case with England, it was, in the highest 
degree, the case with Scotland. In fact, our 
Scottish literature had, at that period, a very 
singular aspect ; unexampled, so far as we 
know, except perhaps at Geneva, Avhere the 
same state of matters appears still to continue. 
For a long period after Scotland became Bri- 
tish, we had no literature: at the date when 
Addison and Steele were writing their Spertn- 
tors, our good Thomas Boston was writing, with 
the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of 
grammar and philosophy, his Fourfold Sia/c of 
Man. Then came the schisms in our National 
Church, and tb.e fiercer schisms in our Body 
Politic: Theologic ink, and Jacobite blood, 
with gall enough in both cases, seemed to have 
blotted out the intellect of the country; how- 
ever, it was only obscured, not obliterated. 
Lord Kames made nearly the first attempt, and 
a tolerably clumsy one, at writing English; 
and ere long, Hume, Robertson, Smith, and a 
whole host of followers, attracted hither the 
eyes of all Europe. And yet in this brilliant 
resuscitation of our " fervid genius," there was 
nothing truly Scottish, nothing indigenous; 
except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of in- 
tellect, which we sometimes claim, and are 
sometimes upbraided with, as a characteristic 
of our nation. It is curious to remark that 
Scotland, so full of writers, had no Scottish 
culture, nor indeed any English; our culture 
was almost exclusively French. It was by 
studying Racine and Voltaire. Batteux and 
Boileau, that Kames had trained himself to be 
a critic and philosopher: it was the light of 



Montesquieu and Mably that guided Robert- 
son in his political speculations; Quesnay's 
lamp that kindled the lamp of Adam Smith. 
Hume was too rich a man to borrow; and per- 
haps he reached on the French more than he 
was acted on by them: but neither had. he 
au2;ht to do with Scotland; Edinburgh, equally 
with La rieche,was but the lodging and labor- 
atory, in which he not so much morally lived, 
as metaphysically i"wsf«g«/cf/. Never, perhaps, 
was there a class of writers, so clear and well- 
ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appear- 
ance, of any patriotic afiection, nay, of any 
human affection whatever. The French wits 
of the period were as unpatriotic : but their 
general deficiency in moral principle, not to 
say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all 
virtue, strictly so called, render this account- 
able enough. We hope there is a patriotism 
founded on something better than prejudice; 
that our country may be dear to us, without 
injury to our philosophy; that in loving and 
justly prizing all other lands, we may prize 
justly, and yet love before all others, our own 
stern Motherland, and the venerable structure 
of social and moral Life, which Mind has 
through long ages been building up for us 
there. Surely there is nourishment for the 
better part of man's heart in all this: surely 
the roots, that have fixed themselves in the 
very core of man's being, may be so cultivated 
as to grow up not into briers, but into roses, in 
the field of his life ! Our Scottish sages have no 
such propensities: the field of their life shows 
neither briers nor roses ; but only a flat, con- 
tinuous thrashing-floor for Logic, whereon all 
questions, from the "Doctrine of Rent," to the 
" Natural History of Religion, are thrashed and 
sifted with the same mechanical impartiality! 
With Sir Walter Scott at the head of our 
literature, it cannot be denied that much of 
this evil is past, or rapidly passing away: our 
chief literary men, whatever other faults they 
may have, no longer live among us like a 
French Colony, or some knot of Propaganda 
Missionaries; but like natural-born subjects 
of the soil, partaking and sympathizing in all 
our attachments, humours, and habits. Our 
literature no longer grows in water, but in 
mould, and with the true racy virtues of the 
soil and climate. How much of this change 
may be due to Burns, or to any other individual, 
it might be difficult to estimate. Direct literary 
imitation of Burns was not to be looked for. 
But his example, in the fearless adoption of 
domestic subjects, could not but operate from 
afar; and certainly in no heart did the love of 
country ever burn with a warmer glow than in 
that of Burns: "a tide of Scottish prejudice," 
as he modestly calls this deep and generous 
feeling, "had been poured along his veins; 
and he felt that it would boil there till the flood- 
gates shut in eternal rest." It seemed to him, 
as if he could do so little for his country, and 
and yet would so gladly have done all. One 
small province stood open for him ; that of 
Scottish song, and how eagerly he entered ort 
it; how devotedly he laboured there! In his 
most toilsome journeyings, this object never 
quits him; it is the little happy-valley of his 
careworn heart. In the gloom of his own 



BURNS. 



105 



affliction, he eagerly searches after some lonely 
brother of the muse, and rejoices to snatch one 
other name from the oblivion that was cover- 
ing it! These were early feelings, and they 
abode with him to the end. 

• a wish, (I mind its power,) 

A wisti, tliat to my latest hour 
Will strongly heave my breast ; 
That I, for poor auld Scotland's sake. 
Some useful plan or book could make, 
Or sing a sang at least. 
The rough bur Thistle spreading wide 

Aniang the bearded bear, 
I turn'd my weeding-clips aside, 

And spared the symbol dear. 

But to leave the mere literary character of 
Burns, which has already detained us too long, 
we cannot but think that the Life he willed, 
and was fated to lead among his fellow-men, 
is both more interesting and instructive than 
any of his written works. These Poems are but 
like little rhymed fragments scattered here and 
there in the grand unrhymed Romance of his 
earthly existence ; and it is onl}' when inter- 
calated in this at their proper places, that they 
attain their full measure of significance. And 
this too, alas, was but a fragment ! The plan 
of a mighty edifice had been sketched; some 
columns, porticoes, firm masses of building, 
stand completed ; the rest more or less clearly 
indicated; with many a far-stretching tendenc}', 
which only studious and friendly eyes can now 
trace towards the purposed termination. Fori 
the work is broken ofl'in the middle, almost in' 
the beginning; and rises among us, beautiful 
and sad, at once unfinished and a ruin! If 
charitable judgment was necessary in esti- 
mating his poems, and justice required that 
the aim and the manifest power to fulfil it 
must often be accepted for the fulfilment; 
much more is this the case in regard to his 
life, the sum and result of all his endeavours, 
where his dittlculties came upon him not in 
detail only, but in mass; and so much has 
been left unaccomplished, nay, was mistaken, 
and altogether marred. 

Properly speaking, there is but one era in 
the life of Burns, and that the earliest. We 
have not youth and manhood ; but only youth: 
For, to the end, we discern no decisive change 
in the complexion of his character; in his 
thirty-seventh year, he is still, as it were, in 
youth. With all that resoluteness of judg- 
ment, that penetrating insight, and singular 
maturity of intellectual power, exhibited in his 
writings, he never attains to any clearness re- 
garding himself; to the last he never ascertains 
his peculiar aim, even with such distinctness 
as is common among ordinary men ; and there- 
fore never can pursue it with that singleness 
of will, which insures success and some con- 
tentment to such men. To the last, he wavers 
between two purposes : glorying in his talent, 
like a true poet, he yet cannot consent to make 
this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as 
the one thing needful, through poverty or 
riches, through good or evil report. Another 
far meaner ambition still cleaves to him; he 
must dream and struggle about a certain " Rock 
of Independence ;" which, natural and even ad- 
mirable as it might be, was still but a warring 
14 



with the world, on the comparatively insignifi- 
cant ground of his being more or less com- 
pletely supplied with money, than others; of 
his standing at a higher, or at a lower altitude 
in general estimation, than others. For the 
world still appears to him, as to the young, in 
borrowed colours: he expects from it what it 
cannot give to any man ; seeks for content- 
ment, not within himself, in action and wise 
eflbrt, but from without, in the kindness of cir- 
cumstances, in love, friendship, honour, pe- 
cuniary ease. He would be happy, not actively 
and in himself, but passively, and from some 
ideal cornucopia of Enjoyments, not earned 
by his own labour, but showered on him by 
the beneficence of Destiny. Thus, like a young 
man, he cannot steady himself for any fixed or 
systematic pursuit, but swerves to and fro, 
I between passionate hope, and remorseful dis- 
appointment: rushing onwards with a deep 
tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks 
asunder many a barrier; travels, nay, advances 
far, but advancing only under uncertain guid- 
ance, is ever and anon turned from his path : 
and to the last, cannot reach the only true 
happiness of a man, that of clear, decided Ac- 
tivity in the sphere for which by nature and 
circumstances he has been fitted and ap- 
pointed. 

We do not say these things in dispraise of 
Burns: nay, perhaps, they but interest us the 
more in his favour. This blessing is not given 
soonest to the best ; but rather, it is often the 
greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it; 
for where most is to be developed, most time 
may be required to develope it. A complex 
condition had been assigned him from without, 
as complex a condition from within : " no 
"pre-established harmony" existed between 
the clay soil of Mossgiel and the empyrean 
soul of Robert Burns; it was not wonderful,, 
therefore, that the adjustment between them 
should have been long postponed, and his arm 
long cumbered, and his sight confused, in so 
vast and discordant an economy, as he had 
been appointed steward over. Byron was, at 
his death, but a year younger than Burns ; 
and through life, as it might have appeared, 
far more simply situated ; yet in him, too, we 
can trace no such adjustment, no such moral 
manhood; but at best, and only a little before 
his end, the beginning of what seemed such. 

By much the most striking incident in 
Burns's Life is his journey to Edinburgh; but 
perhaps a. still more important one is his resi- 
dence at Irvine, so early as in his twenty-third 
year. Hitherto his life had been poor and toil- 
worn ; but otherwise not ungenial, and, with 
all its distresses, by no means unhappy. In his 
parentage, deducting outward circumstances, 
he had every reason to reckon himself for- 
tunate: his father was a man of thoughtful, 
intense, earnest character, as the best of our 
peasants are ; valuing knowledge, possessing 
some, and, what is far better and rarer, open- 
minded for more; a man with a keen insight, 
and devout heart : reverent towards God, 
friendly therefore at once, and fearless towards 
all that God has made ; in one word, though 
but a hard-handed peasant, a complete and fully 
unfolded 3Ian. Such a father is seldom found 



106 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



in any rank in society ; and was worth de- 
scending far in society to seek. Unfortunately, 
he was very poor; had he been even a little 
richer, almost ever so little, the whole might 
nave issued far otherwise. Mighty events turn 
1 on a straw ; the crossing of a brook decides 
1 the conquest of the world. Had this William 
Burns's small seven acres of nursery ground 
anywise prospered, the boy Robert had been 
sent to school ; had struggled forward, as so 
many weaker men do, to some university; 
come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a 
regular well-trained intellectual workman, and 
changed the whole course of British Literature, 
— for it lay in him to have done this ! But 
the nursery did not prosper; poverty sank his 
whole family below the help of even our cheap 
school-system : Burns remained a hard-worked 
plough-boy, and British literature took its own 
course. Nevertheless, even in this rugged 
scene, there is much to nourish him. If he 
drudges, it is with his brother, and for his 
father and mother, whom he loves, and would 
fain shield from want. Wisdom is not ban- 
ished from their poor hearth, nor the balm of 
natural feeling : the solemn words, Let us wor- 
ship God, are heard there from a " priest-like 
father;" if threatenings of unjust men throw 
mother and children into tears, these are tears 
not of grief only, but of holiest affection ; every 
heart in that humble group feels itself the 
closer knit to every other; in their hard war- 
fare they are there together, a " little band of 
brethren." Neither are such tears, and the 
■deep beauty that dwells in them, their only 
portion. Light visits the hearts as it does the 
eyes of all living: there is a force, too, in this 
vouth, that enables him to trample on misfor- 
tune ; nay, to bind it under his feet to make 
him sport. For a bold, warm, buoyant humour 
of character has been given him ; and so the 
thick-coming shapes of evil are welcomed 
with a gay, friendly irony, and in their closest 
pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope. 
Vague yearnings of ambition fail not, as he 
grows up; dreamy fancies hang like cloud- 
cities around him ; the curtain of Existence is 
slowly rising, in many-coloured splendour and 
gloom : and the auroral light of first love is 
gilding his horizon, and the music of song is 
on his path ; and so he walks 

in glory and in joy, 

Behind his plough, upon the mountain side : 

We know, from the best evidence, that up to 
this date. Burns was happy; nay, that he was 
the gayest, brightest, most fantastic, fascinating 
being to be found in the world; more so even 
than he ever afterwards appeared. But now, 
at this early age, he quits the paternal roof; 
goes forth into looser, louder, more exciting 
society; and becomes initiated in those dissi- 
pations, those vices, which a certain class of 
philosophers have asserted to be a natural 
preparative for entering on active life; a kind 
of mud-bath, in which the youth is, as it were, 
necessitated to steep, and, we suppose, cleanse 
himself, before the real toga of Manhood can 
be laid on him. We shall not dispute much 
with this class of philosophers ; we hope the}^ 
are mistaken : for Sin and Remorse so easily 



beset us at all stages of life, and are always 
such indifferent compan)-^, that it seems hard 
we should, at any stage, be forced and fated 
not only to meet, but to yield to them ; and even 
serve for a terra in their leprous armada. We 
hope it is not so. Clear we are, at all events, 
it cannot be the training one receives in this 
service, but only our determining to desert 
from it, that fits us for true manly Action. We 
become men, not after we have been dissipated, 
and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure ; 
but after we have ascertained, in any way, 
what impassable barriers hem us in through 
this life ; how mad it is to hope for content- 
ment to our infinite soul from the gifts of this 
extremely finite world! that a man must be 
sufficient for himself; and that "for suffering 
and enduring there is no remedy but striving 
and doing." Manhood begins when we have 
in any way made truce with Necessity ; begins, 
at all events, when we have surrendered to 
Necessity, as the most part only do ; but begins 
joyfully and hopefully only when we have 
econciled ourselves to Necessity ; and thus, in 
reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in 
Necessity we are free. Surely, such lessons 
as this last, which, in one shape or other, is 
the grand lesson for every mortal man, are 
better learned from the lips of a devout mother, 
in the looks and actions of a devout father, 
while the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in 
collision with the sharp adamant of Fate, at- 
tracting us to shipwreck us, when the heart is 
grown hard, and may be broken before it will 
become contrite ! Had Burns continued to 
learn this, as he was already learning it, in his 
father's cottage, he would have learned it fully, 
which he never did, — and been saved many a 
lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year 
of remorseful sorrow. 

It seems to us another circumstance of fatal 
import in Burns's history, that at this time too 
he became involved in the religious quarrels 
of his district; that he was enlisted and feasted, 
as the fighting man of the New-Light Priest- 
hood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. At 
the tables of these , free-minded clergy, he 
learned much more than was needful for him. 
Such liberal ridicule of fanaticism awakened 
in his mind scruples about Religion itself; and 
a whole world of Doubts, which it required 
quite another set of conjurors than these men 
to exorcise. We do not say that such an in- 
tellect as his could have escaped similar doubts, 
at some period of his history; or even that he 
could, at a later period, have come through 
them altogether victorious and unharmed: but 
it seems peculiarly unfortunate that this time, 
above all others, should have been fixed for the 
encounter. For now, with principles assailed 
by evil example from without, by " passions 
raging like demons" from within, he had little 
need of skeptical misgivings to whisper trea- 
son in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his 
retreat if he were already defeated. He loses 
his feeling of innocence ; his mind is at vari- 
ance with itself; the old divinity no longer pre- 
sides there; but wild Desires and wild Repent- 
ance alternately oppress him. Ere long, too, 
he has committed himself before the world; 
his character for sobriety, dear to a Scottish 



BURNS. 



107 



peasant, as few corrupted worldlings can even 
conceive, is destroyed in the e3^es of men ; and 
his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve 
his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. The 
blackest desperation now gathers over him, 
broken only by the red lightnings of remorse. 
The whole fabric of his life is blasted asunder; 
for now not only his character, but his per- 
sonal liberty, is to be lost; men and Fortune 
are leagued for his hurt; "hungry Ruin has 
him in the wind." He sees no escape but the 
saddest of all : exile from his loved country, to 
a country in every sense inhospitable and ab- 
horrent to him. While the "gloomy night is 
gathering fast," in mental storm and solitude, 
as well as in physical, he sings his wild fare- 
well to Scotland : 

Farewell, my friends, farewell my foes ! 
My peace with these, my love with those : 
The bursting tears my heart declare ; 
Adieu, my native banks of Ayr ! 

Light breaks suddenly in on him in floods; 
but siill a false transitory light, and no real 
sunshine. He is invited to Edinburgh ; hastens 
thither with anticipating heart; is welcomed 
as in triumph, and with universal blandish- 
ment and acclamation; whatever is wisest, 
■whatever is greatest, or loveliest there, gathers 
round him, to gaze on his face, to show him 
honour, sympathy, affection. Burns's appear- 
ance among the sages and nobles of Edinburgh, 
must be regarded as one of the most singular 
phenomena in modern Literature; almost like 
the appearance of some Napoleon among the 
crowned sovereigns of modern Politics. For 
it is nowise as a "mockery king," set there by 
favour, transientl)', and for a purpose, that he 
will let himself be treated; Still less is he a 
mad Rienzi, whose sudden elevation turns his 
too weak head: but he stands there on his own 
basis; cool, unastonished, holding his equal 
rank from Nature herself; putting forth no 
claim which there is not strength ia him, as 
well as about him, to vindicate. Mr. Lock- 
han has some forcible observations on this 
point: 

"It needs no effort of imagination," says lie, 
■" to conceive what the sensations of an isolated 
set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or 
professors) must have been, in the presence 
of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny 
stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, 
having forced his way among them from the 
plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested in 
the whole strain of his bearing and conversa- 
tion, a most thorough conviction that in the 
society of the most eminent men of his nation, 
he was exactly where he was entitled to be; 
hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting 
even an occasional symptom of being flattered 
by their notice; by turns calmly measured 
himself against the most cultivated understand- 
ings of his time in discussion ; overpowered 
the bon mots of the most celebrated convivialists 
by broad floods of merriment, impregnated 
with all the burning life of genius; astounded 
bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled 
folds of social reserve, by compelling them to 
tremble, — nay, to tremble visibly, — beneath the 
fearless touch of natural pathos ; and all this 



without indicating the smallest willingness to 
be ranked among those professional ministers 
of excitement, who are content to be paid in 
money and smiles for doing what the spectators 
and auditors would he ashamed of doing in 
their own persons, even if they had the power 
of doing it ; and last, and probably worst of all, 
who was known to be in the habit of enliven- 
ing societies which they would have scorned 
to approach, still more frequently than their 
own, with eloquence no less magnificent; with 
wit, in all likelihood still more daring; often 
enough as the superiors whom he fronted 
without alarm might have guessed from the 
beginning, and had, ere long, no occasion to 
guess, with wit pointed at themselves." — p. 131. 

The farther we remove from this scene, the 
more singular will it seem to us : details of the 
exterior aspect of it are already full of inte- 
rest. Most readers recollect Mr. Walkers per- 
sonal interviews with Burns as among the 
best passages of his Narrative ; a time will 
come when this reminiscence of Sir Walter 
Scott's, slight though it is, will also be pre- 
cious. 

"As fur Burns," writes Sir Walter, "I may 
truly say Virgilium vidi tantum. I was a lad 
of fifteen in 1786 — 7, when he came first to 
Edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough 
to be much interested in his poetry, and would 
have given the world to know him : but I had 
very little acquaintance with any literary peo- 
ple ; and still less with the gentry of the west 
country, the two sets that he most frequented. 
Mr. Thomas Grierson was at that time a clerk 
of my father's. He knew Burns, and pro- 
mised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but 
had no opportunity to keep his word ; otherwise 
I might have seen more of this distinguished 
man. As it was, I saw him one day at the late 
venerable Professor Ferguson's, where there 
were several gentlemen of literary reputation, 
among whom I remember the celebrated Mr. 
Dugald Stewart. Of course, we youngsters 
sat silent, looked and listened. The only thing 
I remember, which was remarkable in Burns's 
manner, was the effect produced upon him by 
a print of Bunbury's, representing a soldier 
lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in mi- 
sery on one side, — on the other, his widow, 
with a child in her arms. These lines were 
written beneath : 

"Cold on Canadian hills, or Minden's plain. 
Perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain : 
Bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, 
The big drops mingling with the milk he drew 
Gave the sad presage of his t'liture years. 
The child of misery baptized in tears." 

"Burns seemed much affected by the print, 
or rather by the ideas which it suggested to his 
mind. He actually shed tears. He asked 
whose the lines were, and it chanced that no- 
body but myself remembered that they occur 
in a half-forgotten poem of Langhorne's, called 
by the unpromising title of " The Justice of 
Peace." I whispered my information to a 
friend present, he mentioned it to Burns, who 
rewarded me with a look and a word, which, 
though of mere civility, I then received and 
still recollect with very great pleasure. 



108 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



" His person was strong and robust ; his 
manners rustic, not clownish ; a sort of digni- 
fied plainness and simplicity, which received 
part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge 
of his extraordinary talents. His features are 
represented in Mr. Nasmyth's picture : but to 
me it conveys the idea that they are dimi- 
nished, as if seen in perspective. I think his 
countenance was more massive than it looks 
in any of the portraits. I should have taken 
the poet, had I not known what he was, for a 
very sagacious country farmer of the old 
Scotch school, 1. e. none of your modern agri- 
culturists who keep labourers for their drudg- 
ery, but the dmue gitdnmni who held his own 
plough. There was a strong expression of 
sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments ; 
the eye alone, I think, indicated the poetical 
character and temperament. It was large, 
and of a dark cast, which glowed (I say lite- 
rally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or 
interest. I never saw such another eye in a 
human head, though I have seen the most dis- 
tinguished men of my time. His conversa- 
tion expressed perfect self-confidence, without 
the slightest presumption. Among the men 
who were the most learned of their time and 
country, he expressed himself -with perfect 
firmness, but without the least intrusive for- 
wardness ; and when he differed in opinion, 
he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at 
the same time with modesty. I do not remem- 
ber any part of his conversation distinctly 
enough to be quoted; nor did I ever see him 
again, except in the street, where he did not 
recognise me, as I could not expect he should. 
He was much caressed in Edinburgh : but 
(considering what literary emoluments have 
been since his day) the efforts made for his 
relief were extremely trifling. 

" I remember, on this occasion I mention, I 
thought Burns's acquaintance with English 
poetry was rather limited ; and also, that hav- 
ing twenty times the abilities of Allan Ramsay 
and of Ferguson, he talked of them with too 
much humility as his models: there was 
doubtless national predilection in his estimate. 

"This is all I can tell you about Burns. I 
have only to add, that his dress corresponded 
with his manner. He was like a farmer 
dressed in his best to dine with the laird. I 
do not speak in tnalani pmiem, when I say, I 
never saw a man in company with his supe- 
riors in station or information more perfectly 
free from either the reality or the affectation of 
embarrassment. I was told, but did not observe 
it, that his address to females was extremely 
deferential, and always with a turn either to 
the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their 
attention particularly. I have heard the late 
Duchess of Gordon remark this. — I do not 
know any thing I can add to these recollections 
of forty years since." — pp. 112 — 115. 

The conduct of Burns under this dazzling 
blaze of favour; the calm, unaffected, manly 
manner, in which he not only bore it, but esti- 
mated its value, has justly been regarded as 
the best proof that could be given of his real 
vigour and integrity of mind. A little natural 
vanity, some touches of hypocritical modesty, 
some glimmerings of affectation, at least some 



fear of being thought affected, we could have 
pardoned in almost any man ; but no such in- 
dication is to be traced here. In his unexam- 
pled situation the young peasant is not a 
moment perplexed ; so many strange lights 
do not confuse him, do not lead him astray.- 
Nevertheless, we cannot but perceive that this 
winter did him great and lasting injury. A 
somewhat clearer knowledge of men's affairs, 
scarcely of their characters, it did afford him r 
but a sharper feeling of Fortune's unequal ar- 
rangements in their social destiny it also left 
with him. He had seen the gay and gorgeous 
arena, in which the powerful are born to play 
their parts; nay, had himself stood in the 
midst of it; and he felt more bitterly than 
ever, that here he was but a looker-on, and 
had no part or lot in that splendid game. From 
this time a jealous indignant fear of social 
degradation takes possession of him ; and 
perverts, so far as aught could pervert, his 
private contentment, and his feelings towards 
his richer fellows. It was clear enough to 
Burns that he had talent enough to make a 
fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he but 
have rightly willed this ; it was clear also that 
he willed something far different, and there- 
fore could not make one. Unhappy it was 
that he had not power to choose the one, and 
reject the other; but must halt for ever be- 
tween two opinions, two objects ; making 
hampered advancement towards either. But 
so is it with many mea: we "long for the 
merchandise, yet would fain keep the price ;" 
and so stand chaffering with Fate in vexatious 
altercation, till the Night come, and our fair is 
over ! 

The Edinburgh learned of that period were- 
in general more noted for clearness of head 
than for warmth of heart: with the excep- 
tion of the good old Blacklock, whose help 
was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them 
seems to have looked at Burns with any 
true sympathy, or indeed much otherwise than 
as at a highly curious thing. By the great> 
also, he is treated in the customary fashion ;, 
entertained at their tables, and dismissed: 
certain modica of pudding and praise are,, 
from time to time, gladly exchanged for the 
fascination of his presence; which exchange- 
once effected, the bargain is finished, and each 
party goes his several w&y. At the end of this 
strange season. Burns gloomily sums up his- 
gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic 
futu^. In money he is somewhat richer; in 
fame and the show of happiness, infinitely 
richer; but in the substance of it, as poor as 
ever. Nay poorer, for his heart is now mad- 
dened still more with the fever of mere world- 
ly Ambition ; and through long years the dis- 
ease will rack him with unprofitable sufferings 
and weaken his strength for all true and nobler 
aims. 

What Burns was next to do or avoid; how 
a man so circumstanced was now to guide 
himself towards his true advantage, might at 
this point of time have been a question for the 
wisest : and it was a question which he was 
left altogether to answer for himself: of his 
learned or rich patrons it had not struck any 
individual to turn a thought on this so trivial 



BURNS. 



109 



matter. Without claiming for Burns the praise 
of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his 
Excise and Farm scheme does not seem to us 
a very unreasonable one ; and that we should 
'be at a loss, even now, to suggest one decided- 
ly better. Some of his admirers, indeed, are 
scandalized at his ever resolving to gmisc : and 
would have had him apparently lie still at the 
pool, till the spirit of Patronage should stir the 
waters, and then heal with one plunge all his 
worldly sorrows ! We fear such counsellors 
knew but little of Burns ; and did not consider 
that happiness might in all cases be cheaply 
had by waiting for the fulfilment of golden 
dreams, were it not that in the interim the 
dreamer must die of hunger. It retlects credit 
on the manliness and sound sense of Burns, 
that he felt so early on what ground he was 
standing; and preferred self-help, on the hum- 
blest scale, to dependence and inaction, though 
with hope of far more splendid possibilities. 
But even these possibilities were not rejected 
in his scheme: he might expect, if it chanced 
that he liad any friend, to rise, in no long 
■period, into something even like opulence and 
leisure; while again, if it chanced that he had 
no friend, he could still live in security; and 
for the rest, he " did not intend to borrow 
honour from any profession." We think then 
that his plan was honest and well-calculated : 
all turned on the execution of it. Doubtless it 
failed ; yet not, we believe, from any vice in- 
herent in itself. Nay after all, it was no failure 
of external means, but of internal that over- 
took Burns. His was no bankruptcy of the 
purse, but of the soul; to his last day, he 
owed no man any thing. 

Meanwhile he begins well : Avith two good 
and wise actions. His donation to his mother, 
munificent from a man whose income had 
lately been seven pounds a-year, was worthy 
of him, and not more than worthy. Generous 
also, and worthy of him, was his treatment of 
the woman whose life's welfare now depended 
on his pleasure. A friendly observer might 
have hoped serene days for him: his mind 
is on the true road to peace with itself: what 
clearness he still wants will be given as he 
proceeds; for the best teacher of duties, that 
still lie dim to us, is the Practice of those we 
see, and have at hand. Had the " patrons of 
genius," who could give him nothing, but taken 
nothing from him, at least nothing more ! — the 
wounds of his heart would have healed, vulgar 
ambition would have died away. Toil and 
Frugality would have been welcome, since 
Virtue dwelt with them, and poetry would have 
shone through ihem as of old ; and in her clear 
ethereal light, which was his own by birth- 
right, he might have looked down on his earth- 
ly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with 
patience only, but \viih love. 

But the patrons of genius would not have it 
so. Picturesque tourists,* all manner of fash- 



* There is one little sketch by certain "Enjlisli centle- 
men" of this class, which though adopted in Carrie's 
Narrative, and since tlien repeated in inost others, we 
have all alons felt an invincible disposition to regard as 
imaginary : " On a rock that projected into the stream 
they saw a man employed in angling, of a singular ap- 
pearance, lie had a cap made of fox-skin on his iiead, 
■ a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt, from which 



ionable danglers after literature, and, far worse, 
all manner of convivial Mecaenases, hovered 
round him in his retreat; and his good as 
well as his weak qualities secured them, in- 
fluence over him. He was flattered by their 
notice ; and his warm social nature made it 
impossible for him to shake them off, and hold 
on his way apart from them. These men, as 
we believe, were proximately the means of 
his ruin. Not that they meant him any ill; 
they only meant themselves a little good; if 
he suffered harm, let him look to it ! But they 
wasted his precious time and his precious 
talent; they disturbed his composure, broke 
down his returning habits of temperance and 
assiduous contented exertion. Their pamper- 
ing was baneful to him ; their cruelty, which 
soon followed, was equally baneful. The old 
grudge against Fortune's inequality awoke 
with new bitterness in their neighbourhood, 
and Burns had no retreat but to the "Rock of 
Independence," which is btitan air-castle, after 
all, that looks well at a distance, but will 
screen no one from real wind and wet. 
Flushed with irregular excitement, exasper- 
ated alternately by cfintempt of others, and 
contempt of himself. Burns was no longer 
regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it 
for ever. There was a hollowness at the heart 
of his life, for his conscience did not now ap- 
prove what he was doing. 

Amid the vapours of unwise enjoyment, of 
bootless remorse, and angry discontent with 
Fate, his true loadstar, a life of Poetry, with 
Poverty, nay, with Famine if it must be so, 
was too often altogether hidden from his eyes. 
And yet he sailed a sea, where, without some 
such guide, there was no right steering. 
Meteors of French Politics rise before him, 
but these were not Ins stars. An accident this, 
which hastened, but did not originate, his 
worst distresses. In the mad contentions of 
that time, he comes in collision with certain 
official Superiors ; is wounded by them ; cruel- 
ly lacerated, we should say, could a dead 
mechanical implement, in any case, be called 
cruel: and shrinks, in indignant pain, into 
deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier moodiness 
than ever. His life has now lost its unity: it 
is a life of fragments; led with little aim, be- 
yond the melancholy one of securing its own 
continuance, — in fits of wild false joy, when 
such offered, and of black despondency when 
they passed away. His character before the 
world begins to suffer; calumny is bus}'' with 
him ; for a miserable man makes more ene- 
mies than friends. Some faults he has fallen 
into, and a thousand misfortunes; but deep 
criminality is what he stands accused of, and 
they that are not without sin, cast the first 
stone at him ! For is he not a well-wisher of 
the French Revolution, a Jacobin, and there- 



depended an enormous Highland broad-sword. It was 
Burns." Now, we rather think, it was not Burns. For 
to say nothing of the fox-skin cap, loose and quite 
Hibernian watch-coat with the belt, what are we to 
make of this "enormous Highland broad-sword" do- 
pending from him? More especially, as there is no 
word of parish constables on the outlook to see whether, 
as Dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his own midrifl", 
or that of the public! Burns, of all men, had the leaat 
tendency, to seek for distinction, either in his own eyes, 
or those of others, by such poor mummeries. 
K 



no 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fore in that one act guilty of all? These 
accusations, political and moral, it has since 
appeared, were false enough : but the world 
hesitated little tocredit them. Nay,hisconvivial 
Mecaenases themselves were not the last to do 
it. There is reason to believe that, in his later 
years, the Dumfries Aristocracy had partly 
withdrawn themselves from Burns, as from a 
tainted person, no longer worthy of their ac- 
quaintance. That painful class, stationed, in 
all provincial cities, behind the outmost breast- 
work of Gentility, there to stand siege and do 
battle against the intrusion of Grocerdom, and 
Grazierdom, had actually seen dishonour in 
the society of Burns, and branded him with 
their veto; had, as we vulgarly say, cut him ! 
We find one passage in this work of Mr. 
Lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts : 
"A gentleman of that country, whose name 
I have already more than once had occasion 
to refer to, has often told me that he was sel- 
dom more grieved, than when, riding into 
Dumfries one fine summer evening about this 
time to attend a country ball, he saw. Burns 
walking alone, on the shady side of the prin- 
cipal street of the town, while the opposite 
side was gay with successive groups of gen- 
tlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the 
festivities of the night, not one of whom ap- 
peared willing to recognise him. The horse- 
man dismounted, and joined Burns, who on 
his proposing to cross the street said: "Nay, 
nay, my young friend, that's all over now;" 
and quoted, after a pause, some verses li' Lady 
Grizzel Baillie's pathetic ballad; 

"His bonnet stood ance fii' fair on his brow, 
His auld ane lool<ed belter than niony ane's new; 
But now he lets'l wear ony way it will hing, 
And casts himsell dowie upon the corn-bing. 

" O were we young, as we anre hae been, 
We sud hae been gallopins; down on yon green. 
And linliing it ower the lily-white lea : 
jSnii loerenti my heart light I wad die." 

It was little in Burns's character to let his 
leelings on certain subjects escape in this 
fashion. He immediately after reciting these 
verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most 
pleasing manner ; and, taking his young friend 
home with him, entertained him very agreeably 
till the hour of the ball arrived." 

Alas ! when we think that Burns now sleeps 
" where bitter indignation can no longer lace- 
rate his heart,"* and that most of these fair 
dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his 
side, where the breastwork of gentility is quite 
thrown down, — who would not sigh over the 
thin delusions and foolish toys that divide 
heart from heart, and make man unmerciful 
to his brother ! 

It was not now to be hoped that the genius 
of Burns would ever reach maturity, or ac- 
complish ought worthy of itself. His spirit 
was jarred in its melody; not the soft breath 
of natural feeling, but the rude hand of Fate, 
was now sweeping over the strings. And yet 
what harmony was in him, what music even 
m his discords ! How the wild tones had a 



* Ubi S(Bva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare neguit. — 
Swift's Epitaph. 



charm for the simplest and the wisest; and 
all men felt and knew that here also was one 
of the Gifted ! " If he entered an inn at mid- 
night, after all the inmates were in bed, the 
news of his arrival circulated from the cellar 
to the garret ; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, 
the landlord and all his guests were assem- 
bled !" Some brief, pure moments of poetic 
life were yet appointed him, in the composi- 
tion of his Songs. We can uirderstand how 
he grasped at this employment; and how, too, 
he spurned at all other reward for it but what 
the labour itself brought him. For the soul 
of Burns, though scathed and marred, was yet 
living in its full moral strength, though sharply 
conscious of its errors and abasement: and 
here, in his destitution and degradation, was 
one act of seeming nobleness and self-devoted- 
ness left even for him to perform. He felt, 
too, that with all the "thoughtless follies" that 
had "laid him low," the world was unjust and 
cruel to him ; and he silently appealed to 
another and calmer time. Not as a hired sol- 
dier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the 
glory of his country; so he cast from him the 
poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as 
a volunteer. Let us not grudge him this last 
luxury of his existence ; let him not have ap- 
pealed to us in vain! The money was not 
necessary to him ; he struggled through with- 
out it; long since, these guineas would have 
been gone, and now the high-mindedness of 
refusing them will plead for him in all hearts 
for ever. 

We are here arrived at the crisis of Burns's 
life; for matters had now taken such a shape 
with him as could not long continue. If im- 
provement was not to be looked for. Nature 
could only for a limited time maintain this 
dark and maddening warfare against the world 
and itself We are not medically informed 
whether any continuance of years was, at this 
period, probable for Burns ; whether his death 
is to be looked on as in some sense an acci- 
dental event, or only as the natural conse- 
quence of the long series of events that had 
preceded. The latter seems to be the likelier 
opinion ; and yet it is by no means a certain 
one. At all events, as we have said, smne 
change could not be very distant. Three gates 
of deliverance, it seems to us, were open for 
Burns: clear poetical activity; madness; or 
death. The first, with longer life, was still 
possible, though not probable ; for physical 
causes were beginning to be concerned in it: 
and 3'et Burns had an iron resolution ; could 
he but have seen and felt, that not only his 
highest glor}^ but his first duty, and the true 
medicine for all his woes, lay here. The 
second was still less probable; for his mind 
was ever among the clearest and firmest. So 
the milder third gate was opened for him : and 
he passed, not softly, yet speedily, into that 
still country, where the hail-storms and fire- 
showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden 
way-farer at length lays down his load! 

Contemplating this sad end of Burns, and 
how he sank unaided by any real help, un- 
cheered by any wise sympathy, generous 
minds have sometimes figured to themselves, 



BURNS. 



Ill 



with a reproachful sorrow, that much might 
have been done for him ; that by counsel, true 
affection, and friendly ministrations, he might 
have been saved to himself and the world. 
We question whether there is not more tender- 
ness of heart than soundness of judgment in 
these suggestions. It seems dubious to us 
whether the richest, Avisest, most benevolent 
individual, could have lent Burns any effec- 
tual help. Counsel, which seldom profits any 
one, he did not need ; in his understanding, he 
knew the right from the wrong, as v.'ell per- 
haps as any man ever did ; but the persuasion, 
which would have availed him, lies not so 
much in the head, as in the heart, where no 
argument or expostulation could have assisted 
much to implant it. As to money again, we 
do not really believe that this was his essen- 
tial want ; or well see how any private man 
could, even presupposing Burns's consent, have 
bestowed on him an independent fortune, with 
much prospect of decisive advantage. It is a 
mortifying truth, that two men in any rank of 
society could hardly be found virtuous enough 
to give money, and to take it, as a necessary 
gift, without injury to the moral entireness of 
one or both. But so stands the fact : Friend- 
ship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no 
longer exists ; except in the cases of kindred 
or other legal affinity ; it is in reality no longer 
expected, or recognised as a virtue among 
men. A close observer of manners has pro- 
nounced " Patronage," that is, pecuniary or 
other economic furtherance, to be "twice 
cursed;" cursing him that gives, and him that 
takes ! And thus, in regard to outward mat- 
ters also, it has become the rule, as in regard 
to inward it always was and must be the rule, 
that no one shall look for effectual help to 
another ; but that each shall rest contented 
with what help he can afford himself. Such, 
we say, is the principle of modern Honour; 
naturally enough growing out of that senti- 
ment of Pride, which we inculcate and en- 
courage as the basis of our whole social mo- 
rality. Many a poet has been poorer than 
Burns ; but no one was ever prouder : we may 
question, whether, without great precautions, 
even a pension from Royalty would not have 
galled and encumbered, more than actually 
assisted him. 

Still less, therefore, are we disposed to join 
, with another class of Burns's admirers, who 
accuse the higher ranks among us of having 
ruined Burns by their selfish neglect of him. 
We have already stated our doubts whether 
direct pecuniary help, had it been offered, 
would have been accepted, or could have 
proved very effectual. We shall readily admit, 
however, that much was to be done for Burns ; 
that many a poisoned arrow might have been 
warded from his bosom ; many an entanglement 
in his path cut asunder by the hand of the pow- 
erful; and light and heat shed on him from high 
places, would have made his humble atmo- 
sphere more genial ; and the softest heart then 
breathing might have lived and died with some 
fewer pangs. Nay, we shall grant further, and 
for Burns it is granting much, that with all his 
pride, he would have thanked, even with ex- 
aggerated gratitude, any one who had cordially 



befriended him : patronage, unless once cursed, 
needed not to have been twice so. At all events, 
the poor promotion he desired in his calling 
might have been granted: it was his own 
scheme, therefore, likelier than any other to be 
of service. All this it might have been a luxu- 
ry, nay, it was a duty, for our nobility to have 
done. No part of all this, however, did any of 
them do ; or apparently attempt, or wish to do ; 
so much is granted against them. But what 
then is the amount of their blaine ? Simply 
that they were men of the world, and walked 
by the principles of such men ; that they treated 
Burns, as other nobles and other commoners 
had done other poets ; as the English did 
Shakspeare; as King Charles and his cava- 
liers did Butler, as King Philip and his Gran- 
dees did Cervantes. Do men gather grapes of 
thorns ? or shall we cut down our thorns for 
yielding only a fence, and haws ? How, indeed, 
could the " nobility and gentry of his native 
land" hold out any help to this "Scottish Bard, 
proud of his name and country 1" Were the 
nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to 
help themselves 1 Had they not their game to 
preserve; their borough interests to strengthen ; 
dinners, therefore, of various kinds to eat and 
give? Were their means more than adequate 
to all this business, or less than adequate T 
Less than adequate in general : few of them in 
reality were richer than Burns; many of them 
were poorer; for sometimes they had to wring 
their supplies, as with thumbscrews, from the- 
hard hand; and, in their need of guineas, to 
forget their duty of mercy; which Burns was 
never reduced to do. Let us pity and forgive 
them. The game they preserved and shot, the 
dinners they ate and gave, the borough inte- 
rests they strengthened, the lath Babylons they 
severally builded by the glory of their might, 
are all melted, or melting back into the prime- 
val Chaos, as mati's merely selfish endeavours 
are fated to do : and here was an action ex- 
tending, in virtue of its worldly influence, we 
may say, through all time ; in virtue of its 
moral nature, beyond all time, being immortal 
as the Spirit of Goodness itself; this action was 
offered them to do, and light was not given 
them to do it. Let us pity and forgive them. 
But, better than pity, let us go and do otherwise. 
Human suffering did not end with the life of 
Burns; neither was the solemn mandate, 
"Love one another, bear one another's bur- 
dens," given to the rich only, but to all men. 
True, we shall find no Burns to relieve, to as- 
suage by our aid or our pity : but celestial na- 
tures, groaning under the fardels of a weary 
life, we shall still find; and that wretchedness 
which Fate has rendered roiVf/css and lunelcss, is 
not the least wretched, but the most. 

Still we do not think that the blame of Burns';; 
failure lies chiefly with the world. The world, 
it seems to us, treated him with more, rather 
than with less kindness, than it usually shows 
to such men. It has ever, we fear, shown but 
small favour to its Teachers; hunger and na- 
kedness, perils and reviling, the prison, the 
cross, the poison-chalice, have, in most times 
and countries, been the market-place it has 
offered for Wisdom, the welcome with which 
it has greeted those who have come to er- 



118 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



lighten and purify it. Homer and Socrates, and 
the Christian Apostles, belong to old days ; 
but the world's Martyrology was not completed 
with these. Roger Bacon and Galileo lan- 
guish in priestly dungeons, Tasso pines in the 
cell of a mad-house, Camoens dies begging on 
"the streets of Lisbon. So neglected, so " per- 
secuted they the Prophets," not in Judea only, 
but in all places where men have been. We 
reckon that every poet of Burns's order is, or 
should be, a prophet and teacher to his age; 
that he has no right therefore to expect great 
kindness from it, but rather is bound to do it 
great kindness ; that Burns, in particular, ex- 
perienced fully the usual proportion of the 
world's goodness; and that the blame of his 
failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly with 
the world. 

Where then does it lie 1 We are forced to 
answer: With himself; it is his inward, not 
his outward misfortunes, that bring him to the 
dust. Seldom, indeed, is it otherwise ; seldom 
is a life morally wrecked, but the grand cause 
lies in some internal mal-arrangement, some 
want less of good fortune than of good guidance. 
Nature fashions no creature without implant- 
ing in it the strength needful for its action and 
duration ; least of all does she so neglect her 
masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul. Nei- 
ther can we believe that it is in the power of 
any external circumstances utterly to ruin the 
mind of a man ; nay, if proper wisdom be given 
him, even so much as to afl^ect its essential 
health and beauty. The sternest sum-total of 
all worldly misfortunes is Death ; nothing more 
caw lie in the cup of human wo: yet many 
men, in all ages, have triumphed over Death, 
and led it captive ; converting its physical vic- 
tory into a moral victory for themselves, into a 
seal and immortal consecration for all that 
their past life had achieved. What has been 
done, may be done again ; nay, it is but the 
degree and not the kind of such heroism that 
difiers in different seasons; for without some 
portion of this spirit, not of boisterous daring, 
but of silent fearlessness, of Self-denial, in all 
its forms, no good man, in any scene or time, 
has ever attained to be good. 

We have already stated the error of Burns; 
and mourned over it, rather than blamed it. 
It was the want of unity in his purposes, of 
consistency in his aims; the hapless attempt 
to mingle in friendly union the common spirit 
of the World with the spirit of poetry, which is 
of a far different and altogether irreconcilable 
nature. Burns was nothing wholly ; and Burns 
could be nothing, no man formed as he was 
can be any thing, by halves. The heart, not 
of a mere hot-blooded, popular verse-monger, 
or poetical lies/ aura tevr, but of a true Poet and 
Singer, worthy of the old religious heroic times, 
had been given him : and he fell in an age, not 
of heroism and religion, but of skepticism, sel- 
fishness, and triviality when true Nobleness 
was little understood, and its place supplied by 
a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and un- 
fruitful princip|f> of Pride. The influences of 
that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to 
say nothing of his highly untoward situation, 
made it more than usually difficult for him to 
•repel or resist ; the better spirit that was with- 



in him ever sternly demanded its rights, its su- 
premacy; he spent his life in endeavouring to 
reconcile these two; and lost it, as he must 
have lost it, without reconciling them here. 

Burns was born poor; and born also to con- 
ttinue poor, for he would not endeavour to be 
ptherwise: this it had been well could he have 
once for all admitted, and considered as finally 
settled. He was poor, truly; but hundreds 
even of his own class and order of minds have 
been poorer, yet have suffered nothing deadly 
from it : nay, his own Father had a far sorer 
battle with ungrateful destiny than his was ; 
and he did not yield to it, but died courageously 
warring, and to all moral intents prevailing, 
against it. True, Burns had little means, had 
even little time for poetry, his only real pursuit 
and vocation ; but so much the more precious 
was what little he had. In all these external 
respects his case was hard ; but very far from 
the hardest. Povert}', incessant drudgery, and 
much worse evils, it has often been the lot of 
Poets and wise men to strive with, and their 
glory to conquer. Locke was banished as a 
traitor; and wrote his Essay on the Human 
Understuinlin^, sheltering himself in a Dutch 
garret. Was Milton rich or at his ease, when 
he composed Paradise Lost ? Not only low, but 
fallen from a height; not only poor but im- 
poverished ; in darkness and with dangers 
compassed round, he sang his immortal song, 
and found fit audience, though few. Did not 
Cervantes finish his work, a maimed soldier, 
and in prison 1 Nay, was not the Araucana, 
which Spain acknowledges as its Epic, written 
without even the aid of paper; on scraps of 
leather, as the stout fighter and voyager 
snatched any moment from that wild warfare? 
And what then had these men, which Burns 
wanted] Two things; both which, it seems 
to us, are indispensable for such men. They 
had a true, religious principle of morals ; and 
a single not a double aim in their activity. 
They were not self-seekers and self-worship- 
pers : but seekers and worshippers of some- 
thing far better than Self. Not personal 
enjoyment was their object ; but a high, heroic 
idea of Religion, of Patriotism, of heavenly 
Wisdom in one or the other form, ever hovered 
before them ; in which cause, they neither 
shrunk from suffering, nor called on the earth 
to witness it as something wonderful; but 
patiently endured, counting it blessedness 
enough so to spend and be spent. Thus the 
" golden-calf of Self-love," however curiously 
carved, was not their Deity; but the Invisible 
Goodness, which alone is man's reasonable 
service. This feeling was as a celestial foun- 
tain, whose streams refreshed into gladness 
and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise 
too desolate existence. In a word, they willed 
one thing, to which all other things were sub- 
ordinated, and made subservient ; and therefore 
they accomplished it. The wedge will rend 
rocks ; but its edge must be sharp and single : 
if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces 
and will rend nothing. 

Part of this superiority these men owed to 
their age; in which heroism and devotedness 
were still practised, or at least not yet dis- 
believed in : but much of it likewise they 



BURNS. 



113 



owed to themselves. With Burns again it 
was different. His morality, in most of its 
practical points, is that of a mere worldly man ; 
enjoyment, in a finer or a coarser shape, is the 
only thing he longs and strives for. A noble 
instinct sometimes raises him above this ; but 
an instinct only, and acting only for moments. 
He has no Religion ; in the shallow age, where 
his days were cast, Religion was not discrimi- 
nated from the New and Old Light forms of 
Religion ; and was, with these, becoming ob- 
solete in the minds of men. His heart, indeed, 
is alive with a trembling adoration, but there 
is no temple in his understanding. He lives 
in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. His? 
religion, at best, is an anxious wish ; like that 
of Rabelais, " a great Perhaps." 

He loved Poetry warmly, and in his heart; 
could he but have loved it purely, and with his 
whole undivided heart, it had been well. For 
Poetry, as Burns could have followed it, is but 
another form of Wisdom, of Religion ; is itself 
Wisdom and Religion. But this also was de- 
nied him. His poetry is a stray vagrant gleam, 
which will not be extinguished within him, yet 
rises not to be the true light of his path, but is 
often a wildfire that misleads him. It was not 
necessary for Burns to be rich, to be, or to 
^eem, "independent;" but it was necessary for 
him to be at one with his own heart; to place 
what was highest in his nature, highest also in 
his life; " to seek within himself for that con- 
sistency and sequence, which external events 
would for ever refuse him." He was born a 
poet; poetry was the celestial element of his 
being, and should have been the soul of his 
whole endeavours. Lifted into that serene 
ether, whither he had wings given him to 
mount, he would have needed no other eleva- 
tion : Poverty, neglect, and all evil, save the 
desecration of himself and his Art, were a 
small matter to him ; the pride and the pas- 
sions of the world lay far beneath his feet ; 
and he looked down alike on noble and slave, 
on prince and beggar, and all that wore the 
stamp of man, with clear recognition, with 
brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity. 
Nay, we question whether for his culture as a 
Poet, poverty, and much suffering for a season, 
were not absolutely advantageous. Great men, 
in looking back over their lives, have testified 
to that effect. "I would not for much," says 
Jean Paul," that I had been born richer." And 
yet Paul's birth was poor enough ; for, in an- 
other place, he adds: "The prisoner's allow- 
ance is bread and water; and I had often only 
the latter." But the gold that is refined in the 
hottest furnace comes out the purest; or, as 
he has himself expressed it, " the canary-bird 
sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in 
a darkened cage." 

A man like Burns might have divided his 
hours between poetry and virtuous industry; 
industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay 
prescribes, and which has a beauty, for that 
cause, beyond the pomp of thrones : but to 
divide his hours between poetry and rich men's 
banquets, was an ill-starred and inauspicious 
attempt. How could he be at ease at such 
banquets ? What had he to do there, mingling 
his music with the coarse roar of altogether 
15 



earthly voices, and brighteningthe thick smoke 
of intoxication with fire lent him from heaven T 
Was it his aim to enjoy life? To-morrow he 
must go drudge as an Exciseman ! We won- 
der not that Burns became moody, indignant, 
and at times an offender against certain rules 
of society; but rather that he did not grow 
utterly frantic, and run a-murk against them 
all. How could a man, so falsely placed, by 
his own or others' fault, ever know content- 
ment or -peaceable diligence for an hour"? 
What he did, under such perverse guidance, 
and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with 
astonishment at the natural strength and worth 
of his character. 

Doubtless there was a remedy for this per- 
verseness : but not in others ; only in himself; 
least of all in simple increase of wealth and 
worldly " respectability." We hope we have 
now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth 
fiiir poetry, and to make poets happy. Nay, 
have we not seen another instance of it in 
these very days ] Byron, a man of an endow- 
ment considerably less ethereal than that of 
Burns, is born in the rank not of a Scottish 
ploughman, but of an English peer: the high- 
est worldly honours, the fairest worldly career, 
are his by inheritance : the richest harvest of 
fame he soon reaps, in another province, by 
his own hand. And what does all this avail 
him"! Is he happy, is he good, is he true? 
Alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives towards 
the Infinite and the Eternal; and soon feels 
that all this is but mounting to the house-top 
to reach the stars ! Like Burns, he is only a 
proud man ; might like him have " purchased 
a pocket-copy of Milton to study the character 
of Satan ;" for Satan also is Byron's grand ex-l 
emplar, the hero of his poetry, and the model] 
apparently of his conduct. As in Burns's easel 
too, the celestial element will not mingle with 
the clay of earth; both poet and man of the 
world he must not be; vulgar Ambition will 
not live kindly with poetic Adoration; he can- 
not serve God and Mammon. Byron, like Burns, 
is not happv; nay, he is the most wretched of 
all men. His life is falsely arranged: the fire 
that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, 
warming into beauty the products of a world; 
but it is the mad fire of a volcano ; and now, — 
we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, which, 
erelong, will fill itself with snow! 

Byron and Burns were sent forth as mis- 
sionaries to their generation, to teach it a 
higher Doctrine, a purer Truth: they had a 
message to deliver, which, left them no rest 
till it was accomplished ; in dim throes of pain, 
this divine behest lay smouldering within 
them; for they knew not what it meant, and 
felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they 
had to die without articulately uttering it. 
They are in the camp of the Unconverted. 
Yet not as high messengers of rigorous 
though benijrnant truth, but as soft flattering 
singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will they 
live there ; they are first adulated, then perse- 
cuted; they accomplish little for others; they 
find no peace for themselves, but only death 
and the peace of the grave. We confess, it 
is not without a certain mournful awe that we 
view the fate of these noble souls, so richly 
k3 



114 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all 
their gifts. It seems to us there is a stern 
moral taught in this piece of history, — twifc 
told us in our own time ! Surely to men of 
.ike genius, if there be any such, it carries 
with it a lesson of deep impressive significance. 
Surely it would become such a man, furnished 
for the highest of all enterprises, that of being 
the Poet of his Age, to consider well what it is 
that he attempts^ and in what spirit he attempts 
it. For the words of Milton are true in all 
times, and were never truer than in this: "He, 
who would write heroic poems, must make his 
whole life a heroic poem." If he cannot first 
so make his life, then let him hasten from this 
arena ; for neither its lofty glories, nor its 
fearful perils, are for him. Let him dwindle 
into a modish ballad-monger; let him worship 
and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time 
will not fail to reward him, — if, indeed, he can 
endure to live in that capacity ! Byron and 
Burns could not live as idol-priests, but the 
fire of their own hearts consumed them; and 
better it was for them that they could not. For 
it is not in the favour of the great, or of the 
small, but in a life of truth, and in the inex- 
pugnable citadel of his own soul, that a 
Byron's or a Burns's strength must lie. Let 
the great stand aloof from him, or know how 
to reverence him. Beautiful is the imion of 
wealth with favour and furtherance for litera- 
ture ; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the 
loveliest amaranth. Yet let not the relation 
he mistaken. A true poet is not one whom 
they can hire by money or flattery to be a min- 
ister of their pleasures, their writer of occa- 
sional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he 
cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their 
partisan. At the peril of both parties, let no 
such union be attempted! Will a Courser of 
the Sun work softly in the harness of a Dray- 
horse 1 His hoofs are of fire, and his path is 
through the heavens, bringing light to all 
lands ; will he lumber on mud highways, drag- 
ging ale for earthly appetites, from door to 
door? 

But we must stop short in these considera- 
tions, which would lead us to boundless lengths. 
We had something to say on the public moral 
character of Burns ; bi;t this also we must for- 
bear. We are far from regarding him as 
guilty before the world, as guiltier than the 



average; nay, from doubting that he is less 
guilty than one of ten thousand. Tried at a 
tribunal far more rigid than that where the 
PlebiscHa of common civic reputations are pro- 
nounced, he has seemed to us even there less 
worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. 
But the world is habitually unjust in its judg- 
ments of such men ; unjust on many grounds, 
of which this one may be staled as the sub- 
stance: It decides, like a court of law, by dead 
statutes; and not positively but negatively, 
less on what is done right, than on what is, or 
is not, done wrong. Not the few inches of re- 
flection from the mathematical orbit, which 
are so easily measured, but the ratio of these 
ID the whole diameter, constitutes the real 
aberration. This orbit may be a planet's, its 
diameter the breadth of the solar system ; or 
it may be a city hippodrome; nay, the circle 
of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or 
paces. But the inches of deflection only are 
measured ; and it is assumed that the diameter 
of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will 
yield the same ratio when compared with 
them. Here lies the root of many a blind, 
cruel condemnation of Burnses, Swifts, Rous- 
seaus, which one never listens to with ap- 
proval. Granted, the ship comes into harbour 
with shrouds and tackle damaged; and the 
pilot is therefore blameworthy; for he has not 
been all-wise and all-powerful; but to know 
how blameworthy, tell us first whether his 
voyage has been round the Globe, or only to 
Ramsgate and the Isle of Dogs. 

With our readers in general, with men of 
right feeling anywhere, we are not required to 
plead for Burns. In pitying admiration, he 
lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler 
mausoleum than that one of marble; neither 
will his Works, even as they are, pass away 
from the memory of men. While the Shak- 
speares and Miltons roll on like mighty rivers 
through the country of Thought, bearing fleets 
of traflickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on 
iheir waves; this little Valclusa Fountain will 
also arrest our eye : For this also is of Nature's 
own and most cunning workmanship, bursts 
from the depths of the earth, with a full gush- 
ing current, into the light of day; and often 
will the traveller turn aside to drink of its 
clear waters, and muse among its rocks and 
pines ! 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



115 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE/ 

[Foreign Review, 1828.] 



The labours and merits of Heyne being better 
known, and more justly appreciated in England, 
than those of almost any other German, whe- 
ther scholar, poet, or philosopher, we cannot 
but believe that some notice of his life may be 
acceptable to most readers. Accordingly, we 
here mean to give a short abstract of this vo- 
lume, a miniature copy of the "biographical 
portrait," but must first say a few words on the 
portrait itself, and the limner by whom it has 
been drawn. 

Professor Heeren is a man of learning, and 
known far out of his own Hanoverian circle, — 
indeed, more or less to all students of history, 
— by his researches on Ancient Comnnerce, a 
voluminous account of which from his hand 
enjoys considerable reputation. He is evi- 
dently a man of sense and natural talent, as 
well as learning; and his gifts seem to lie 
round him in quiet arrangement, and very 
much at his own command. Nevertheless, we 
cannot admire him as a writer; we do not 
even reckon that such endowments as he hns 
are adequately represented in his books. His 
style both of diction and thought is thin, cold, 
formal, without force or character, and pain- 
fully reminds us of college lectures. He can 
work rapidly, but with no freedom, and, as it 
were, only in one attitude, and at one sort of 
labour. Not that we particularly blame Pro- 
fessor Heeren for this, but that we think he 
might have been something better: These 
"fellows in buckram," very numerous in cer- 
tain walks of literature, are an unfortunate, 
rather than a guilty class of men ; they have 
fallen, perhaps unwillingly, into the plan of 
writing by pattern, and can now do no other; 
for, in their minds, the beautiful comes at last 
to be simply synonymous with the neat. Every 
sentence bears a family-likeness to its precur- 
sor; most probably it has a set number of 
clauses; (three is a favourite number, as in 
Gibbon, for " the muses delight in odds;") has 
also a given rhythm, a known and foreseen 
music, simple but limited enough, like that of 
ill-bred fingers drumming on a table. And 
then it is strange how soon the outward rhythm 
carries the inward along with it; and the 
thought moves with the same stinted, ham- 
strung rub-a-dub as the words. In a state of 
perfection, this species of writing comes to 
resemble power-loom weaving: it is not the 
mind that is at work, but some scholastic ma- 
chinery which the mind has of old constructed, 
and is from afar observing. Shot follows shot 
from the unwearied shuttle ; and so the web is 

* Christian Oottlob Heyne, biographiseh dargeatellt von 
Arnold Hermann Ludwig Heeren. (Christian Gottlob 
Heyne, biographically portrayed by Arnold Hermann 
Ludwig Heeren.) Gottingen. 



woven, ultimately and properly, indeed, by the 
wit of man, yet immediately, and in the mean- 
while, by the mere aid of time and steam. 

But our Professor's mode of speculation i.s 
little less intensely academic than his mode of 
writing. We fear he is something of what the 
Germans call a Klcinstddter : — mentally as well 
as bodily, a "dweller in a little town." He 
speaks at great length, and with undue fond- 
ness, of the " Georgia Augusta," which, afterall, 
is but the tTniversity of Gottingen, an earthly, 
and no celestial institution : it is nearly in vain 
that he tries to contemplate Heyne as a Euro- 
pean personage, or even as a German one; be- 
yond the precincts of the Georgia Augusta, his 
view seems to grow feeble and soon die away 
into vague inanity; so we have not Heyne, the 
man and scholar, but Heyne, the Gottingen 
Professor. But neither is this habit of mind 
any strange or crying sin, or at all peculiar to 
Gottingen ; as, indeed, most parishes of Eng- 
land can produce more than one example to 
show. And yet it is pitiful, when an establish- 
ment for universal science, which ought to be 
a watch-tower where a man might see all the 
kingdoms of the world, converts itself into a 
workshop, whence he sees nothing but his tool- 
box and bench, and the world, in broken 
glimpses, through one patched and highly dis- 
coloured pane ! 

Sometimes, indeed, our worthy friend rises 
into a region of the moral sublime, in which it; 
is diflicult for a foreigner to follow him. Thus 
he says, on one occasion, speaking of Heyne .- 
" Immortal are his merits in regard to the cata- 
logues" — of the Gottingen library. And, to 
cite no other instance, except the last and best 
one, we are informed, that, when Heyne died, 
" the guardian angels of the Georgia Augusta 
waited in that higher world to meet him with 
blessings." By day and night! There is no 
such guardian angel, that we know of, for the' 
University of Gottingen; neither does it need 
one, being a good solid seminary of itself, with 
handsome stipends from Government. We had 
imagined, too, that if anybody welcomed peo- 
ple into heaven, it would be St. Peter, or at 
least some angel of old standing, and not a 
mere mushroom, as this of Gottingen must be,, 
created since the year 1739. 

But we are growing very ungrateful to the 
good Heeren, who meant no harm by these 
llourishes of rhetoric, and, indeed, does not 
often indulge in them. The grand questions 
with us here are. Did he know the truth in this 
matter ? and was he disposed to tell it honestly V 
To both of which questions we can answer 
without reserve, that all appearances are in 
his favour. He was Heyne's pupil, colleague, 
son-in-law, and so knew him intimately for 



116 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



thirty years : he has every feature also of a 
just, quiet, truth-loving man ; so that we see 
little reason to doubt the authenticity, the inno- 
cence, of any statement in his volume. What 
snore have we to do with him then, but to take 
thankfully what he has been pleased and able 
to give us, and, with all despatch, communi- 
cate it to our readers. 

Heyne's Life is not without an intrinsic, as 
-well as an external interest; for he had much 
to struggle with, and he struggled with it man- 
fully; thus his history has a value independent 
pf his fame. Some account of his early years 
we are happily enabled to give in his own 
"words ; we translate a considerable part of this 
passage, autobiography being a favourite sort 
of reading with us. 

He was born at Chemnitz, in Upper Saxony, 
in September, 1729; the eldest of a poor weav- 
er's family, poor almost to the verge of desti- 
tution. 

"My good father, George Heyne," says he, 
''was a native of the principality of Glogau, in 
Silesia, from the little village of Gravenschutz. 
His youth had fallen in those times when the 
Evangelist party of that province were still 
exposed to the oppressions and persecutions 
of the Romish Church. His kindred, enjoying 
the blessing of contentment in an humble but 
independent station, felt, like others, the influ- 
ence of this proselytizing bigotry, and lost their 
domestic peace by means of it. Some went 
over to the Romish faith. My father left his 
jiative village, and endeavoured, by the labour 
of his hands, to procure a livelihood in Saxony. 
* What will it profit a man if he gain the whole 
"world, and lose his own soul!' was the thought 
which the scenes of his youth had stamped the 
snost deeply on his mind ; but no lucky chance 
favoured his enterprises or endeavours to bet- 
ter his condition, ever so little. On the con- 
trary, a series of perverse incidents kept him 
continually below the limits even of a moder- 
ate sufficiency. His old age was thus left a 
prey to poverty, and to her companions, timid- 
ity and depression of mind. Manufactures, at 
that time, were visibly declining in Saxony; 
and the misery among the working classes, in 
districts concerned in the linen trade, was 
■jinnsually severe. Scarcely could the labour 
of the hands suffice to support the labourer him- 
self, still less his family. The saddest aspect 
'which the decay of civic society can exhibit 
has always appeared to me to be this, when 
^honourable, honour-loving, conscientious dili- 
gence cannot, by the utmost efforts of toil, ob- 
tain the necessaries of life, or when the work- 
ing man cannot even find work; but must 
stand with folded arms, lamenting his forced 
idleness, through which himself and his family 
are verging to starvation, or it may be, actually 
suffering the pains of hunger. 

"It was in the extremest penury that I was 
horn and brought up. The earliest compa- 
nion of my childhood was Want ; and my 
first impressions came from the tears of my 
mother, who had not bread for her children. 
How often have I seen her on Saturday-nights 
wringing her hands and weeping, when she 
had come back with what the hard toil, nay, 
often the sleepless nights, of her husband had 



produced, and could find none to buy it ! 
Sometimes a fresh attempt was made through 
me or my sister; I had to return to the pur- 
chasers with the same piece of ware, to see 
whether we could not possibly get rid of it. 
In that quarter there is a class of so-called 
merchants, who, however, are in fact nothing 
more than forestallers, that buy up the linen 
made by the poorer people at the lowest 
price, and endeavour to sell it in other dis- 
tricts at the highest. Often have I seen one 
or other of these petty tyrants, with all the 
pride of a satrap, throw back the piece of 
goods offered him, or imperiously cut off some 
trifle from the price and wages required for it. 
Necessity constrained the poorer to sell the 
sweat of his brow at a grofrhen or two less, 
and again to make good the deficit by starving. 
It was the view of such things that awakened 
the first sparks of indignation in my young 
heart. The show of pomp and plenty among 
these purse-proud people, who fed themselves 
on the extorted crumbs of so many hundreds, 
far from dazzling me into respect or fear, filled 
me with rage against them. The first time I 
heard of tyrannicide at school, there rose 
vividly before me the project to become a 
Brutus on all those oppressors of the poor, 
who had so often cast my father and mother 
into straits : and here, for the first time, was 
an instance of a truth, which I have since had 
frequent occasion to observe, that if the un- 
happy man armed with feehng of his wrongs, 
and a certain strength of soul, does not risk 
the utmost and become an open criminal, it is 
merely the beneficent result of those circum- 
stances in which Providence has placed him, 
thereby fettering his activity, and guarding 
him from such destructive attempts. That 
the oppressing part of mankind should be se- 
cured against the oppressed was, in the plan 
of inscrutable wisdom, a most important ele- 
ment of the present system of things. 

"My good parents did what they could, and 
sent me to a child's school in the suburbs; I 
obtained the praise of learning very fast and 
being very fond of it. My schoolmaster had 
two sons, lately returned from Leipzig, a cou- 
ple of depraved fellows, who took all pains to 
lead me astray; and, as I resisted, kept me 
for a long time, by threats and mistreatment 
of all sorts, extremely miserable. So early as 
my tenth year, to raise the money for my school 
wages, I had given lessons to a neighbour's 
child, a little girl, in reading and writing. As 
the common school-course could take me no 
farther, the point now was to get a private 
hour and proceed into Latin. But for that 
purpose a gtiler grosrhen weekly was required: 
this my parents had not to give. Many a day 
I carried this grief about with me: however, I 
had a godfather, who was in easy circum- 
stances, a baker, and my mother's half-brother. 
One Saturday I was sent to this man to fetch 
a loaf. With wet eyes I entered his house, 
and chanced to find my godfather himself 
there. Being questio-ned why I was crying, I 
tried to answer, but a whole stream of tears 
broke loose, and scarcely could I make the 
cause of my sorrow intelligible. My magnani- 
mous godfather offered to pay the v/eekly 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



117 



groschen out of his own pocket ; and only this 
condition was imposed on me, that I should 
come to him every Sunday, and repeat what 
part of the Gospel I had learned by heart. 
This latter arrangement had one_ good effect 
for me, — it exercised my memory, and I 
learned to recite without bashfulness. 

" Drunk with joy, I started off with my loaf; 
tossing it up time after time into the air, and 
barefoot as I was, I capered aloft after it. But 
hereupon my loaf fell into a puddle. This 
misfortune again brought me a little to reason ; 
my mother heartily rejoiced at the good news ; 
my father was less content. Thus passed a 
couple of years ; and my schoolmaster inti- 
mated what I myself had long known, that I 
could now learn no more from him. 

"This then was the time when I must leave 
school, and betake me to the handicraft of 
my father. Were not the artisan under op- 
pressions of so many kinds, robbed of the 
fruits of his hard toil, and of so many advan- 
tages to which the useful citizen has a natural 
claim; I should still say, — Had I but continued 
in the station of my parents, what thousand- 
fold vexations would at this hour have been 
unknown to me ! My father could not but be 
anxious to have a grown-up son for an assist- 
ant in his labour, and looked upon my repug- 
nance to it with great dislike. I again longed 
to get into the grammar-school of the town ; 
but for this all means were wanting. MHiere 
was a gulden of quarterly fees, where were 
books and a blue cloak to he come at ; how 
wistfully my look often hung on the walls of 
the school when I learned it I 

" A clergyman of the suburbs was my se- 
cond godfather ; his name was Sebastian Sey- 
del ; my schoolmaster, who likewise belonged 
to his congregation, had told him of me ; I 
was sent for, and after a short examination, he 
promised me that I should go to the town- 
school ; he himself would bear the charges. 
Who can express my happiness, as I then felt 
it ! I was despatched to the first teacher, ex- 
amined, and placed with approbation in the 
second class. Weakly from the first, pressed 
down with sorrow and want, without any 
cheerful enjoyment of childhood or youth, I 
was still of very small stature ; my class-fel- 
lows judged by externals, and had a very slight 
opinion of me. Scarcely by various proofs 
of diligence, and by the praises I received, 
could I get so far that they tolerated my being 
put beside them. 

" And certainly my diligence was not a little 
hampered ! Of his promise, the clergyman, 
indeed, kept so much, that he paid my quar- 
terly fees, provided me with a coarse cloak, 
and gave me some useless volumes that were 
lying on his shelves ; but to furnish me with 
school-books he could not resolve. I thus 
found myself under the necessity of borrow- 
ing a class-fellow's books, and daily copying 
a part of them before the lesson. On the other 
hand, the honest man would have some hand 
himself in my instruction, and gave me from 
time to time some hours in Latin. In his 
youth he had learned to make Latin veises : 
scarcely was Erasmus de Civiliiate Morum got 
over, when I too must take to verse-making; 



all this before I had read any authors, or cou'l^ 
possibly possess any store of words. The 
man was withal passionate and rigorous ; in 
every point repulsive ; with a moderate income 
he was accused of avarice; he had the stiff- 
ness and self-will of an old bachelor, and at 
the same time the vanity of aiming to be a 
good Latinist, and, what was more, a Latin 
verse-maker, and consequently a literary cler- 
gyman. These qualities of his all contributed 
to overload my youth, and nip away in the bud 
every enjoyment of its pleasures." 

In this plain but somewhat leaden style does 
Heyne proceed, detailing the crosses and losses 
of his school-years. We cannot pretend that 
the narrative delights us much; nay, that it is 
not rather bald and barren for such a narra- 
tive : but its fidelity may be relied on ; and it 
paints the clear, broad, strong, and somewhat 
heavy nature of the writer, perhaps better 
than description could do. It is curious, for 
instance, to see with how little of a purely hu- 
mane interest he looks back to his childhood : 
how Heyne the man has almost grown into a 
sort of teaching-machine, and sees in Heyne 
the boy little else than the incipient Gerund- 
grinder, and tells us little else but how this 
wheel after the other was developed in him, 
and he came at last to grind in complete per- 
fection. We could have wished to get some 
view into the interior of that poor Chemnitz 
hovel, with its unresting loom and cheerless 
hearth, its squalor and devotion, its afieclioft 
and repining; and the fire of natural genius 
struggling into tlame amid such incumbrances^ 
in an atmosphere so damp and close! But of 
all this we catch few farther glimpses ; and 
hear only of Fabricius and Owen and Pasor, 
and school-examinations, and rectors that had 
been taught b}^ Ernesti. Neither, in another' 
respect, not of omission but of commission,', 
can this piece of writing altogether content 
us. We must object a little to the spirit of it 
as too narrow, too intolerant. Sebastian Sey- 
del must have been a very meager man ; hut 
is it right, that Heyne, of all others, should 
speak of him with asperity? Without ques- 
tion the unfortunate Seydel meant nobly, had 
not thrift stood in his way. Did he not pay 
down his gulden every quarter regularly, and 
give the boy a blue cloak, though a coarse 
one ? Nay, he bestowed old books on him, 
and instruction, according to his gift, in the 
mystery of verse-making. And was not all 
this something ? And if thrift and charity 
had a continual battle to fight, was not this- 
better than a fiat surrender on the part of the 
latter 1 The other pastors of Chemnitz are 
all quietly forgotten : why should Sebastian 
be remembered to his disadvantage for being 
only a little better than theyl 

Heyne continued to be much infested with 
tasks from Sebastian, and sorely held down by 
want, and discouragement of every sort. The 
school-course, moreover, he says, was bad, 
nothing but the old routine ; vocables, trans- 
lations, exercises ; all without spirit or pur- 
pose. Nevertheless, he continued to make 
what we must call wonderful proficiency in 
these branches ; especially as he had still to 
write every task before he could learn it. Poir 



118 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



he prepared "Greek versions," he says; "also 
Greek verses; and by and by could write 
down in Greek prose, and at last, in Greek as 
well as Latin verses, the discourses he heard 
in church ! " Some ray of hope was begin- 
ning to spring up within his mind. A certain 
small degree of self-confidence had first been 
awakened in him, as he informs us, by a "j^e- 
dantic adventure." 

" There chanced to be a school-examination 
held, at which the superintendent, as chief 
school-inspector, \vas present. This man, Dr. 
Theodor Kriiger, a theologian of sftme learning 
for his time, all at once interrupted the rector, 
who was teaching (u- cathedra, and put the ques- 
tion : who among the scholars could tell him 
what might be made per nnagruimiKi from the 
word Av.stria. This whim had arisen from 
the circumstance that the first Silesian war 
was just begun ; and some such anagram, 
reckoned very happy, had appeared in a news- 
paper.* No one of us knew so much as 
what an anagram was ; even the rector looked 
quite perplexed. As none answered, the lat- 
ter began to give us a description of anagrams 
in general. I set myself to work, and sprang 
forth with my discovery, Vastari ! 'i'his was 
something different from the newspaper one : 
so much the greater was our superintendent's 
admiration, and the more as the successful as- 
pirant was a little boy, on the lowest bench of 
the sei:u)icla. He growled out his applause to 
me, but at the same time set the whole school 
about my ears, as he stoutly upbraided them 
with being beaten by an oifimus. 

"Enough ! this pedantic adventure gave the 
first impulse to the development of my powers. 
I began to take some credit to myself, and in 
spite of all the oppression and contempt in 
which I languished, to resolve on struggling 
forward. This first struggle was in truth in- 
effectual enough ; was soon regarded as a 
piece of pride and conceitediiess ; it brought 
on me a thousand humiliations and disquie- 
tudes ; at times it might degenerate on my 
part into defiance. Nevertheless, it kept me 
at the stretch of my diligence, ill-guided as it 
was, and withdrew me from the company of 
my class-fellows, among whom, as among 
children of low birth and bad nurture could 
not fail to be the case, the utmost coarseness 
and boorishness of every sort prevailed. The 
plan of these schools does not include any 
general inspection, but limits itself to mere in- 
tellectual instruction. 

"Yet on all hands," continues he, "I found 
myself too sadly hampered. The perverse 
way in which the old parson treated me: at 
home the discontent and grudging of my pa- 
rents, especially of my father, who could not 
get on with his work, and still thought, that 
had I kept by his way of life, he might now 
have had some help ; the pressure of want, 
the feeling of being behind every other; all 
this would allow no cheerful thought, no sen- 
timent of worth, to spring up within me. A 
timorous, bashful, awkward carriage shut me 
■out still further from all exterior attractions. 



*As yet Saxony was against Austria, not, as in the 
find, allied with her. 



Where could I learn good manners, eleganse, 
a right way of thought 1 where could I attain 
any culture for heart and spirit. 

"Upwards,howevcr, I still strove. A feeling 
of honour, a wish for something better, an effort 
to work myself out of this abasement, inces- 
santly attended me ; but without direction as it 
was, it led me rather to sullenness, misanthropy, 
and clownishness. 

"At length a place opened for me, where 
some training in these points lay within my 
reach. One of our senators took his mother- 
in-law home to live with him ; she had still two 
children with her, a son and a daughter, both 
about my own age. For the son private les- 
sons were wanted; and happily I was chosen 
for the purpose. 

" As thes§ private hours brought me in a gul- 
ik)\ monthly, I now began to defend myself a 
little against the grumbling of my parents. 
Hitherto I had been in the habit of doing work 
occasionally, that I might not be told how I was 
eating their bread for nothing ; clothes, and oil 
for my lamp, I had earned by teaching in the 
house ; these things I could now relinquish : 
and thus my condition was in some degree im- 
proved. On the other hand, I had now oppor- 
tunity of seeing persons of better education. I 
gained the goodwill of the family; so that be- 
sides the lesson-hours I generally lived there. 
Such society afforded me some culture, ex- 
tended my conceptions and opinions, and also 
polished a little the rudeness of my exterior." 

In this senatorial house he must have been 
somewhat more at ease; for he now very pri- 
vately fell in love with his pupil's sister, and 
made and burnt many Greek and I-atin verses 
in her praise ; and had sweet dreams of some- 
time rising "so high as to be worthy of her." 
Even as matters stood, he acquired her friend- 
ship and that of her mother. But the grand con- 
cern for (he present was how to get to college at 
Leipzig. Old Sebastian had promised to stand 
goad on this occasion ; and unquestionably 
would have done so with the greatest pleasure, 
had it cost him nothing; but he promised and 
promised, without doing aught; above all, 
without putting his hand in his pocket; and 
elsewhere there was no hope or resource. At 
length, wearied perhaps with the boy's impor- 
tunity, he determined to bestir himself; and so 
directed his assistant, who was just making a 
journey to Leipzig, to show Heyne the road ; 
the two arrived in perfect safety: Heyne still 
longing after cash, for of his own he had only 
two f^vldvn, about five shillings ; but the assist- 
ant left him in a lodging house, and went his 
way, saying he had no farther orders ! 

The miseries of a poor scholar's life were 
now to be Heyne's portion in full measure. Ill- 
clothed, totally destitute of books, with five 
shillings in his purse, he found himself set 
down in the Leipzig university, to study all 
learning. Despondency at first overmastered 
the poor boy's heart, and he sunk into sick- 
ness, from which indeed he recovered ; but 
only, as he says, "to fall into conditions of life 
where he became the prey of desperation." 
How he contrived to exist, much more to study, 
is scarcely apparent from this narrative. The 
unhappy old Sebastian did at length send him 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



11? 



some pittance, and at rare intervals repeated 
the dole ; yet ever with his own peculiar grace ; 
not till after unspeakable solicitations; in 
quantities that were consumed by inextinguish- 
able debt, and coupled with sour admonitions ; 
nay, on one occasion addressed externally, "^ 
Mr. Heync, Etuuiant negligeant." For half 
a year he would leave him without all help ; then 
promise to come, and see what he was doing: 
come accordingly, and return without leaving 
him a penny ; neither could the destitute youth 
ever obtain any public furtherance ; no frcytisch 
(free-table) or siipendium was to be procured. 
Many times he had no regular meal ; " often 
not three-halfpence for a loaf at mid-day." He 
longed to be dead, for his spirit was often sunk 
in the gloom of darkness. " One good heart 
alone," says he, "I found, and that in the ser- 
vant girl of the house whei'e I lodged. She laid 
out money for my most pressing necessities, 
and risked almost all she had, seeing me in 
such frightful want. Could I but find thee in 
the world even now, thou good pious soul, that 
I might repay thee what thou then didst for 
me !" 

Heyne declares it to be still a mystery to him 
how he stood all this. " What carried me for- 
ward," continues he, "was not ambition; my 
youthful dream of one day taking a place, or 
aiming to take one. among the learned. It is 
true, the bitter feeling of debasement, of defi- 
ciency in education and external polish ; the 
consciousness of awkwardness in social life, 
incessantly accompanied me. But my chief 
strength lay in a certain defiance of fate. This 
gave me courage not to yield ; everywhere to 
try to the uttermost whether I was doomed 
without remedy never to rise from this degra- 
dation." 

Of order in his studies there could be little 
expectation. He did not even know what pro- 
fession he was aiming after; old Sebastian 
was for theology; and Heyne, though himself 
averse to it, affected, and only affected to com- 
ply; besides he had no money to pay class fees : 
it was only to open lectures, or at most to ill- 
guarded class-rooms that he could gain admis- 
sion. Of this ill-guarded sort was Winkler's ; 
into which poor Heyne insinuated himself to 
hear philosoph)-. Alas ! the first problem of 
all philosophy, the keeping of soul and body 
together, was wellnigh too hard for him. Wink- 
ler's students were of a riotous description, ac- 
customed, among other improprieties, to srfinr- 
ren, scraping with the feet. One day they chose 
to receive Heyne in this fashion; and he could 
not venture back. "Nevertheless," adds he, 
simply enough, "the beadle came to me some- 
time afterwards, demanding the fee: I had my 
own shifts to take before I could raise it." 

Ernesti was the only teacher from whom 
he derived any benefit: the man, indeed, whose 
influence seems to have shaped the whole sub- 
sequent course of his studies. By dint of ex- 
cessive endeavours he gained admittance to 
Ernesti's lectures ; and here first learned, 
says Heeren, " what interpretation of the clas- 
sics meant." One Crist also, a strange, fan- 
tastic Sir Plume of a Professor, who built much 
on taste, elegance of manners, and the like, 
iook some notice of him, and procured him a 



little employment as a private teacher. This 
might be more useful than his advice to imi- 
tate Scaliger, and read the ancients so as to 
begin with the most ancient, and proceed regu- 
larly to the latest. Small service il can do abed- 
rid man to convince him that waltzing is prefera- 
ble to quadrilles ! " Crist's Lectures," says he, 
" were a tissue of endless digressions, which, 
however, now and then contained excellent re- 
marks." 

But Heyne's best teacher was himself. No 
pressure -of distresses, no want of books, ad- 
visers, or encouragement, not hunger itself 
could abate his resolute perseverance. What 
books he could come at he borrowed; and such 
was his excess of zeal in reading, that for a 
whole half year he allowed himself only two 
nights' sleep in the week, till at last a fever 
obliged him to be more moderate. His dili- 
gence was undirected, or ill-directed, but it 
never rested, never paused, and must at length 
prevail. Fortune had cast him into a cavern, 
and he was groping darkly round ; but the pri- 
soner was a giant, and would at length burst 
forth as a giant into the light of day. Heyne, 
without anyclear aim, almost without any hope 
had set his heart on attaining knowledge; a 
force, as of instinct, drove him on, and no 
promise and no threat could turn him back. It 
was at the very depth of his destitution, when 
he had not " three groschcn for a loaf to dine on," 
that he refused a tutorship, with handsome 
enough appointments, but which was to have re- 
moved him from the University. Crist had sent 
for him one Sunday, and made him the pro- 
posal : " There arose a violent struggle within 
me," says he, "which drove me to and fro for 
several days; to this hour it is incomprehen- 
sible to me where I found resolution to deter- 
mine on renouncing the ofler, and pursuing 
my object in Leipzig." A man with a half 
volition goes backwards and forwards, and 
makes no way on the smoothest road ; a man 
with a whole volition advances on the rough- 
est, and will reach his purpose if there be a 
little wisdom in it. 

With his first two years' residence in Leip- 
zig, Heyne's personal narrative terminates; 
not because the nodus of the history had been 
solved then, and his perplexities cleared up, 
but simply because he had not found time to 
relate iurther. A long series of straitened hope- 
less davs were yet appointed him. By Ernes- 
ti's or (Jrist's recommendation, he occasionally 
got employment in giving private lessons; at 
one Time, "he worked as secretary and classical 
hodman to " Cruscius, the philosopher," who 
felt a little rusted in his Greek and Latin; 
everywhere he found the scantiest accommo- 
dation, and, shifting from side to side in dreary 
vicissitudes of want, had to spin out an exist- 
ence, warmed by no ray of comfort, except the 
fire that burnt or smouldered unquenchably 
within his own bosom. However, he had now 
chosen a profession, that of law, at which, as 
at many other brandies of learning, he was 
labouring with his old diligence. Of prefer- 
ment in this province there was, for the pre- 
sent, little or no hope; but this was no new- 
thing with Heyne. By degrees, too, his fine 
talents and endeavours, and his perverse situa- 



120 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tion, began to attract notice and sympathy ; 
and here and there some well-wisher had his 
eye on him, and stood ready to do him a ser- 
vice. Two and twenty years of penury and 
joyless struggling had now passed over the 
man ; how many more such might be added 
was still uncertain ; yet, surely, the longest 
winter is followed by a spring. 

Another trifling incident, little better than 
that old " pedantic adventure," again brought 
about important changes in Heyne's situation. 
Among his fav^ourers in Leipzig had been the 
preacher of a French chapel, one Lacoste, who, 
at this time, was cut otf by death. Heyne, it 
is said, in the real sorrow of his heart, com- 
posed a long Latin Epicedium on that occa- 
sion; the poem had nowise been intended for 
the press; but certain hearers of the deceased 
were so pleased with it, that they had it print- 
ed, and this in the finest style of typography 
and decoration. It was this latter circum- 
stance, not the merit of the verses, which is 
said to have been considerable, that attracted 
the attention of Count Briihl, the well-known 
prime-minister and favourite of the Elector. 
Briihl's sons were studying in Leipzig ; he was 
pleased to express himself contented with the 
poem, and to say, that he should like to have 
the author in his service. A prime minister's 
words are not as water spilt upon the ground, 
which cannot be gathered; but rather as hea- 
venly manna, which is treasured up and eaten, 
not without a religious sentiment. Heyne was 
forthwith written to from all quarters, that his 
fortune was made : he had but to show him- 
self in Dresden, said his friends, with one 
voice, and golden showers from the ministerial 
cornucopia would refresh him almost to satu- 
ration. For, was not the Count taken with 
him ; and who in all Saxony, not excepting Se- 
rene Highness itself, could gainsay the Count? 
Over-persuaded, and against his will, Heyne 
at length determined on the journey; for which, 
as an indispensable preliminary, " fifty-one Ihn- 
lers" had to be borrowed ; and so, following this 
hopeful quest, he actually arrived at Dresden 
in April, 1752. Count Briihl received him 
with the most captivating smiles ; and even 
assured him in words, that he. Count Briihl, 
Avould take care of him. But a prime minis- 
ter has so much to take care of! Heyne 
danced attendance all spring and summer, 
happier than our Johnson, inasmuch as he had 
not to " blow his fingers in a cold lobby," the 
weather being warm; and obtained not only 
promises, but useful experience of their value 
at courts. 

He was to be made a secretary, with five hun- 
dred, with four hundred, or even with three hun- 
dred thalers, of income: only, in the meanwhile, 
his old stock of " fifty-one" had quite run out, 
and he had nothing to live upon. By great good 
luck, he procured some employment in his old 
craft, private teaching, which helped him 
through the winter; but as this ceased, he re- 
mained without resources. He tried working 
for the booksellers, and translated a French 
romance and a Greek one, Chariton's Loves of 
Chareas and Callirhoe ; however, his emolu- 
ments would scarcely furnish him with salt, 
not to speak of victuals. He sold his few 



books. A licentiate in divinity, one Sonntag, 
took pity on his houselessness, and shared a 
garret with him ; where, as there was no un- 
occupied bed, Heyne slept on the floor, with a 
few folios for his pillow. So fared he as to 
lodging : in regard to board, he gathered empty 
pease-cods, and had them boiled; this was not 
uiifrequently his only meal. — 0, ye poor naked 
wretches ! what would Bishop Watson say to 
this1 — At length, by dint of incredible solicita- 
tions, Heyne, in the autumn of 1753, obtained, 
not his secretaryship, but the post of under- 
clerk, (copist) in the Briihl Librar}', with one 
hundred //io/c;-s of 'salary; a sum barely suffi- 
cient to keep in life, which, indeed, was now a 
great point with him. In such sort was this 
young scholar " taken care of." 

Nevertheless, it was under these external 
circumstances that he first entered on his pro- 
per career, and forcibly made a place for him- 
self among the learned men of his day. In 
1754, he prepared his edition of Tibullus, which 
was printed next year at Leipzig;* a work 
said to exhibit remarkable talent, inasmuch as 
" the rudiments of all those excellences, by 
which Heyne afterwards became distinguished 
as a commentator on the classics, are more or 
less apparent in it." The most illustrious 
Henry Count von Briihl, in spite of the dedi- 
cation, paid no regard to this Tibullus; as in- 
deed Germany at large paid little ; but, in an- 
other country, it fell into the hands of Rhunken, 
where it was I'ightly estimated, and lay wait- 
ing, as in due season appeared, to be the pledge 
of better fortune for its author. 

Meanwhile the day of difficulty for Heyne 
was yet far from past. The profits of his Ti- 
bullus served to cancel some debts ; on the 
strength of his hundred thalcrs, the spindle of 
Clotho might still keep turning, though lan- 
guidly; but, ere long, new troubles arose. His 
superior in the library was one Rost, a poetas- 
ter, atheist, and gold-maker, who corrupted his 
religious principles, and plagued him with 
caprices : Over the former evil Heyne at length 
triumphed, and became a rational Christian ; 
but the latter was an abiding grievance ; not, 
indeed, for ever, for it was removed by a 
greater. In 1756, the Seven Years' War broke 
out; Frederic advanced towards Dresden, ani- 
mated with especial fury against Briihl ; whose 
palaces accordingly were in a few months re- 
duced to ashes, as his 70,000 splendid volumes 
were annihilated by fire and by water,f and all 
his domestics and dependents turned to the 
street without appeal. 

Heyne had lately been engaged in studying 
Epictetus, and publishing, adfidcm Codd. Miispt., 
an edition of his Enchiridion ;t from which, 
quoth Heeren, his great soul had acquired 
much stoical nourishment. Such nourish- 



* ^Ibii Tibulli qiie extant Carmina, novis Curis casfi- 
g-ata. Illui:tri?><imo Domino Henrico Comiti de Briihl 
Ivscripta Lipaiir;, 1755. 

t One rich carso, on its way to Hambure, sank in the 
Ellie ; another still more valuable portion had been, for 
safety, deposited in a vatilt. through which passed cer- 
tain "pipes of artifiiial waterworks; these the cannon 
broke, and, when the vault came to be opened, all was 
reduced to pulp and mould. The bomb-shells burnt the 
reniainder. 

JLipsise, 1756. The Codices, or rather the Codex, was 
in Briihl's library. 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



121 



ment never comes wrong in life; and, surely, 
at Ihis time Heyne had need of it all. How- 
ever, he struggled as he had been wont: trans- 
lated pamphlets, sometimes wrote newspaper 
articles ; eat, when he had wherewithal, and 
resolutely endured when he had not. By and 
by, Rabener, to whom he was a little known, 
offered him a tutorship in the family of a Herr 
von Schijuberg, which Heyne, not without re- 
luctance, accepted. Tutorships were at all 
times his aversion ; his rugged plebeian proud 
spirit made business of that sort grievous ; but 
want stood over him, like an armed man, and 
was not to be reasoned with. 

In this Schbuberg family, a novel and un- 
expected series of fortunes awaited him; but 
whether for weal or for wo might still be hard 
to determine. The name of Theresa Weiss 
has become a sort of classical word in biogra- 
phy ; her union with Heyne forms, as i't were, 
a green cypress-and-myrtle oasis in his other- 
wise hard and stony history. It was here that 
he first met with her ; that they learned to love 
each other. She was the orphan of a " profes- 
sor on the lute;" had long, amid poverty and 
afflictions, been trained, like the Stoics, to bear 
and forbear; was now in her twenty-seventh 
year, and the humble companion, as she had 
once been the school-mate, of the Frau von 
Schouberg, whose young brother Heyne had 
come to teach. Their first interview may be 
described in his own words, which Hereen is 
here again happily enabled to introduce. 

" It was on the 10th of October, (her future 
death-day !) that I first entered the Schbuberg 
house. Towards what mountains of mis- 
chances was I now proceeding ! To what 
endless tissues of good and evil hap was the 
thread here taken up ! Could I fancy that at 
this moment Providence was deciding the 
fortune of my life ! I was ushered into a 
room, where sat several ladies engaged, with 
gay youthful sportiveness, in friendly confi- 
dential talk. Frau von Schuuberg, but lately 
married, yet at this time distant from her hus- 
band, was preparing for a journey to him at 
Prague, where his business detained him. On 
her brow still beamed the pure innocence of 
youth; in her eyes you saw a glad soft vernal 
sky ; a smiling loving complaisance accompa- 
nied her discourse. This, too, seemed one of 
those souls, clear and uncontaminated as they 
come from the hands of their Maker. By reason 
of her brother, in her tender lov^e of him, I must 
have been, to her, no unimportant guest. 

" Beside her stood a young lady, dignified in 
aspect, of fair, slender shape, not regular in 
feature, yet soul in every glance. Her words, 
her looks, her every movement, impressed 
you with respect, — another sort of respect than 
what was paid to rank and birth. Good sense. 
good feeling disclosed itself in all she did. 
You forgot that more beauty, more softness, 
might have been demanded ; you felt yourself 
under the influence of something noble, some- 
thing stately and earnest, something decisive 
that lay in her look, in her gestures; not less 
attracted to her, than compelled to reverence 
her. 

"More than esteem, the first sight of Theresa 
did not inspire me with. What I noticed most 
16 



were the eflx)rts she made to relieve my em- 
barrassment, the fruit of my down-bent pride, 
and to keep me, a stranger, entering among 
familiar acquaintances, in easy conversation. 
Her good heart reminded her how much the 
unfortunate requires encouragement; espe- 
cially when placed, as I was, among those to 
whose protection he must look up. Thus was 
my first kindness for her awakened by that 
good-heartedness, which made her, among 
thousands, a beneficent angel. She was one 
at this moment to myself; for I twice received 
letters from an unknown hand, containing 
monev, which greatly alleviated my diflicul- 
ties. 

"In a few days, on the 14th of October, I 
commenced my task of instruction. Her I did 
not see again till the following spring, when 
she returned with her friend from Prague ; 
and then only once or twice, as she soon ac- 
companied Frau von Schouberg to the coun- 
try, to Ji^nsdorf, in Oberlausitz (Upper Lusa- 
tia.) They left us, after it had been settled 
that I was to follow them in a few days with 
my pupil. My young heart joyed in the pro- 
spect of rural pleasures, of which I had, from 
of old, cherished a thousand delightful dreams. 
I still remember the 6th of May, when we set 
out for .■Ensdorf. 

"The society of two cultivated females, who 
belonged to the noblest of their sex, and the 
endeavours to acquire their esteem, contributed 
to form my own character. Nature and reli- 
gion were the objects of my daily contempla- 
tion ; I began to act and live on principles, of 
which, till now, I had never thought: these, 
too, formed the subject of our constant dis- 
course. Lovely nature and solitude exalted 
our feelings to a pitch of pious enthusiasm. 

" Sooner than I, Theresa discovered that her 
friendship for me was growing into a passion. 
Her natural melancholy now seized her heart 
more keenly than ever: often our glad hours 
were changed into very gloomy and sad ones. 
Whenever our conversation chanced to turn 
on religion, (she was of the Roman Catholic 
faith,) I observed that her grief became more 
apparent. I noticed her redouble her devo- 
I tions ; and sometimes found her in solitude, 
weeping and praying with such a fulness of 
heart as I had never seen." 

Theresa and her lover, or at least beloved, 
were soon separated, and for a long while kept 
much asunder; partly by domestic arrange- 
ments, still more by the tumults of war. Heyne 
attended his pupil to the Wittenberg Univer- 
sity, and lived there a year; studying for his 
own behoof, chiefly in philosophy and German 
history, and with more profit, as he says, than 
of old. Theresa and he kept up a corres- 
pondence, which often passed into melancholy 
and enthusiasm. The Prussian cannon drove 
him out of Wittenberg: his pupil and he wit- 
nessed the bombardment of the place from the 
neighbourhood; and, having waited till their 
University became "a heap of rubbish," had 
to retire elsewhere for accommodation. The 
I young man subsequently went to Erlangen^ 
then to Gottingen. Heyne remained again 
j without employment, alone in Dresden. The- 
1 resa was living in his neighbourhood, lovely 



122 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and sad as ever; bftt a new bombardment 
drove her also lo a distance. She left her Jillie 
property with Heyne, who removed it to his 
lodging, and determined to abide the Prussian 
siege, having indeed no other resource. The 
sack of cities looks so well on paper, that we 
must find a little space here for Heyne's ac- 
count of his experience in this business; 
though it is none of the brightest accounts; 
and indeed contrasts but poorly with Rabe- 
ner's brisk sarcastic narrative of the same 
adventure; for he, too, was cannonaded out of 
Dresden at this time, and lost house and home, 
and books and manuscripts, and all but good 
humour. 

"The Prussians advanced meanwhile, and 
on the 18th of July, (1760,) the bombardment 
of Dresden began. Several nights I passed, in 
company with others, in a tavern, and the days 
in my room ; so that I could hear the bails 
from the battery, as they flew through the 
street, whizzing past my windows. An indif- j 
ference to danger and to life took such posses- 
sion of me, that on the last morning of the 
siege, I went early to bed, and, amid the fright- 
fullest crashing of bombs and grenades, fell 
fast asleep of fatigue, and lay .■sound till mid- 
day. On awakening, I huddled on my clothes, 
and ran down stairs, but found the whole 
house deserted. I had returned to my room, 
considering what I was to do, whither, at all 
events, I was to take my chest, when with a 
tremendous crash, a bomb came down in the 
court of the house; did not, indeed, set fire to 
it, but, on all sides, shattered every thing lo 
pieces. The thought, that where one bomb 
fell more would soon follow, gave me wings; 
I darted down stairs, found the house-door 
locked, ran to and fro ; at last got entrance into 
one of the under-rooms, and sprung through 
the window into the street. 

" Empty as the street where I lived had been, 
I found the principal thoroughfares crowded 
with fugitives. Amidst the whistling of balls, 
I ran along the Schlossgasse towards the 
Elbe-Bridge, and so forward to the Neustadt, 
out of which the Prussians had now been 
forced to retreat. Glad that I had leave to rest 
anywhere, I passed one part of the night on 
the floor of an empty house ; the other, witness- 
ing the frightful light of flying bombs, and a 
burning city. 

" At break of day, a little postern was opened 
by the Austrian guard, to let the fugitives get 
out of the walls. The captain in his insolence 
called the people Lutheran dogs, and with this 
nick-name gave each of us a stroke as we 
passed through the gate. 

" I was now at large ; and the thought, 
whither bound? began for the first time to 
■emplo}"^ me. As I had run, indeed leapt from 
my house, in the night of terror, I had carried 
with me no particle of my property, and not a 
grosrhcn of money. Only in hurrying along 
the street, I had chanced to see a tavern open 
(it was an Italian's) where I used to pass the 
nights. Here espying a fur-cloak, I had picked 
it up, and thrown it about me. With this I 
walked along, in one of the sultriest days, from 
the Neustadt, over the sand and the moor; and 
took the road for ^nsdorf, where Theresa 



with her friend was staying: the mother-in- 
law of the latter being also on a visit to them. 
In the fiercest heat of the sun, through tracts 
of country silent and deserted, I walked four 
leagues to Bischopfwerda, where I had to 
sleep in an inn among carriers. Towards mid- 
night arrived a postilion with return horses; 
I asked him to let me ride one; and with him 
I proceeded, till my road turned off' from the 
highway. All day, I heard the shots at poor 
Dresden re-echoing in the hills. 

"Curiosity at first made my reception at 
^nsdorf very warm. But as I came to appear 
in the light of an altogether destitute man, the 
family could see in me only a future burden : 
no invitations to continue with them followed. 
In a few days came a chance of conveyance, 
by a wagon for Neustadt, to a certain Frau von 
Fletscher a fevi miles on this side of it; I was 
favoured with some old linen for the road. The 
good Theresa suffered unspeakably under these 
proceedings: the noble lady, her friend, had 
not been allowed to act according to the dic- 
tates of her own heart. 

" Not till now did I feel wholly how misera- 
ble I was ! Spurning at destiny, and hardening 
my heart, I entered on this journey. With the 
Frau von Fletscher too my abode was brief; 
and by the first opportunity I returned to 
Dresden. There was still a possibility that 
my lodging might have been saved. With 
heavy heart I entered the city ; hastened to the 
place where I had lived, and found — a heap 
of ashes."' 

Heyne took up his quarters in the vacant 
rooms of the Briihl Library. Some friends 
endeavoured to alleviate his distress; but war 
and rumors of war continued to harass him 
and drive him to and fro; and his Theresa, 
afterwards also a fugitive, was now as poor as 
himself. She heeded little the loss of her pro- 
perty ; but inward sorrow and so many out- 
ward agitations preyed hard upon her; in the 
winter she fell violently sick at Dresden, was 
given up by her physicians; received extreme 
unction according to the rites of her church; 
and was for some hours believed to be dead. 
Nature however, again prevailed : a crisis had 
occuired in the mind as well as in the body; 
for with her first returning strength, Theresa 
declared her determination to renounce the 
Catholic, and publicly embrace the Protestant 
faith. Argument, representation of worldly 
disgrace and loss were unavailing; she could 
now, that all her friends were to be estranged, 
have little hope of being wedded to Heyne on 
earth ; but she trusted that in another scene a 
like creed might unite them in a like destiny. 
He himself fell ill; and only escaped death by 
her nursing. Persisting the more in her pur- 
pose, she took priestly instruction, and on the 
20th of May, in the Evangelical Schlosskirche, 
solemnly professed her new creed. 

"Reverent admiration filled me," says he, 
"as I beheld the peace and steadfastness with 
which she executed her determination ; and 
still more the courage with which she bore the 
consequences of it. She saw herself altogether 
cast out from her family: forsaken by her 
acquaintance, by every one; and by the fire 
deprived of all she had. Her courage exaJtf'd 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



123 



me to a higher duty, and admonished me to do 
mine. Imprudently I had, in former conversa- 
tions, first awakened her religious scruples; 
the passion for me, which had so much in- 
creased her enthusiasm, increased her melan- 
choly; even the secret thought of belonging 
more closely to me by sameness of belief had 
unconsciously influenced her. In a word, I 
formed the determination which could not but 
expose me to universal censure: helpless as 
I was, I united my destiny with hers. We 
were wedded at J3nsdorf, on the 4th of June, 
1761." 

This was a bold step, but a right one : The- 
resa had now no stay but him ; it behoved them 
to struggle, and if better might not be, to sink 
together. Theresa, in this narrative, appears 
to us a noble, interesting being; noble not in 
sentiment only, but in action and suffering; a 
fair flower trodden down by misfortune, but 
yielding, like flowers, only the sweeter per- 
fume for being crushed, and which it would 
have been a blessedness to raise up and 
cherish into free growth. Yet, in plain prose, 
we must question whether the two were hap- 
pier than others in their union ; both were 
quick of temper ; she was all a heavenly light, 
he in good part a hard terrestrial mass, which 
perhaps she could never wholly illuminate; the 
balance of the love seems to have lain much 
on her side. Nevertheless Heyne was a stead- 
fast, true, and kindly, if no ethereal man ; he 
seems to have loved his wife honestly ; and 
so amid light and shadow they made their 
pilgrimage together, if not better than other 
mortals, not worse, which was to have been 
feared. 

Neither, for the present, did the pressure of 
■distress weigh heavier on either than it had 
done before. He worked diligently, as he 
found scope, for his old Maecenases, the Book- 
sellers; the war-clouds grew lighter, or at least 
the young pair got better used to them ; friends 
also were kind, often assisting and hospitably 
entertaining them. On occasion of such a visit 
to the family of a Herr von Lbben, there oc- 
curred a little trait, which, for the sake of 
Theresa, must not be omitted. Heyne and she 
had spent some happy weeks with their infant, 
in this country-house, when the alarm of war 
drove the Von Lbbens from their residence, 
which with the management of its concerns 
they left to Heyne. He says he gained some 
notion of "land-economy " truly ; and Heeren 
states that he had a candle-manufactory to 
oversee. 

But to our incident. 

'' Soon after the departure of the family, 
there came upon us an irruption of Cossacks, 
(disguised Prussians, as we subsequently 
learned.) After drinking to intoxication in 
the cellars, they set about plundering. Pursued 
by them, I ran up stairs, and no door being 
open but that of the room where my wife was 
with her infant, I rushed into it. She arose 
courageously, and placed herself, with the 
child on her arm, in the door against the rob- 
bers. This courage saved me, and the treasure 
which lay hidden in the chamber." 

" O thou Lioness !" said Attila Schmelzle, 
en occasion of a similar rescue, " why hast 



thou never been in any deadly peril, that I 
might show thee the lion in thy husband?" 

But better days were dawning. " On our 
return to Dresden," says Heyne, " I learned 
that inquiries had been made after me from 
Hanover ; I knew not for what reason." The 
reason by and by came to light. Gessner, 
Professor of Eloquence in Gottingen, was 
dead : and a successor was wanted. These 
things, it would appear, cause difficulties in 
Hanover, which in many other places are little 
felt. But the Prime Minister Miinchhausen 
had as good as founded the Georgia Augusta 
himself; and he was wont to watch over it 
with singular anxiety. The noted and notori- 
ous Klotz was already there, as assistant to 
Gessner, "but his beautiful latinity," says 
Heeren, "did not dazzle Miinchhausen; so 
Klotz, with his pugnacity, was not thought 
of." The Minister applied to Ernesti for ad- 
vice: Ernesti knew of no fit men in Germany, 
but recommended Rhunken of Leyden, orSaxe 
of Utrecht. Rhunken refused to leave his 
country, and added these words: "But why 
do you seek out of Germany, what Germany 
itself offers youl why not, for Gessner's suc- 
cessor, take Christian Gottlob Heyne, that true 
pupil of Ernesti, and man of fine talent, (ex- 
ccllenti virum ingenio,) who has shown how 
much he knows of Latin literatn;e by his 
Tibullus; of Greek, by his Epictetus ! In my 
opinion, and that of the greatest Hemsterhuis 
(Hemsterhusii tou Trdvu,) Heyne is the only one 
that can replace your Gessner. Nor let any 
one tell me that Heyne's fame is not sufficient- 
ly illustrious and extended. Believe me, there 
is in this man such a richness of genius and 
learning, that ere long ail Europe will ring 
with his praises." 

This courageous and generous verdict of 
Rhunken's, in favour of a person as yet little 
known to the world, and to him known only 
by his writings, decided the matter. " Miinch- 
hausen," says our Heeren, "believed in the 
boldly prophesying man." Not without dif- 
ficulty Heyne was unearthed; and after various 
excuses on account of competence on his part, 
— for he had lost all his books and papers in 
the siege of Dresden, and sadly forgotten his 
Latin and Greek in so many tumults, — and 
various prudential negotiations about dismis- 
sion from the Saxon service, and salary, and 
privilege in the Hanoverian, he at length 
formally received his appointment; and some 
three months after, in June 176.3, settled in. 
Gottingen, with an official income of eight 
hundred thahrs, which, it appears, was by 
several additions, in the course of time, in- 
creased to twelve hundred. 

Here then had Heyne at last got to land. 
His long life was henceforth as quiet and 
fruitful in activity and comfort as the past 
period of it had been desolate and full of sor- 
rows. He never left Gottingen, though fre- 
quently mvited to do so, and sometimes with 
highly tempting offers ;* but continued in his 

* He was invited successively to be Professor at Cas- 
scl, and at Klosterherjten ; to be Librarian at Dresden ; 
and, most flattering of all, to he Prokiiniler in the Uni- 
versity of Copenhagen, and virtual Director of Educa- 
tion over all Denmark. He had a struggle on this last 



124 



CARLYLE'S MrsCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



place, busy in his vocation; growing in in- 
fluence, in extent of connection at home and 
abroad; till Rhunken's prediction might almost 
be reckoned fulfilled to the letter ; for Heyne 
in his own department was without any equal 
in Europe. 

However, his history, from this point, even 
because it was so happy for himself, must lose 
most of its interest for the general reader. 
Heyne has now become a professor, and a 
regularl)' progi'essive man of learning; has a 
fixed household, his rents and comings in ; it 
is easy to fancy how that man might flourish 
in calm sunshine of prosperity, whom in ad- 
versity we saw growing in spite of every 
storm. Of his proceedings in Gbttingen, his 
reform of the Royal Society of Sciences, his 
editing of the Gelelirte Jlnzeigen (Gazette of 
Learning,) his exposition of the classics from 
Virgil to Pindar, his remodelling of the library, 
his passive quarrels with Voss, his armed 
neutrality with Michaelis ; of all this we must 
say little. The best fruit of his endeavours 
lies before the world, in a long series of works, 
which, among us, as well as elsewhere, are 
known and justly appreciated. On looking 
over them, the first thing that strikes us is 
astonishment at Heyne's diligence; which, 
considering the quantitj' and quality of his 
writings, might have appeared singular even in 
one who had been without other duties. Yet 
Heyne's office involved him in the most la- 
borious researches : he wrote letters by the 
hundred to all parts of the world, and on all 
conceivable subjects; he had three classes to 
teach daily; he appointed professors, for his 
recommendation was all-powerful ; superin- 
tended schools; for a long time the inspection 
of the Fmjtischc was laid on him, and he had 
cooks' bills to settle, and hungry students to 
satisfy with his purveyance. Besides all which, 
he accomplished, in the way of publication, as 
follows : 

In addition to his TibuUus and Epidctus, the 
first of which went through three, the second 
through two editions, each time with large 
extensions and improvements: 

His Virgil, (P. Vihgilius Maho Varietate 
Lectionis ct perpctvd Aimotationc illustratus,') in 
various forms, from 1767 to 1803; no fewer 
than six editions. 

His Pliny, {Ex C. Plinii Secundi Historia 
Naturali e.rcerjita, quas ad Aries speclant ;) two 
editions, 1790, 1811. 

His ApoUodorus, (Apollodort Athenicnsis 
BiblioiheccB Libri tres, &c. ;) two editions, 1787, 
1803. 

His Pindar, (Pindari Carmina, cum Lectionis 
Varietate, curuvit Ch. G. H.) three editions, 1774, 
1797, 1798, the last with the Scholia, the Frag- 
ments, a Translation, and Hermann's Enq. iJe 
Metris. 

His Conon and Parthenius, (Cononis Nnr- 
raliones et Parthestii Narrationes amatoricE,) 
1798. 

And lastly his Homer, (Homeri Ilias, cum 
brevi Annotationc ;) 8 volumes, 1802; and a 
second, contracted edition, in 2 volumes, 1804. 

occasion, but the Georgia Augusta again prevailed. 
Some increase of salary usually follows such refusals : 
it (lid not in this instance. 



Next, almost a cartload of Translations ; of 
which we shall mention only his version, (said 
to be with very important improvements,) of 
our Universal History, by Guthrie and Gray. 

Then some ten or twelve thick volumes of 
Prolusions, Eulogies, Essays; treating of all 
subjects, from the French Directoral to the 
Chest of Ctjprobis. Of these, six volumes are 
known in a separate shape, under the title of 
Opusrula : and contain some of Heyne's most 
valuable writings. 

And lastly, to crown the whole with one 
most surprising item, seven thousand five 
hundred (Heeren says from seven to eight 
thousand) Reviews of Books, in the Gottingen 
GeJchrtc jlnzeigen! Shame on us degenerate 
Editors ! Here of itself was work for a life- 
time ! 

To expect that elegance of composition 
should prevail in these multifarious per- 
formances were unreasonable enough. Heyne 
wrote very indifferent German; and his Latin, 
by much the more common vehicle in his 
learned works, flowed from him with a copious- 
ness which could not be Ciceronian. At the 
same time these volumes are not the folios of 
a Montfaucon, not mere classical ore and slag, 
but regularly melted metal, for most part ex- 
hibiting the essence, and only the essence of 
very great research, and enlightened by a philo- 
sophy, which, if it does not always wisely 
order its results, has looked far and deeply in 
collecting them. 

To have performed so much evinces on 
the part of Heyne no little mastership in 
the great art of husbanding time. Heeren 
gives us sufficient details on this subject ; ex- 
plains Heyne's adjustment of his hours and 
various occupations; how he rose at five 
o'clock, and worked all the day, and all the 
year, with the regularity of a steeple-clock; 
nevertheless, how patiently he submitted to 
interruptions from strangers, or extraneous 
business ; how, briefl^y, yet smoothly, he con- 
trived to despatch such interruptions ; how his 
letters were endorsed when they came to hand; 
and lay in a special drawer till they were 
answered: nay, we have a description of his 
whole " locality," his bureau and book-shelves 
and portfolios, his very bed and strong box 
are not forgotten. To the busy man, espe- 
cially the busy man of letters, these details are 
far from uninteresting; if we judged by the 
result, man}^ of Heyne's arrangements might 
seem worthy not of notice only, but of imita- 
tion. 

His domestic circumstances continued on 
the whole highly favourable for such activity; 
! though not now more than formerly were they 
exempted from the common lot; but still had 
\ several hard changes to encounter. In 1775, 
' he lost his Theresa after long ill-health ; an 
' event which, stoic as he was, struck heavily 
I and dolefully upon his heart. He forebore not 
! to shed some natural tears, though from eyes 
} little used to the melting mood. Nine days 
! after her death, he thus writes to a friend with 
' a" solemn, mournful tenderness, which none of 
I us will deny to be genuine: 

" I have looked upon the grave that covers 
1 the remains of my Theresa : what a thousand- 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



I3S 



fold pang, beyond the pitch of human feeling, 
pierced through my soul ! How did my limbs 
tremble as I approached this holy spot! Here, 
then, reposes what is left of the dearest that 
heaven gave me; among the dust of her four 
children she sleeps. A sacred horror covered 
the place. I should have sunk altogether in 
my sorrow, had it not been for my two daugh- 
ters that were standing on the outside of the 
church-yard ; I saw their faces over the wall, 
directed to me with anxious fear. This called 
me to myself; I hastened in sadness from the 
spot where I could have continued for ever: 
where it cheered me to think thai one day I 
should rest by her side ; rest from all the 
carking care, from all the griefs which so often 
have embittered to me the enjoyment of life. 
Alas ! among these griefs must I reckon even 
her love, the strongest, truest, that ever inspired 
the heart of woman, which may be the happiest 
of mortals, and yet was a fountain to me of a 
thousand distresses, inquietudes, and cares. 
To entire cheerfulness perhaps she never at- 
tained ; but for what unspeakable sweetness, 
for what exalted, enrapturing joys is not Love 
indebted to Sorrow? Amidst gnawing anxie- 
ties, with the torture of anguish in my heart, I 
have been made even by the love which caused 
me this anguish, these anxieties, inexpressibly 
happy ! When tears flowed over our cheeks, 
did not a nameless, seldom felt delight stream 
through my breast, oppressed equally by joy 
and by sorrow !" 

But Heyne was not a man to brood over 
past griefs, or linger long where nothing was 
to be done, but mourn. In a short time, ac- 
cording to a good old plan of his, having I 
reckoned up his grounds of sorrow, he fairly | 
wrote down on paper, over against them, his I 
"grounds of consolation;" ccmcluding with 
these pious words, " So for all these sorrows 
too, these trials, do I thank thee, my God ! And | 
now, glorified friend, will I again turn me with 
undivided heart to my duty; thou thyself 
smilest approval on me !" Nay, it was not 
many months before a new marriage came on 
the anvil, in which matter, truly, Heyne con- 
ducted himself with the most philosophic in- 
diflerence; leaving his friends, by whom the 
project had been started, to bring it to what 
issue they pleased. It was a scheme concerted 
by Zimmerman, (the author of Solitude, a man 
little known lo Heyne,) and one Reich, a Leip- 
zig bookseller, who had met at the Prymont 
Baths. Brandes, the Hanoverian Minister, 
successor of Miinchhausen in the manage- 
ment of the University concerns, was there 
also with a daughter; upon her, the projectors 
cast their eye. Heyne, being consulted, seems 
to have comported himself like clay in the 
hands of the potter; father and fair one, in 
like manner, were of a compliant humour, and 
thus was the business achieved; and on the 
9th of April, 1777, Heyne could take home 
a bride, won with less difficulty than most men 
have in choosing a pair of hoots. Neverthe- 
less, she proved an excellent wife to him; 
kept his house in the cheerfullest order ; ma- 
naged her step-children, and her own, like a 
true mother; and loved, and faithfully assisted 
her husband in whatever he undertook. Con- 



sidered in his private relations, such a man 
might well reckon himself fortunate. 

In addition to Heyne's claims as a scholar 
and teacher, Heeren would have us regard him 
as an unusually expert man of business and ne- 
gotiator, for which line of life he himself seems 
indeed to have thought that his talent was 
more peculiarly fitted. In proof of this, we 
have long details of his procedure in manag- 
ing the Library, the Royal Society, the Univer- 
sity generally, and his incessant, and often 
rather complex correspondence with Miinch- 
hausen, Brandes, or other ministers, who pre- 
sided over this department. Without detract- 
ing from Heyne's skill in such matters, what 
struck us more in this narrative of Heeren's 
was the singular contrast which the " Georgia 
Augusta," in its interior arrangement, as well 
as in its external relations to the Government, 
exhibits withourown universities. The prime 
minister of the country writes thrice weekly to 
the director of an institution for learning! He 
oversees all ; knows the character, not only of 
every professor, but of every pupil that gives 
any promise. He is continually purchasing 
books, drawings, models ; treating for this or 
the other help or advantage to the establish- 
ment. He has his eye over all Germany ; and 
nowhere does a man of any decided talent 
show himself, but he strains every nerve to 
acquire him. And seldom or ever can he suc- 
ceed ; for the Hanoverian assiduity seems 
nothing singular; every state in Germany has 
its minister for education, as well as Hanover. 
They correspond, they inquire, they negotiate; 
everywhere there seems a canvassing, less for 
places, than for the best men to fill them. 
Heyne himself has his Seminariuin, a private 
class of the nine most distinguished students 
in the university; these he trains with all dili- 
gence, and is in due time most probably en- 
abled, by his connections, to place in stations 
fit for them. A hundred and thirty-five pro- 
fessors are said to have been sent from this 
Seminarium during his presidency. These 
things we state without commentary : we be- 
lieve that the experience of all English, and 
Scotch, and Irish university-men will, of itself, 
furnish one. The state of education in Ger- 
many, and the structure of the establishments 
for conducting it, seems to us one of the most 
promising inquiries that could at this moment 
be entered on. 

But to return to Heyne : We have said, that 
in his private circumstances, he might reckon 
himself fortunate. His public relations, on a 
more splendid scale, continued, to the last, to 
be of the same happy sort. By degrees, he 
had risen to be, both in name and office, the 
chief man of his establishment; his character 
stood high with the learned of all countries; 
and the best fruit of external reputation, in- 
creased respect in his own circle, was not 
denied to him. The burghers of Gottingen, so 
fond of their University, could not but be proud 
of Heyne; nay, as the time passed on, they 
found themselves laid under more than one 
specific obligation to him. He remodelled and 
reanimated their gymnasium (town-school), as 
he had before done that of Ilfeld ; and what 
was still more important, in the rude times of 



126 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the French war, by his skilful application, he 
succeeded in procuring from Napoleon, not 
only a protection for the University, but im- 
munity from hostile invasion for the whole 
district it stands in. Nay, so happily were 
matters managed, or so happily did they turn 
of their own accord, that Gijltingen rather 
gained than suffered by the war : Under Jerome 
of Westphalia, not only were all benefices 
punctually paid, but improvements even were 
effected ; among other things, a new and very 
handsome extension, which had long been de- 
sired, was built for the library, at the charge 
of Government. To all these claims for public 
regard, add Heyne's now venerable age, and 
we can fancy how, among his townsmen and 
fellow-collegians, he must have been cherished, 
nay, almost worshipped. Already ha.d the 
magistracy, by a special act, freed him from 
all public assessments ; but, in 1809, on bis 
eightieth birth-day, came a still more emphatic 
testimony; for the Ritter Franz, and all the 
public boards, and the faculties, in rorporc, came 
to him in procession with good wishes ; and 
students reverenced him ; and young ladies 
sent him garlands, stitched together by their 
own fair fingers ; in short, Gottingen was a 
place of jubilee ; and good old Heyne, who 
nowise affected, yet could not dislike these 
things, was among the happiest of men. 

In another respect, we must also reckon him 
fortunate; that he lived till he had completed 
all his undertakings; and then departed peace- 
fully, and without sickness, from which, indeed, 
his whole life had been remarkably free. Three 
months before his death, in April, 1812, he saw 
the last volume of his works in print ; and re- 
joiced, it is said, with an affecting thankful- 
ness, that so much had been granted him. 
Length of life was not now to be hoped for; 
neither did Heyne look forward to the end with 
apprehension. His little German verses, and 
Latin translations, composed in sleepless 
nights, at this extreme period, are, to us, by far 
the most touching part of his poetry; so me- 
lancholy is the spirit of them, yet so mild ; 
solemn, not without a shade of sadness, yet 
full of pious resignation. At length came the 
end ; soft and gentle as his mother could have 
wished it for him. The 11th of July was a 
public day in the Royal Society ; Heyne did 
his part in it; spoke at large, and with even 
more clearness and vivacity than usual. 

" Next day," says Heeren, " was Sunday : I 
saw him in the evening, for the last time. He 
was resting in his chair, exhaitsted by the fa- 
tigue of yesterday. On Monday morning, he 
once more entered his class room, and held his 
Seminarium. In the afternoon he prepared his 
letters, domestic as well as foreign ; among 
the latter, one on business ; sealed them all but 
one, written in Latin, to Professor Thorlacius, 
in Copenhagen, which I found open, but finish- 
ed, on his death. At supper, (none but his 
elder daughter was with him,) he talked cheer- 
fully, and at his usual time retired to rest. In 
the night, the servant girl, that slept under his 
apartment, heard him walking up and down ; 
a common practice with him when he could 
not sleep. However, he had again gone to 
bed. Soon after five, he arose, as usual ; he 



joked with the girl when she asked him how 
he had been over-night. She left him, to make 
ready his coffee, as was her wont; and return- 
ing with it in a short quarter of an hour, she 
found him sunk down before his washing-stand, 
close by his work-table. His hands were wet; 
at the moment when he had been washing 
them, had death taken him into his arms. One 
breath more, and he ceased to live : when the 
hastening doctor opened a vein, no blood would 
flow." 

Heyne was interred with all public solemni- 
ties : and, in epicedial language, it may be 
said without much exaggeration, that his coun- 
try mourned for him. At Chemnitz, his birth- 
place, there assembled, under constituted au- 
thority, a grand meeting of the magistrates, to 
celebrate his memory; the old school-album, 
in which the little ragged boy had inscribed his 
name, was produced; grandiloquent speeches 
were delivered; and "in the afternoon, many 
hundreds went to see the poor cottage," where 
his father had weaved, and he starved and 
learned. How generous ! 

To estimate Heyne's intellectual character, 
to fix accurately his rank and merits as a critic 
and philologer, we cannot but consider as be- 
yond our province, and at any rate superflu- 
ous here. By the general consent of the learn- 
ed in all countries, he seems to be acknow- 
ledged as the first among recent scholars ; his 
immense reading, his lynx-eyed skill in expo- 
sition and emendation are no longer here con- 
troverted : among ourselves his taste in these 
matters has been praised by Gibbon, and by 
Parr pronounced to be "exquisite." In his 
own country, Heyne is even regarded as the 
founder of a new epoch in classical study; as 
the first who with any decisiveness attempted 
to translate fairly beyond the letter of the clas- 
sics ; to read in the writings of the ancients, 
not the language alone, or even their detached 
opinions and records, but their spirit and cha- 
racter, their way of life and thought; how the 
world and nature painted themselves to the 
mind in those old ages ; how, in one word, the 
Greeks and the Romans were men, even as we 
are. Such of our readers as have studied any 
one of Heyne's works, or even looked care- 
fully into the Lcclures of ihe Schlegels, the most 
ingenious and popular commentators of that 
school, will be at no loss to understand what 
we mean. 

By his inquiries into antiquity, especially by 
his laboured investigation of its politics and 
its mythology, Heyne is believed to have car- 
ried the torch of philosophy towards, if not 
into, the mysteries of old time. What Winkel- 
mann, his great contemporary did, or began to 
do, for ancient plastic art, the other, with equal 
success, began for ancient literature.* A high 



♦ It is a curious fact that these two men, so singularly 
correspondent in their early sufferings, subsequent dis- 
tinction, line of Etudy, and rucped enthusiasm of cha- 
racter, were at one lime, while both as yet were under 
the horizon, brought into partial contact. "An ac- 
quaintance of another sort," says Heeren, "the young 
Heyne was to make in the Brijhl Library, with a per- 
son whose importance he could not then anticipate. 
One frequent visitor of this establislmient was a certain 
almost wholly unknown man, whose visits could not he 
specially desirable for the librarians, such endless labour 
did he cost thera. He seemed insatiable iii reading; an* 



THE LIFE OF HEYNE. 



127 



praise, surely; yet, as we must think, one not 
unfounded, and which, indeed, in all parts of 
Europe, is becoming more and more confirmed. 
So much, in the province to which he de- 
voted his activity, is Heyne allowed to have 
accomplished. Nevertheless, we must not as- 
sert that, in point of understanding and spi- 
ritual endowment, he can be called a complete, 
or even, in strict speech, a great man. Won- 
derful perspicuity, unwearied diligence, are not 
denied him ; but to philosophic order, to clas- 
sical adjustment, clearness, polish, whether in 
word or thought, he seldom attains ; nay, many 
times, it must be avowed, he involves himself 
in tortures, long-winded verbosities, and stands 
before us little better than one of that old school 
which his admirers boast that he displaced. 
He appears, we might almost say, as if he had 
wings but could not well use them. Or, in- 
deed, it might be that, writing constantly in a 
dead language, he came to write heavily ; work- 
ing for ever on subjects where learned armor- 
at-all-points cannot be dispensed with, he at 
last grew so habituated to his harness that he 
would not walk abroad without it; nay per- 
haps it had rusted together, and amid not be 
unclasped ! A sad fate for a thinker ! Yet one 
which threatens many commentators, and over- 
takes many. 

As a man encrusted and encased, he exhi- 
bits himself, moreover, to a certain degree, in 
his moral character. Here too, as in his in- 
tellect, there is an awkwardness, a cumbrous 
inertness; nay, there is a show of dulness, of 
hardness, which nowise intrinsically belongs 
to him. He passed, we are told, for less reli- 
gious, less affectionate, less enthusiastic than 
he was. His heart, one would think, had no 
free course, or had found itself a secret one; 
outwardly he stands before us, cold and still, a 
very wall of rock ; yet within lay a well, from 
which, as we have witnessed, the stroke of 
some Moses'-wand (the death of a Theresa) 
could draw streams of pure feeling. Callous 
as a man seems to us, he has a sense for all 
natural beauty; a merciful sympathy for his 
fellow-men : his own early distresses never 
left his memory : for similar distresses his pity 
and help were at all times in store. This form 
of character may also be the fruit partly of 
his employments, partly of his sufferings, and, 



called for so many books, that his reception there grew 
rather of the coolest. It was Johann IVinkelmann. Me- 
ditating his journey for Italy, he was then laying; in pre- 
paration for it. Thus did these two men become, if not 
confidential, yet acquainted; who at that time, both still 
in darkness and poverty, could little suppose, that in a 
few years, they were to be the teachers of cultivated 
Europe, and the ornaments of their nation." 



perhaps, is not very singular among commen- 
tators. 

For the rest, Heeren assures us, that in prac- 
tice Hpyne was truly a good man ; altogether 
just; diligent in his own honest business, and 
ever ready to forward that of others ; com- 
passionate ; though quick-tempered, placable ; 
friendly, and satisfied with simple pleasures. 
He delighted in roses, and always kept a bou- 
quet of them in water on his desk. His house 
was embowered among roses; and in his old 
days he used to wander through the bushes 
with a pair of scissors. Farther, says Heeren, 
in spite of his short sight, he was fond of the 
fields and skies, and could lie for hours read- 
ing on the grass. A kindly old man ! With 
strangers, hundreds of whom visited him, he 
was uniformly courteous; though latterly, be- 
ing a little hard of hearing, less fit to converse. 
In society he strove much to be polite ; but 
had a habit (which ought to be general) of 
yawning, when people spoke to him and said 
nothing. 

On the whole, the Germans have some rea- 
son to be proud of Heyne; who shall deny 
that they have here once more produced a 
scholar of the right old stock ; a man to be 
ranked, for honesty of study and of life, with 
the Scaligers, the Bentleys, and old illustrious 
men, who, though covered with academic dust 
and harsh with polyglot vocables, were true 
men of endeavour, and fought like giants, with 
such weapons as they had, for the good cause? 
To ourselves, we onfess, Heyne, highly inte- 
resting for what he did, is not less but more so 
for what he was. This is another of the proofs, 
which minds like his arc from time to time 
sent hither to give, that the man is not the pro- 
duct of his circumstances, but that, in a far 
higher degree, the circumstances are the pro- 
duct of the man. While beneficed clerks and 
other sleek p'^losophers, reclining on their 
cushions of velvet, are demonstrating that to 
make a scholar and man of taste, there must 
be co-operation of the upper classes, society of 
gentlemen-commoners, and an income of four 
hundred a year ; — arises the son of a Chemnitz 
weaver, and with the very wind of his stroke 
sweeps them from the scene. Let no man 
doubt the omnipotence of Nature, doubt the 
majesty of man's soul ; let no lonely unfriended 
son of genius despair! Let him not despair; 
if he have the will, the right will, then the 
power also has not been denied him. It is but 
the artichoke that will not grow except in gar- 
dens ; the acorn is cast carelessly abroad into 
the wilderness, yet it rises to be an oak ; on the 
wild soil it nourishes itself, it defies the tempest;^ 
and lives for a thousand years. 



1S8 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



GERMAN playwrights; 



[Foreign Review, 1829.] 



In this stage of society, the playwright is as 
essential and acknowledged a character as the 
millwright, or cartwright, or any other wright 
whatever; neither can we see why, in general 
estimation, he should rank lower than these 
his brother artisans, except perhaps, for this 
one reason : that the former, working in timber 
and iron, for the wants of the body, produce a 
completely suitable machine, while the latter, 
working in thought and feeling, for the wants 
of the soul, produces a machine which is in- 
completely suitable. In other respects, we 
confess, we cannot perceive that the balance 
lies against him: for no candid man, as it 
seems to us, will doubt but the talent, which 
constructed a Virginius or a Ferlram, might 
have sufficed, had it been properly directed, to 
make not only wheelbarrows and wagons, but 
even mills of considerable complicacy. How- 
ever, if the public is niggardly to the play- 
wright in one point, it must be proportionably 
liberal in another; according to Adam Smith's 
observation, that trades which are reckoned 
less reputable have higher money-wages. 
Thus, one thing compensating the other, the 
playwright may still realize an existence; as, 
in fact, we find that he does: for playwrights 
were, are, and probably will always be ; unless, 
indeed, in process of years, the whole dramatic 
concern be finally abandoned by mankind; or, 
as in the case of our Punch and Mathews, 
every player becoming his own playwright, 
this trade may merge in the other and older 
one. 

The British nation has its own playwrights, 
several of them cunning men in their craft: 
yet here, it would seem, this sort of carpentry 
does not flourish ; at least, not with that pre- 
eminent vigour which distinguishes most other 
branches of our national industry. In hard- 
ware and cotton goods, in all sorts of chemical, 
mechanical, or other material processes, Eng- 
land outstrips the world: nay, in many depart- 
ments of literary manufacture also, as, for in- 
stance, in the fabrication of novels, she may 
safely boast herself peerless : but in this mat- 
ter of the Drama, to whatever cause it be owing, 
she can claim no such superiority. In theatri- 

* Die jShnfrau. (The Ancestress.) A Traeedv, in five 
Acts. By F. Grillparzer. Fourth Edition. Vienna, 1823. 

Konig Ottokars Oluck mid Ends. (King Ottocar's 
Fortune and End) A Tragedy, in five Acts. By F. 
Grillparzer. Vienna, 1825. 

Sappho. A Trasedy, in five Acts. By F. Grillparzer. 
Third Edition. Vienna, 1822. 

2. Faust. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klinge- 
mann. Leipzig and Altenburg, 1815. 

Jlhasver. A Tragedy, in five Acts. By August Klinge- 
mann. Brunswick, 1827. 

.■?. MuUner's Dramatifche fVerke. F.rste rechtvidssifre, 
vollstdndiire.iivdvom Verfasser verbesserte Oesainml-J)'US- 
gabe. (Mtillner's Dramatic Works. First legal collec- 
tive Edition, complete and revised by the Author.) 
7 vols. Brunswick, 1828. 



cal produce she yields considerably to France; 
and is, out of sight, inferior to Germany. Nay, 
do not we English hear daily, for the last 
twenty years, that the Drama is dead, or in a 
state of suspended animation; and are not 
medical men sitting on the case, and propound- 
ing their remedial appliances, weekly, monthly, 
quarterly, to no manner of purpose 1 — whilst 
in Germany the Drama is not only, to all ap- 
pearance, alive, but in the very flush and hey- 
day of superabundant strength; indeed, as it 
were, still only sowing its first wild oats ! For 
I if the British Playwrights seem verging to ruin, 
and our Knowleses, Maturins, Shiels, and 
Shees stand few and comparatively forlorn, 
like firs on an Irish bog, the playwrights of 
Germany are a strong, triumphant body, so 
numerous that it has been calculated, in case 
of war, a regiment of fi)ot might be raised, in 
which, from the colonel down to the drummer, 
every officer and private sentinel might show 
his drama or dramas. 

To investigate the origin of so marked a su- 
periority would lead us beyond our purpose. 
Doubtless the proximate cause must lie in a 
superior demand for the article of dramas; 
which superior demand again may arise either 
from the climate of Germany, as Montesquieu 
might believe; or perhaps more naturally and 
immediately from the political condition of 
that country; for man is not only a working 
but a talking animal, and where no Catholic 
Questions, and Parliamentary Reforms, and 
Select Vestries are given him to discuss in his 
leisure ht)urs, he is glad to fall upon plays or 
players, or whatever comes to hand, whereby 
to fence himself a little against the inroads of 
Ennui. Of the fact, at least, that such a supe- 
rior demand for dramas exists in Germany, we 
have only to open a newspaper to find proof. 
Is not every Literatiirblutt and KimMblalt stufl^ed 
to bursting, with theatricals'! Nay, has not 
the "able Editor" established correspondents 
in every capital city of the civilized world, 
who report to him on this one matter and on 
no other? For, be our curiosity what it may, 
let us have profession of "intelligence from 
Munich," "intelligence from Vienna," intelli- 
gence from Berlin," is it intelligence of anj' 
thing but of greenroom controversies and nego- 
tiations, of tragedies and operas and farces 
acted and to be acted? Not of men, and their 
doings, by hearth and hall, in the firm earth; 
but of mere effigies and shells of men, and 
their doings in the Avorld of pasteboard, do 
these unhappy correspondents write. Un- 
happy we call them ; for, with all our toler- 
ance of plavwrights, we cannot but think that 
there are limits, and very strait ones, withia 
which their activity should be restricted. 
Here, in England, our " theatrical reports" are 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



129 



nnisance enough; and many persons who love 
their life, and therefore "take care of their 
time, which is the stuff life is made of," regu- 
larly lose several columns of their weekly 
newspaper in that way: but our case is pure 
luxury, compared with that of the Germans, 
who, instead of a measurable and sufferable 
spicing of theatric matter, are obliged, meta- 
phorically speaking, to breakfast and dine on 
it, have in fact nothing else to live on but that 
highly unnutritive victual. We ourselves are 
occasionally readers of German newspapers, 
and have often, in the spirit of Chrifttian hu- 
manity, meditated presenting to the whole body 
of German editors a project, which, however, 
must certainly have ere now occurred to 
themselves, and for some reason been found 
inapplicable; it was, to address these corre- 
spondents of theirs, all and sundry, in plain 
language, and put the question : whether, on 
studiously surveying the Universe from their 
several stations, there was nothing in the Hea- 
vens above, on the earth beneath, or the waters 
under the earth, nothing visible but this one 
business, or rather shadow of business, that 
had an interest for the minds of menl If the 
correspondents still answered that nothing was 
visible,, then of course they must be left to 
continue in this strange state : prayers, at the 
same time, being put up for them in all 
churches. 

However, leaving every able Editor to fight 
his own battle, we address ourselves to the 
task in hand: meaning here to inquire a very 
little into the actual state of the dramatic trade 
in Germany, and exhibit some detached fea- 
tures of it to the consideration of our readers. 
For, seriously speaking, low as this province 
may be, it is a real, active, and ever-enduring 
province of the literary republic; nor can the 
pursuit of many men, even though it be a pro- 
fitless and foolish pursuit, ever be without 
claim to some attention from us, either in the 
way of furtiierance or of censure and correc- 
tion. Our avowed object is to promote the 
sound study of foreign literature ; which study, 
like all other earthly undertakings, has its ne- 
gative as well as its positive side. We have 
already, as occasion served, borne testimony 
to the merits of various German poets, and 
must now say a word on certain German 
poetasters ; hoping that it may be chiefly a re- 
gard to the former which has made us take 
even this slight notice of the latter : for the bad 
is in itself of no value, and only worth de- 
scribing lest it be mistaken for the good. At 
the same time, let no reader tremble, as if we 
meant to overwhelm him, on this occasion, 
with a whole mountain of dramatic lumber, 
poured forth in torrents, like shot-rubbish, 
from the play-house-garrets, where it is mould- 
ering and evapbrating into nothing, silently 
and without harm to any one. Far be this 
from us ! Nay, our own knowledge of this 
subject is in the highest degree limited; and, 
indeed, to exhaust it, or attempt discussing it 
with scientific precision, would be an impos- 
sible enterprise. What man is there that 
could assort the whole furniture of Miiion's 
Limbo of Vanity ; or where is the Hallam that 
would think it worth his while to write us the 
17 



Constitutional History of a Rookery 1 Let the 
courteous reader take heart, then; for he is in 
hands that will not, nay, what is more, that 
cannot, do him much harm. One brief, shy 
glance into this huge bivouac of Playwrights, 
all sawing and planing with such tumult; and 
we leave it, probably for many years. 

The German Parnassus, as one of its own 
denizens remarks, has a rather broad summit: 
yet only two Dramatists are reckoned, within 
the last half century, to have mounted thither; 
— Schiller and Goethe; if we are not, on the 
strength of his Minna von Barnhelin and Emilie. 
Galeotii, to account liessing of the number. 
On the slope of the Mountain may be found a 
few stragglers of the same brotherhood; among 
these. Tieck and Maler Miiller, firmly enough 
stationed at considerable elevations; while, far 
below, appear various honest persons climb- 
ing vehemently, but against precipices of loose 
sand, to whom we wish all speed. But the 
reader will understand that the bivouac we 
speak of, and are about to enter, lies not on the 
declivity of the Hill at all; but on. the level 
ground close to the foot of it ; the essence of a 
Playwright being that he works not in Poetry, 
but in Prose, which more or less cunningly 
resembles it. And here, pausingfor a moment, 
the reader observes that he is in a civilized 
country; for there, on the very boundary line 
of Parnassus, rises a gallows with the figure 
of a man hung in chains! It is the figure of 
August von Kotzebue, and has swung there 
for many years, as a warning to all too auda- 
cious Playwrights, who nevertheless, as we 
see, pay little heed to it. Ill-fated Kotzebue, 
once the darling of theatrical Europe! This 
was the prince of all Playwrights, and could 
manufacture Plays with a speed and felicity 
surpassing even Edinburgh novels. For his 
muse, like other doves, hatched twins in the 
month ; and the world gazed on them with an 
admiration too deep for mere words. What is 
all past or present popularity to this? Were 
not these Plays translated into almost every 
language of articulate-speaking men ; acted, at 
least, we may literally say, in every theatre 
from Kamtschatka to Cadiz] Nay, did they 
not melt the most obdurate hearts in all coun- 
tries ; and, like the music of Orpheus, draw 
tears down iron cheeks'? We ourselves have 
known the flintiest men, who professed to have 
wept over them, for the first time in their lives. 
So was it twenty years ago; how stands it to- 
day? Kotzebue, lifted up on the hollow bal- 
loon of popular applause, thought wings had 
been given him that he might ascend to the 
Immortals : gay he rose, soaring, sailing, as 
with supreme dominion ; but in the rarer azure 
deep, his windbag burst asunder, or the arrows 
of keen archers pierced it; and so at last we 
find him a compound-pendulum, vibrating in 
the character of scarecrow, to guard from for- 
bidden fruit! O ye Playwrights, and literary 
quacks of every feather, weep over Kotzebup, 
and over yourselves! Know that the loudest 
roar of the million is not fame ; that the wind- 
bag, are ye mad enough to mount it, loill burst, 
or be shot through with arrows, and your bones 
too shall act as scarecrows. 

But, quitting this idle allegorical vein, let u» 



130 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



at length proceed in plain English, and as be- 
seems mere prose Reviewers, to the work laid 
out for us. Among the hundreds of German 
dramatists, as they are called, three individuals, 
already known to some British readers, and 
prominent from all the rest in Germany, may 
fitly enough stand here as representatives of 
the whole Playwright class; whose various 
craft and produce the procedure of these three 
may in some small degree serve to illustrate. 
Of Grillparzer, therefore, and Klingemann, 
and Miilner, in their order. 

Franz Grillparzer seems to be an Austrian; 
which country is reckoned nowise feitile in 
poets; a circumstance that may perhaps have 
contributed a little to his own rather rapid 
celebrity. Our more special acquaintance 
with Grillparzer is of very recent date ; 
though his name and samples of his ware have 
for some time been hung out, in many British 
and foreign Magazines, often with testimonials 
which might have beguiled less timeworn cus- 
tomers. Neither, after all, have we found 
there testimonials falser than other such are, 
but rather not so false ; for, indeed, Grillparzer 
is a most inoffensive man, nay positively 
rather meritorious ; nor is it without reluctance 
that we name him under this head of Play- 
wrights, and not under that of Dramatists, 
which he aspires to. Had the law with regard 
to mediocre poets relaxed itself since Horace's 
time, all had been well with Grillparzer; for 
undoubtedly there is a small vein of tenderness 
and grace running through him, a seeming 
modesty also, and real love of his art, which 
gives promise of better things. But gods and 
men and columns are still equally rigid in that 
unhappy particular of mediocrity, — even pleas- 
ing mediocrity; and no scene or line is yet 
known to us of Grillparzer's which exhibits 
any thing more. Non conccsscre, therefore, is his 
sentence for the present; and the louder his 
well-meaning admirers extol him, the more 
emphatically should it be pronounced and re- | 
peated. Nevertheless Grillparzer's claim to 
the title of Playwright is perhaps more his 
misfortune than his crime. Living in a coun- 
try where the Drama engrosses so much at- 
tention, he has been led into attempting it, 
without any decisive qualification for such an 
enterprise ; and so his allotment of talent, 
which might have done good service in some 
prose department, or even in the sonnet, elegy, 
song, or other outlying province of Poetry, is 
driven, as it were, in spile of fate, to write 
Plays, which, though regularly divided into 
scenes and separate speeches, are essentially 
monological; and though swarming with cha- 
racters, too often express only one character, 
and that no very extraordinary one, the cha- 
racter of Franz Grillparzer himself. What is 
an increase of misfortune, too, he has met 
with applause in this career, which therefore 
he is likely to follow farther and farther, let 
nature and his stars say to it what they will. 
■The characteristic of a Playwright is that he 
writes in Prose, which Prose he palms, pro- 
bably, first on himself, and then on the simpler 
part of the public, for Poetry: and the manner, 
in which he eff"ects this legerdemain, consti- 
tutes his specific distinction, fixes the species 



to which he belongs in the genus Playwright, 
But it is a universal feature of him that he 
attempts, by prosaic, and as it were mechanical 
means, to accompli-jh an end which, except by 
poetical genius, is absolutely not to be accom- 
plished. For the most part, he has some 
knack, or trick of the trade, which by close 
inspection can be detected, and so the heart 
of his mystery be seen into. He may have 
one trick, or many; and the more cunningly 
he can disguise these, the more perfect is he 
as a craftsman ; for were the public once to 
penetrate into this his slight of hand, it were 
all over with him, — Othello's occupation were 
gone. No conjuror, when we once understand 
his method of fire-eating, can any longer pass 
for a true thaumaturgist, or even entertain us 
in his proper character of quack, though he 
should eat Mount Vesuvius itself. But hap- 
pily for Playwrights and others, the Public is 
a dim-eyed animal; gullible to almost all 
lengths, — nay, which often seems to prefer 
being gulled. 

Of Grillparzer's peculiar knack, and recipe 
for play-making, there is not very much to be 
said. He seems to have tried various kinds 
of recipes, in his time ; and, to his credit be it 
spoken, seems little contented with any of 
them. By much the worst Play of his, that we 
have seen, is the AJmfrau (Ancestress) ; a deep 
tragedy of the Castle Spectre sort ; the whole 
mechanism of which was discernible and con- 
damnable at a single glance. It is nothing but 
:;!e old Story of Fate; an invisible Nemesis 
visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children 
to the third and fourth generation ; a method 
almost as common and sovereign in German 
Art, at this day, as the method of steam is in 
British mechanics; and of which we shall 
anon have more occasion to speak. In his 
Preface, Grillparzer endeavours to palliate or 
deny the fact of his being a Srhicksal-Dichtcr 
(Fate-Tragedian) ; but to no purpose ; for it is 
a fact grounded on the testimony of the seven 
senses: however, we are glad to observe that, 
with this one trial, he seems to have abandoned 
the Fate-line, and taken into better, at least 
into different ones. With regard to the Jhn- 
frau itself, we may remark that few things 
struck us so much as this little observation of 
Count Borotins, occurring, in the middle of the 
dismalest night-thoughts, so unexpectedly as 
follows : — 



Und der Himmel, sternelos, 
Starrt aiis leeren Au^enhohlen 
In das ungeheure Grab 
Schwarz herab ! 

GRAF. 
IVie sich dock die Stunden dehnen ! 
Was ist icohl die Glocke, Bertha ? 
BERTHA {is just condoling with him, in these wo'ds) :— 
* * * * . 

And the welkin, starless. 
Glares from empty eye-holes, 
Black down on that boundless grave ! 



COtTNT. 

How the hours do linger; 

What o'clock is't, prithee, Benha •» 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



131 



A more delicate turn, we venture to say, is 
rarely to be met with in tragic dialogue. As 
to the story of the Ahnfrau, it is, naturally 
enough, of the most heart-rending description. 
This Ancestress is a lady, or rather the ghost 
of a lady, for she has been defunct some cen- 
turies, who in life had committed what we call 
an "indiscretion;" which indiscretion the un- 
polite husband punished, one would have 
thought sufficiently, by running her through 
the body. However, the Schuksal of Grill- 
parzer does not think it sufficient; but farther 
dooms the fair penitent to walk as goblin, till 
the last branch of her family be extinct. Ac- 
cordingly she is heard, from time to time, 
slamming doofs and the like, and now and 
then seen with dreadful goggle-eyes and other 
ghost appurtenances, to the terror not only of 
servant people, but of old Count Borolin, her 
now sole male descendant, whose afternoon 
nap she, on one occasion, cruelly disturbs. 
This Count Borcrtin is really a worthy, prosing 
old gentleman; only he had a son long ago 
drowned in a fish-pond (body not found); and 
has still a highly accomplished daughter, 
whom there is none offering to wed, except one 
Jaromir, a person of unknown extraction, and 
to ail appearance, of the lightest purse ; nay, 
as it turns out afterwards, actually the head 
of a Banditti establishment, which had long 
infested the neighbouring forests. However, 
a Captain of foot arrives, at this juncture, 
utterly to root out these Robbers; and now the 
strangest things come to light. For who 
should this Jaromir prove to be but poor old 
Borotin's drowned son, not drowned, but stolen 
and bred up by these Outlaws ; the brother, 
therefore, of his intended ; a most truculent 
fellow, who fighting for his life unwittingly 
kills his own father, and drives his bride to 
poison herself; in which wise, as was also 
Giles Scroggins' case, he "cannot get married." 
The reader sees all this is not to be accom- 
plished without some jarring and tumult. In 
fact, there is a frightful uproar everywhere 
throughout that night; robbers dying, mus- 
quetry discharging, women shrieking, men 
swearing, and the Ahnfrau herself emerging 
at intervals, as the genius of the whole dis- 
cord. But time and hours bring relief, as they 
always do. Jaromir, in the long run, likewise, 
succeeds in dying; whereupon the Borotin 
lineage having gone to the Devil, the Ances- 
tress also retires thither, — at least makes the 
upper world rid of her presence, — and the 
piece ends in deep stillness. Of this poor An- 
cestress we shall only say farther : wherever 
she be, requiescat ! rcqwiescat ! 

As we mentioned above, the Fate method 
of manufacturing tragic emotion seems to have 
yielded Grillparzer himself little contentment; 
for after this Ahnfrau, we hear no more of it. 
His Konig Ottokars Gliick v,nd Ende (King Ot- 
tokar's Fortune and End) is a much more 
innocent piece, and proceeds in quite a dif- 
ferent strain ; aiming to subdue us not by old 
Avomen's fables of Destiny, but by the accu- 
mulated splendour of thrones and principali- 
ties, the cruel or magnanimous pride of Aus- 
trian Emperors and Bohemian conquerors, the 
wit of chivalrous courtiers, and beautiful but 



shrewish queens ; the whole set off by a pro- 
per intermixture of coronation ceremonies, 
Hungarian dresses, whiskered halberdiers, 
alarms of battle, and the pomp and circum- 
stance of glorious war. There is even some 
attempt at delineating character in this play; 
certain of the druiuatLs pcmomr are evidently 
meant to differ from certain others, not in dress 
and name only, but in nature and mode of being; 
so much indeed they repeatedly assert, or hint, 
and do their best to make good, — unfortunately, 
however, with very indifferent success. In 
fact these dramatis persona are rubrics and 
titles rather than persons ; for most part, mere 
theatrical automata, with only a mechanical 
existence. The truth of the matter is, Grill- 
parzer cannot communicate a poetic life to any 
character or object; and in this, were it in no 
other way, he evinces the intrinsically prosaic 
nature of his talent. These personages of his 
have, in some instances, a certain degree of 
metaphysical truth ; that is to say, one portion 
of their structure, psychologically viewed, cor- 
responds with the other; — so far all is well 
enough: but to unite these merely scientific 
and inanimate qualilies into a living man is 
work not for a Playwright, but for a Dramatist. 
Nevertheless, Konig Ottokar is comparatively 
a harmless tragedy. It is full of action, strik- 
ing enough, though without any discernible 
coherence; and with so much both of flirting, 
and fighting, with so many weddings, funerals, 
processions, encampments, it must be, we 
should think, if the tailor and decorationist do 
their duty, a very comfortable piece to see 
acted, especially on the Vienna boards, where 
it has a national interest, Rodolph of Hapsburg 
being a main personage in it. 

The model of this Ottokar we imagine to 
have been Schiller's Plrcoloniini : a poem of 
similar materials and object; but differing 
from it as a living rose tYom a mass of dead 
rose-leaves, or even of broken Italian gum- 
flowers. It seems as though Grillparzer had 
hoped to subdue us by a sufficient multitude 
of wonderful scenes and circumstances, with- 
out inquiring, with any painful solicitude, 
whether the soul and meaning of them were 
presented to us or not. Herein truly, we be- 
lieve, lies the peculiar knack or playwright- 
mystery of Ottokar : that its effect is calculated 
to depend chiefly on its quantity : on the mere 
number of astonishments, and joyful or de- 
plorable adventures there brought to light; 
abundance in superficial contents compensat- 
ing the absence of lallida juncturu. Which 
second method of tragic manufacture we hold 
to be better than the first, but still far from 
good. At the same time, it is a very common 
method, both in Tragedy and elsewhere ; nay, 
we hear persons whose trade it is to write- 
metre, or be otherwise " imaginative," pro- 
fessing it openly as the best they know. Do 
not these men go about collecting "features;" 
ferreting out strange incidents, murders, duels, 
ghost-apparitions, over the habitable globe; of 
which features and incident.^, when they have- 
gathered a sufficient stock, nothing more is 
needed than that they be ample enough, high- 
colouredenough, though huddled into any case 
(Novel, Tragedy, or Metrical Romance) that 



133 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



will hold it ain Nevertheless this is ag- 
glomeration, not creation; and avails little in 
Literature. Quantity, it is a certain fact, will 
not make up for defect of quality ; nor are the 
gayest hues of any service, unless there be a 
likeness painted from them. Better were it 
for Konig Ottokur had the story been twice as 
short, and twice as expressive. For it is still 
true, as in Cervantes' time, nunca lo hueno fue 
mucho. What avails the dram of brandy while 
it swims chemically united v/ith its barrel of 
wort ? Let the distiller pass it and repass it 
through his limbecs; for it is the drops of 
pure alcohol that we want, not the gallons of 
water, which may be had in every ditch. 

On the whole, however, we remember A'6*2!o- 
Ottokar without animosity ; and to prove that 
Grillparzer, if he could not make it poetical, 
might have made it less prosaic, and has in 
fact something better in him than is here 
manifested, we shall quote one passage, which 
strikes us as really rather sweet and natural. 
King Ottokar is in the last of his fields, no 
prospect before him but death or captivity: 
and soliloquizing on his past misdeeds: — 

I have nnt borne me wisely in thy World, 

Thou pre.it, all judginj; God ! Like storm and tempest, 

I traversed thy fair garden, wasting it : 

'T is thine to waste, for thou alone canst heal. 

Was evil not my aim, yet how did I, 

Pour worm, presume to ape the Lord of Worlds, 

And through the Bad seek out a way to the Good ! 

My fellow man, sent thither for his joy. 

An end, a Self, within thy World a World,— 

For thou hast fashion'd him a marvellous work, 

With lofty brow, erect in look, strange sense, 

And clothed him in the garment of thy Beauty, 

And wondrously encircled him with wonders ; 

|Ie hears, and sees, and feels, has pain and pleasure : 

He takes him food, and cunning powers come forth. 

And work and work, within their secret chambers. 

And build him up his House: no royal Palace 

Is comparable to the frame of Man 1 

And I have cast them from me by thousands, 

For whims, as men throw rubbish from their door. • 

And none of all these slain but had a Mother 

Who, as she bore him in sore travail. 

Had clasped him fondly to her fostering breast; 

A father who had bless'd him ;is liis pride. 

And nurturing, vvatc h'd over him long years ; 

If he hut hurt the skin upon his finger. 

There would they run, with anxious look, to bind it, 

And tend it, cheering him, until it heai'd ; 

And it was but a finger, the skin o' the finger ! 

And I have trod men down in heaps and squadrons, 

For th< stern iron open'd out a way 

To thf ir warm living hearts. — O God ! 

Wilt thou go into judgment with me, spare 

My suffering people. 

Konig Ottokar, 180-1. 

Passages of this sort, scattered here and 
there over Grillparzer's Plays, and evincing 
at least an amiable tenderness of natural dis- 
position, make us regret the more to condemn 
him. In fact, we have hopes that he is not 
born to be for ever a Playwright. A true 
though feeble vein of poetic talent he really 
acems to possess; and such purity of heart as 
rnay yet, with assiduous study, lead him into 
his proper field. For we do reckon him a 
conscientious man, and honest lover of Art: 
nay this incessant fluctuation in his dramatic 



schemes is itself a good omen. Besides this 
Ah-nfrau and Ottokar, he has written two Dra- 
mas, Snppho, and Der Goldene Vliesa, (TheGoldea 
Fleece,) on quite another principle; aim- 
ing apparently at some Classic model, or at 
least at some French reflect of such a model. 
Sappho, which we are sorry to learn is not his 
last piece, but his second, appears to us very 
considerably the most faultless production of 
his we are yet acquainted with. There is a 
degree of grace and simplicity in it, a softness, 
polish, and general good taste, little to be ex- 
pected from the Author of the Ahnfrau: if he 
cannot bring out the full tragic meaning of 
Sappho's situation, he contrives, with laudable 
dexterity, to avoid the ridicule that lies within 
a single step of it; his Drama is weak and 
thin, but innocent, lovable; — nay, the last 
scene strikes us as even poetically merito- 
rious. His Goldene Vliess we suspect to be of 
similar character, but have not yet found time 
and patience to study it. We repeat our hope 
of one day meeting Grillparzer in a more 
honourable calling than this of Playwright, or 
even fourth-rate Dramatist; which titles, as 
was said above, we have not given him with- 
out regret; and shall be truly glad to cancel 
for whatever better one he may yet chance to 
merit. 

But if we felt a certain reluctance in class- 
ing Grillparzer among the Playwrights, no such 
feeling can have place with regard to the se- 
cond name on our list, that of Doctor August 
Klingemann. Dr. Klingemann is one of the 
most indisputable Playwrights now extant : nay 
so superlative is his vigour in this department, 
we might even designate him the Playwright; 
His manner of proceeding is quite different 
from Grillparzer's; not a wavering over- 
charged method, or combination of methods, 
as the other's was; but a fixed principle of 
action, which he follows with unflinching 
courage; his own mind being, to all appear- 
ance, highly satisfied wilh it. If Grillparzer 
attempted to overpower us now by the method 
of Fate, now by that of pompous action, and 
grandiloquent or lachrymose sentiment, heaped 
on us in too rich abundance, Klingemann, with- 
out neglecting any of these resources, seems 
to place his chief dependence on a surer and 
readier stay: on his magazines of rosin, oil- 
paper, vizards, scarlet-drapery, and gunpowder. 
What thunder and lightning, magic-lantern 
transparencies, death's-heads, fire-showers, and 
plush cloaks can do, — is here done. Abundance 
of churchyard and chapel scenes, in most tem- 
pestuous weather; to say nothing of battle- 
fields, gleams of scoured arms here and there 
in the wood, and even occasional shots heard 
in the distance. Then there are such scowls and 
malignant side-glances, ashy paleness, stamp- 
ings, and hysterics, as might, one would think, 
wring the toughest bosom into drops of pity. 
For not only are the looks and gestures of these 
people of the most heart-rending description, 
but their words and feelings also (for Klinge- 
mann is no half-artist) areof a piece with them ; 
gorgeous inflations, the purest innocence, high- 
est magnanimity; godlike sentiment of all sorts; 
everywhere the finest tragic humour. The moral 
too is genuine; there is the most anxious re- 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



133 



gard to virtue ; indeed a distinct patronage both 
of Providence and the Devil. In this manner, 
does Dr. Klingemann compound his dramatic 
electuaries, no less cunningly than Dr. Kitch- 
ener did his " peptic persuaders ;" and truly of 
the former we must say, that their operation is 
nowise unpleasant; nay, to our shame be it 
spoken, we have even read these Plays with a 
certain degree of satisfaction ; and shall de- 
clare that if any man wish to amuse himself 
irrationally, here is the ware for his money. 

Klingemann's latest dramatic undertaking is 
Ahasuer : a purely original invention, on which 
he seems to pique himself somewhat ; confess- 
ing his opinion that now when the " birth-pains" 
are over, the character of Aliasuer may possi- 
bly do good service in many a future drama. 
We are not prophets, or sons of prophets ; so 
shall leave this prediction resting on its own 
basis. Ahasuer, the reader will be interested 
to learn, is no other than the Wandering Jew 
or Shoemaker of Jerusalem, concerning whom 
there are two things to be remarked. The first 
is the strange name of this Shoemaker: why 
do Klingemann and all the Germans call the 
man Ahasuer, when his authentic Christian 
name is John ; Joannes a Tnnporilms Chrisli, or, 
for brevity's sake, simply Joa/Djcs a Tcmporilnis / 
This should be looked into. Our second re- 
mark is of the circumstance that no Historian 
or Narrator, neither Schiller, Strada, Thuanus, 
Monroe, nur Dugald Dalgetty, makes any men- 
tion of Ahasuer's having been present at the 
Battle of Lutzen. Possibly they thought the 
fact too notorious to need mention. Here, at 
all events, he was ; nay, as we infer, he must 
have been at Waterloo also; and probably at 
Trafalgar, though in which fleet is not so clear ; 
for he takes a hand in all great battles and na- 
tional emergencies, at least is witness of them, 
being bound to it by his destiny. Such is the pe- 
culiar occupation of the Wandering Jew, as 
brought to light in this Tragedy :^h is other 
specialities, — that he cannot lodge above three 
nights in one place ; that he is of a melancho- 
lic temperament; above all, that he cannot die, 
not by hemp or steel, or Prussic-acid itself, but 
must travel on till the general consummation, 
— are familiar to all historical readers. Ahas- 
uer's task at this Battle of Liitzen seems to 
have been a very easy one; simply to see the 
Lion of the North brought down ; not by a 
cannon-shot, as is generally believed, but, by 
the traitorous pistol-bullet of one Heinyn von 
Warth, a bigoted Catholic, who had pretended 
to desert from the Imperialists, that he might 
find some such opportunity. Unfortunately, 
Heinyn, directly after this feat, falls into a 
sleepless, half rabid state; comes home to 
Castle Warth, frightens his poor wife and 
worthy old noodle of a Father; then skulks 
about, for some time, now praying, oftener curs- 
ing and swearing; till at length the Swedes 
lay hold of him and kill him. Ahasuer, as 
usual, is in at the death: in the interim, how- 
ever,he has saved Lady Heinyn from drowning, 
though as good as poisoned her with the look 
of his strange stony eyes; and now his busi- 
ness to all appearance being over, he signifies 
in strong language that he must begone ; there- 
upon, he "steps solemnly into the wood; Wasa- 



burg looks after him surprised ; the rest kneel 
round the corpse ; the Requiem faintly con- 
tinues ;" and what is still more surprising, " the 
curtain falls." Such is the simple action and 
stern catastrophe of this Tragedy ; concerning 
which it were superfluous for us to speak far- 
ther in the way of criticism. We shall only add 
that there is a dreadful lilliographic print in it, 
representing "Ludwig Derrient as Ahasuer;" 
in that very act of "stepping solemnly into 
the wood;" and uttering these final words: 
Irli abcr wancile ivcitcr — welter — wciter !" We 
have heard of Herr Derrient as of the best 
actor in Germany ; and can now bear testimo- 
ny, if there be truth in this plate, that he is one 
of the ablest-bodied men. A most truculent, 
rawboned figure, " with bare legs and red 
leather shoes;" huge black beard; eyes turned 
inside out ; and uttering these extraordinary 
words : — " But / go on — on — on !" 

Now, however, we must give a glance at 
Klingemann's other chief performance in this 
line, the tragedy of Faust. Dr. Klingemann 
admits that the subject has been often treated ; 
that Goethe's Favst in particular has "dramatic 
points," (firamat is/he iiioniente:) but the business 
is to give it an entire dramatic superficies, to 
make it an dcht clrainatisclie, a " genuinely" dra- 
matic tragedy. Setting out with this laudable 
intention. Dr. Klingemann has produced a 
Faust, which differs from that of Goethe in 
more than one particular. The hero of this 
piece is not the old Faust, doctor in philosophy, 
driven desperate by the uncertainty of human 
knowledge: but plain John Faust, the printer, 
and even the inventor of gunpowder; driven 
desperate by his ambitious temper,'and a total 
deficiency of cash. He has an excellent wife, 
an excellent blind father, both of whom would 
fain have him be peaceable, and work at his 
trade ; but being an adept in the black art, he 
determines rather to relieve himself in that 
way. Accordingly he proceeds to make a con- 
tract with the Devil, on what we should consi- 
der pretty advantageous terms ; the devil being 
bound to serve him in the most effectual man- 
ner, and Faust at liberty to commit four mortal 
sins before any hair of his head can be harmed. 
However, as will be seen, the devil proves York- 
shire ; and Faust naturally enough finds him- 
self quite jockeyed in the long run. 

Another characteristic distinction of Klinge- 
mann is his manner of imbodying this same 
Evil Principle, when at last he resolves on in- 
troducing him to sight; for all these contracts 
and preliminary matters are very properly 
managed behind the scenes ; only the main 
points of the transaction being indicated to the 
spectator by some thunder-clap, or the like. 
Here is no cold mocking Mephistopheles ; but a 
swaggering, jovial, West-India-looking" Stran- 
ger," with a rubicund, indeed quite brick- 
coloured face, which Faust at first mistakes for 
the effect of hard drinking. However, it is a 
remarkable feature of this Stranger, that 
always on the introduction of any religious 
topic, or the mention of any sacred name, he 
strikes his glass down on the table, and gene- 
rally breaks it. 

For some time, after his grand bargain. 
Faust's atfairs go on triumphantly, on th», 
M 



134 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



great scale, and he seems to feel pretty comfort- 
able. But the Stranger shows him " his wife," 
Helena, the most enchanting creature in the 
world ; and the most cruel hearted, — for not- 
withstanding the easy temper of her husband, 
she will not grant Faust the smallest encou- 
ragement, till he have killed Kilthe, his own 
living helpmate, against whom he entertains 
no manner of grudge. Nevertheless, reflecting 
that he has a stock of four mortal sins to draw 
upon, and may well venture one for such a 
prize, he determines on killing Kiithe. But 
here matters take a bad turn ; for having 
poisoned poor Kiithe, he discovers, most un- 
expectedly, that she is in the family way; and 
therefore that he has committed not one sin but 
two ! Nay before the interment can take place, 
he is farther reduced, in a sort of accidental 
self-defence, to kill his father; thus accom- 
plishing his third mortal sin ; with which third, 
as we shall presently discover, his whole allot- 
ment is exhausted, a fourth, that he knew not 
of, being already on the score against him! 
From this point, it cannot but surprise us that 
bad grows worse : catchpoles are out in pur- 
suit of him, " black masks" dance round him 
in a most suspicious manner, the brick-faced 
stranger seems to laugh at him, and Helena 
will nowhere make her appearance. That the 
sympathizing reader may see with his own 
eyes how poor Faust is beset at this juncture, 
we shall quote a scene or two. The first may, 
properly enough, be that of those "black 
masks." 

SCENE SEVENTH. A lighted Hall. 
(In the dislance is heard quick dancivg-mvsic. Masks pass 
from time to time over the Stage, but all dressed in black, 
and rcith vizards perfectly close. Jifter a pause, Faust 
plunges wildhj in, with a fall goblet in his hand.) 

FAUST (rushing stormfully into the foreground.) 
Ha ! Poison, 'stead of wins, tliat I intoxicate me ! 
Your wine makes sober, — l)urning fire bring us ! 
Off with your drink I — and blood is in it too ! 

(Shuddering, he dashes the goblet from his hand.) 
My father's blood,— I've drunk my fill of that .' 

(With increasing tumult.) 
Yet curses on him ! curses, that he begot me ! 
Curse on my mother's bosom, that it bore me! 
Curse on the gossip crone that stood by her, 
And did not strangle nie, at my first scream : 
IIow could I help this being that was given me ■? 
Accursed art thou, Nature, that hast mock'd me ! 
Accursed I, that let myself be mock'd ! 
And thou stroiig Being, that to make thee sport, 
Enclosedst the fire-soul in this dungeon, 
That so despairing it might strive for freedom — 
Accur. . . (He shrinks terror-struck.) 

No, not \he fourth . . . . the blackest sin ! 
No! No! 

(In the excess of his outbreaking anguish, he hides his 
face in his hajids.) 

O, I am altogether wretched ! 
(Three black jMasks come towards him.) 
FIHST MASK. 
Hey ! merry friend ! 

SECOND MASK. 

Hey : Merry brother : 
THIRD MASK (reiterating with a cutting tone.) 
Merry ! 
FAUST (breaking out in wild humour, and looking round 
among them. 
Hey! Merry, then : 



FIRST MASK. 

Will any one catch flies 1 

SECOND MASK. 

A long life yet ; to midnight all the way ! 

THIRD MASK. 

And after that, such pleasure without end ! 

( The music suddenly ceases, and a clock strikes thrice.) 

FAUST (astonished.) 
What is it f 

FIRST MASK. 

Wants a quarter, Sir, of twelve ! 

SECOND MASK. 

Then we have time 1 

THIRD MASK. 

Aye, time enough for jigging. 

FIRST MASK. 
And not till midnight comes the shot to pay ! 

FAUST (shuddering.) 
What want ye f 

FIRST MASK (clasps his hand abruptly.) 
Hey ! To dance a step with thee ! 

FAUST {plucks his hand back.) 
Off:— Fire! ! 

FIRST MASK. 

Tush ! A spark or so of brimstone ! 

SECOND MASK. 
Art dreaming, brother? 

THIRD MASK. 

Holla ! Music, there ! 
(The music begins again in the distance, 

FIRST MASK (secretly laughing.) 
The spleen is biting him ! 

SECOND MASK. 

Hark ! at the gallows, 
What jovial footing of it ! 

THIRD MASK. 

Thither must I ! (Exit.) 

FIRST MASK. 
Below, too : down in Purgatory ! Hear ye 1 

SECOND MASK. 

A stirring there 7 'Tis time then '■ Hui, your servant ! 

FIRST MASK (^to FAUST.) 

Till midnight! 

(Exeunt both Masks hastily.) 

FAUST (clasping his brow.) 
Ha ! What begirds me here f {Stepping vehemently 

forward.) 
Down with your masks ! (Violent knocking without.) 

What horrid uproar, next! 
Is madness coming on me ■? — 

VOICE (violently, from without.) 
Open, in the king's name '■ 

(The music ceases. Thunderclap.) 

FAUST (staggers back.) 
I have a heavy dream ! — Sure, 't is not doomsday ? 

VOICE (as before.) 
Here is the murderer ! Open! open, then! 

FAUST (wipes Ms brow.) 
Has agony unmann'd me'!— 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



135 



SCENE EIGHTH. 

BAILIFFS. 

Where is he 1 where "? 

From these merely terrestrial constables, 
the jovial Stranger easily delivers Faust; but 
now comes the long-looked-for teU-d-tete with 
Helena. 

SCENE TWELFTH. 

(FAVST leads Helena ore the stage. She also is close 
masked. The other JUasks withdraw.) 

FAUST (warm and glowing.) 
No longer strive, proud beauty ; 
HELENA. 

Ha, wild stormer .' 

FAUST. 
My bosom burns—! 

HELESTA. 

The time is not yet come. — 

— And so forth, through four pages of flame 
and ice, till at last, 

FAUST (iiisisting.) 
Off with the mask, then 

HELENA (still wilder.) 

Hey ! the marriage-hour : 

FAUST. 

Off with the mask ! ! 

HELENA. 
'T is striking ! 1 

FAUST. 

One kiss '. 

HELENA. 

Take it ! '. 

(The viask and h ead-dr ess fall from her : and she grins 
at him from a death's head : loud thunder : and the music 
ends, as with a shriek, in dissonances.) 

FAUST (staggers back.) 

O Horror ! wo : 

HELENA. 

The couch is ready, there ! 
Come, Bridegroom, to thy fire-nuptials! 

(She sinks, with a crashing thunder-peal, into the ground, 
out of which issue flames.) 

All this is bad enough; but mere child's-play 
to the " Thirteenth Scene," the last of this 
strange eventful history : with some parts of 
which we propose to send our readers weep- 
ing to their beds. 

SCENE THIRTEENTH. 

(The STRANGER liurls FAUST, whose face is deadly pale, 
hack to the stage, by the hair.) 

FAUST. 
Ha, let me fly !— Come ! Come !— 

STRANGER (with wild thundering tone.) 

'T is over now ! 
FAUST. 
That horrid visage '.—throjving himself, in a tre^nor, 

on the sttanoer's breast.) Thou art my Friend : 
Protect me ! ! 

STRANGER (laughing aloud.) 
Ha ! ha < ha : 



FAUST. 

O, save me ! ! 
STRANGER (clutches him with irresistible force : whirls 
him round, so that FAUSt's fa^e is towards the spectators, 
whilst his own is turned away : and thus he looks at him, 
and bawls with thundering voice :) 

'T is I'.!— (a clap of thunder. FAUST, with 
gestures of deepest horror, rushes to the ground, uttering 
an inarticulate cry. The other, after a pause, continues, 
loith cutting coolness :) 

Is that the mighty Hellsubduer, 
That threatened me ?— Ha, me ! ! (with highest con- 
tempt.) 

Worm of the dust ! 
1 had reserved thy torment for— myself ! ! 
Descend to other hands, be sport for slaves — 
Thou art too small for me ! ! 
FAUST (rises erect, and seems to recover his strength.) 
Am I not Faust ■« 
stranger. 
Thou, no ! 

FAUST (rising in his whole vehemence.) 

Accursed ! Ha, I am ! I am t 
Down at my feet ! I am thy master ! 

STRANGER. 

No more ! ! 
FAUST (wildly.) 
More f Ha ! My Bargain ! ! 

STRANGER. 

Is concluded ! ! 

FAUST. 

Three mortal sins. — 

STRANGER. 

The Fourth too is committed ! 

FAUST. 

My wife, my child, and my old Father's blood — ! 

STRANGER (holds up a Parchment to him.) 
And here thy own! — 

FAUST. 

That is my covenant ! 

STRANGER. 

This signature— was thy most damning sin ! 
FAUST (raging.) 

Ha, spirit of lies ! ! &c., &c. 

****** 

STRANGER (in highest fury.) 
Down, thou accursed ! 
(He drags him by the hair towards the back-ground ; at 
this moment, amid violent thunder and lightning, the 
scene changes into a horrid wilderness ; in the back-ground 
of which, a yawning Chasm : into this the Devil hurls 
Faust ; on all sides Fire rains down, so that the whole in- 
terior of the Cavern seems burning : a black veil descends 
over both, so soon as Faust is got under.) 

F.VUST (huzzaing in wild defiance.) 
Ha, down 1 Down 1 
(Thunder, lightning, and fire. Both sink. The Curtain 
falls.) 

On considering all which supernatural trans- 
actions, the bewildered reader has no theory 
for it, except that Faust must, in Dr. Cabanis's 
phrase, have laboured under "obstructions in 
the epigastric region," and all this of the Devil, 
and Helena, and so much murder and carous- 
ing, have been nothing but a waking dream, 
or other atrabilious phantasm; and regrets 
that the poor Printer had not rather applied to 
some Abernelhy on the subject, or even, by 



136 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



one sufficient dose of Epsom-salt, on his own 
prescription, have put an end to the whole 
matter, and restored himself to the bosom of 
his afflicied family- 
Such, then, for Dr. Klingemann's part, is his 
method of constructing Tragedies ; to which 
method it may perhaps be objected that there 
is a want of originality in it; for do not our own 
British Playwrights follow precisely the same 
plan 1 We might answer that, if not his plan, 
at least, his infinitely superior execution of it, 
must distinguish Klingemann: but we rather 
think his claim to originality rests on a different 
ground, on the ground, namely, of his entire 
contentment with himself and with this his 
dramaturgy ; and the cool heroism with which, 
on all occasions, he avows that contentment. 
Here is no poor, cowering, underfoot Play- 
wright, begging the public for God's sake not 
to give him the whipping which he deserves ; 
but a bold perpendicular Playwright, avowing 
himself as such ; nay, mounted on the top of 
his joinery, and therefrom exercising a sharp 
critical superintendence over the German 
Drama generally. Klingemann, we under- 
stand, has lately executed a theatrical Tour, 
as Don Quixote did various Sallies ; and thrown 
stones into most German Playhouses, and at 
various German Playwriters ; of which we 
have seen only his assault on Tieck ; a feat 
comparable perhaps to that "never-imagined 
adventure of the Windmills." Fortune, it is 
said, favours the brave ; and the prayer of 
Burns's Kihnarnock weaver is not always un- 
heard of Heaven. In conclusion, we congra- 
tulate Dr. Klingemann on his Manager-dignity 
in the Brunswick Theatre ; a post he seems 
made for, almost as Bardolph \vas for the 
Eastcheap waitership. 

But now, like his own Ahasuer, Doctor 
Klingemann must " go on — on — on ;" for ano- 
ther and greater Doctor has been kept too long 
waiting, whose seven beautiful volumes of 
Dramatische Wcrke might well secure him a 
better fate. Dr. Miillner, of all these Play- 
wrights, is the best known in England ; some 
of his works have even, we believe, been 
translated into our language. In his own 
country, his fame, or at least notoriety, is also 
supreme over all ; no Playwright of this age 
makes such a noise as Miillner; nay, many 
there are who affirm that he is something far 
better than a Playwright. Critics of the sixth 
and lower magnitudes, in every corner of Ger- 
many, have put the question a thousand times : 
Whether Miillner is not a Poet and Dramatist] 
To which question, as the higher authorities 
maintain an obstinate silence, or, if much 
pressed, reply only in groans, these sixth- 
magnitude men have been obliged to make 
answer themselves ; and they have done it with 
an emphasis and vociferation calculated to dis- 
pel all remaining doubts in the minds of men. 
In Milliner's mind, at least, they have left little ; 
a conviction the more excusable, as the play- 
going vulgar seem to be almost unanimous in 
sharing it; and thunders of applause, nightly 
through so many theatres, return him loud 
acclaim. Such renown is pleasant food for the 
hungry appetite of a man, and naturally he 
rolls it as a sweet morsel under his tongue : 



but,' after all, it can profit him but little; nay, 
many times, what is sugar to the taste may be 
sugar-of-lead when it is swallowed. Better 
were it for Miillner, we think, had fainter 
thunders of applause, and from fewer theatres, 
greeted him. For what good is in it, even 
were there no evill Though a thousand caps 
leap into the air at his name, his own stature 
is no hair's breadth higher; neither even can 
the final estimate of its height be thereby in 
the smallest degree enlarged. From gainsay- 
ers these greetings provoke only a stricter 
scrutiny ; the matter comes to be accurately 
known at last; and he, who has been treated 
with foolish liberality at one period, must make 
up for it by the want of bare necessaries at 
another. No one will deny that Miillner is a 
person of some considerable talent: we under- 
stand he is, or was once, a Lawyer; and can 
believe that he may have acted, and talked, 
and written, very prettily in that capacity : 
but to set up for a Poet was quite a different 
enterprise, in which we reckon that he has 
altogether mistaken his road, and these mob- 
cheers have led him farther and farther astray. 
Several years ago, on the faith of very earn- 
est recommendation, it was our lot to read one 
of Dr. Milliner's Tragedies, the Alhanaserinn ; 
with which, such was its effect on us, we could 
willingly enough have terminated our ac- 
quaintance with Dr. Milliner. A palpable imi- 
tation of Schiller's Brant von Messina ; without 
any philosophy or feeling that was not either 
perfectly commonplace or perfectly false, often 
both the one and the other; inflated, indeed, 
into a certain hollow bulk, but altogether with- 
out greatness ; being built throughout on mere 
rant and clangour, and otlier elements of the 
most indubitable Prose: such a work could 
not but be satisfactory to us respecting Dr. 
Milliner's genius as a Poet; and time being 
precious, and the world wide enough, we had 
privately determined that we and Dr. Miillner 
were each henceforth to pursue his own 
course. Nevertheless, so considerable has 
been the progress of our worthy friend, since 
then, both at home and abroad, that his labours 
are again forced on our notice : for we reckon 
the existence of a true Poet in any country to 
be so important a fact, that even the slight pro- 
bability of such is worthy of investigation. 
Accordingly, we have again perused the Al- 
banascrinn, and along with it, faithfully ex- 
amined the whole Dramatic works of Miillner, 
published in seven volumes, on beautiful pa- 
per, in small shape, and ever}^ way very fit for 
handling. The whole tragic works, we should 
rather say : for three or four of his comic per- 
formances sufficiently contented us; and some 
two volumes of farces, we confess, are still 
unread. We have also carefully gone through, 
and with much less difficulty, the Prefaces, 
Appendices, and other prose sheets, whei-ein 
the Author exhibits the "fata Ubclli" defends 
himself from unjust criticisms, reports just 
ones, or himself makes such. The toils of 
this task we shall not magnify, well knowing 
that man's life is a fight throughout: only 
having now gathered what light is to be had on 
this matter, we proceed to speak forth our ver- 
dict thereon ; fondly hoping that we shall then 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



137 



have done with it, for an indefinite period of 
time. 

Dr. Milliner, then, we must take liberty to 
believe, in spite of all that has been said or 
sung on the subject, is no Dramatist; has never 
written a Tragedy, and in all human probabi- 
lity will never write one. Grounds for this 
harsh, negative opinion, did the "burden of 
proof" lie chiefly on our side, we might state 
in extreme abundance. There is one ground, 
however, which, if our observation be correct, 
would virtually include all the rest. Dr. Milli- 
ner's whole soul and character, to the deepest 
root we can trace of it, seems prosaic, not 
poetical; his Dramas, therefore, like whatever 
else he produces, must be manufactured, not 
created; nay, we think that his principle of 
manufacture is itself rather a poor and second- 
hand one. Vain were it for any reader to 
search in these seven volumes for an opinion 
any deeper or clearer, a sentiment any finer or 
higher, than may conveniently belong to the 
commonest practising advocate : except stilting 
heroics, which the man himself half knows to 
be false, and every other man easily waives 
aside, there is nothing here to disturb the qui- 
escence of either heart or head. This man is 
a Doctor Utriusqiie Juris, most probably of good 
juristic talent; and nothing more whatever. 
His language, too, all accurately measured 
into feet, and good current German, so far as a 
foreigner ma}' judge, bears similar testimony. 
Except the rhyme and metre, it exhibits no 
poetical symptom; without being verbose, it is 
essentially meager and watery; no idiomatic 
expressiveness, no melody, no virtue of any 
kind; the commonest vehicle for the com- 
monest meaning. Not that our Doctor is des- 
titute of metaphors and other rhetorical further- 
ances ; but that these also are of the most 
trivial character: old threadbare material, 
scoured up into a state of shabby-gentility; 
mostly turning on "light" and "darkness;" 
"flashes through clouds," "fire of heart," 
"tempest of soul," and the like, which can 
profit no man or woman. In short, we must 
repeat it, Dr. Miillner has 3'et to show that 
there is any particle of poetic metal in him ; 
that his genius is other than a sober clay-pit, 
from which good bricks may be made ; but 
where, to look for gold or diamonds were sheer 
waste of labour. 

When we think of our own Maturin and 
Sheridan Knowles, and the gala-day of popu- 
larity which they also once enjoyed with us, 
we can beat no loss for the genus under which 
Dr. Milliner is to be included in critical physi- 
ology. Nevertheless, in marking him as a dis- 
tinct Playwright, we are bound to mention 
that in general intellectual talent he shows 
himself very considerably superior to his two 
German brethren. He has a much belter taste 
than Klingemann; rejecting the aid of plush 
and gunpowder, we may say, altogether; is 
even at the pains to rhyme great part of his 
Tragedies; and on the whole, writes with a 
certain care and decorous composure, to which 
the Brunswick ^Tanager seems totally indif- 
ferent. Moreover, he appears to surpass 
Grillparzer, as well as Klingemann, in a cer- 
tain force both of judgment and passion ; 
18 



which indeed is no very mighty affair; Grill- 
parzer being naturally but a treble pipe in 
these matters; and Klingemann blowing 
through such an enormous coach-horn, that 
the natural note goes for nothing, becomes a 
mere vibration in that all-subduing volume of 
sound. At the same time, it is singular enough 
thatneither Grillparzer nor Klingemann should 
be nearly so tough reading as MuUner, which, 
however, we declare to be the fact. As to 
Klingemann, he is even an amusing artist ;^. 
there is such a briskness and heart in him ; so 
rich is he, na}', so exuberant in riches, so full 
of explosions, fire-flashes, execrations, and all 
manner of catastrophes : and then, good soul, 
he asks no attention from us, knows his trade 
better than to dream of asking any. Grill- 
parzer again is a sadder and perhaps a wiser 
companion ; long-winded a little, but peaceable 
and soft-hearted: his melancholy, even when 
he pules, is in the highest degree inoffensive, 
and we can often weep a tear or two for him, 
if not with him. But of all Tragedians, may 
the indulgent Heavens deliver us from any 
farther tratfic with Dr. Miillner! This is the 
lukewarm, which we could wish to be either 
cold or hot. Miillner will not keep us awake,, 
while we read him ; yet neither will he, like 
Klingemann, let us fairly get asleep. Ever 
and anon, it is as if we came into some smooth 
quiescent country ; and the soul flatters herself 
that here at last she ma}' be allowed to fall 
back on her cushions, the eyes meanwhile, 
like two safe postillions, comfortably conduct- 
ing her through that flat region, in which are 
nothing but flax-crops and milestones; and 
ever and anon some jolt or unexpected noise 
fatally disturbs her; and looking out, it is no 
waterfall or mountain chasm, but only the vil- 
lanous highway, and squalls of October wind.. 
To speak without figure, Dr. Miillner does 
seem to us a singularly oppressive writer; and 
perhaps, for this reason, that he hovers too 
near the verge of good writing; ever tempting 
us with some hope that here is a touch of poe- 
try; and ever disappointing us with a touch 
of pure Prose. A stately sentiment comes 
tramping forth with a clank that sounds poetic, 
and heroic: we start in breathless expectation, 
waiting to reverence the heavenly guest; and, 
alas, he proves to be but an old stager dressed 
in new buckram, a stager well known to us,, 
nay, often a stager that has already been drum- 
med out of most well-regulated communities.. 
So it is ever with Dr. Milliner: no feeling can 
be traced much deeper in him than the tongue ; 
or perhaps when we search more strictly, in- 
stead of an ideal of beauty, we shall find some 
vague aim after strength, or in defect of this, 
after mere size. And yet how cunningly 
he manages the counterfeit ! A most plausible, 
fair-spoken, close-shaven man; a man whoin. 
you must not, for decency's-sake, throw out of 
the window ; and yet you feel that being pal- 
pably a Turk in grain, his intents are wicked 
and not charitable ! 

But the grand question with regard to MuIi- 
ner, as with regard to these other Playwrights, 
is: where lies his peculiar sleight of hand in 
this craft 1 Let us endeavour, then, to find out 
his secret, — his recipe for play-making; and 
M 2 



138 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



communicate the same for behoof of the British 
nation. Miillner's recipe is no mysterious 
one ; floats, indeed, on the very surface : might 
even be taught, one would suppose, on a few- 
trials, to the humblest capacity. Our readers 
may perhaps recollect Zacharias Werner, and 
some short allusion, in our First Number, to a 
highly terrific piece of his, entilled The Twenty- 
fourth of Febniary. A more detailed accoutit 
of the matter may be found in Madame de 
Stael's Jlllemagne : in the Chapter which treats 
of that infatuated Zacharias generally. It is a 
story of a Swiss peasant and bankrupt, called 
Kurt Kuruh, if we mistake not; and of his 
wife, and a rich travelling, stranger, lodged 
with them ; which latter is, in the night of the 
Twenty-fourth of February, wilfully and felo- 
niously murdered by the two former, and 
proves himself in the act of dying to be their 
own only son, who had returned home to make 
them all comfortable, could they only have had 
a little patience. But the foul deed is already 
accomplished, with a rusty knife or scythe; 
and nothing of course remains but for the 
whole batch to go to perdition. For it was 
written, as the Arabs say, "on the iron leaf;" 
these Kuruhs are doomed men ; old Kuruh, the 
grandfather, had committed some sin or other; 
for which, like the sons of Atreus, his descend- 
ants are " prosecuted with the utmost rigour :" 
nay, so punctilious is Destiny, that this very 
Twenty-fourth of February, the day when that 
old sin was enacted, is still a fatal day with 
the family; and this very knife or scythe, the 
criminal tool on that former occasion, is ever 
the instrument of new crime and punishment; 
the Kuruhs, during all that half century, never 
having carried it to the smithy to make hob- 
nails; but kept it hanging on a peg, most inju- 
diciously we think, almost as a sort of bait 
and bonus to Satan, a ready-made fulcrum for 
whatever machinery he might bring to bear 
against them. This is the tragic lesson taught 
in Werner's Twenty-fourth of February : and, as 
the whole dramnlis persnncE are either stuck 
through with old iron, or hanged in hemp, it is 
surely taught with some considerable em- 
phasis. 

Werner's Play was brought out at Weimar, 
in 1809 ; under the direction or permission, as 
he brags, of the great Goethe himself; and 
seems to have produced no faint impression 
on a discerning public. It is, in fact, a piece 
nowise destitute of substance and a certam 
coarse vigour; and if any one has so obstinate 
a heart that he must absolutely stand in a 
slaughter-house, or within wind of the gallows 
before tears will come, it may have a very 
comfortable effect on him. One symptom of 
merit it must be admitted to exhibit, — an adap- 
tation to the general taste; for the small fibre 
of originality, which exists here, has already- 
shot forth into a whole wood of imitations. 
We understand that the Fate-line is now quite 
an established branch of dramatic business in 
Germany: they have their Fate-dramatists, just 
as we have our gingham-weavers, and inkle- 
weavers. Of this Fate-manufacture we have 
already seen one sample in Grillparzer's Mn- 
frau; hut by far the most extensive Fate- 
manufacturer, the head and prince of all Fate- 



dramatists, is the Dr. Milliner, at present un- 
der consideration. MiiUner deals in Fate and 
Fate only; it is the basis and staple of his 
whole tragedy-goods; cut off this one princi- 
ple, you annihilate his raw material, and he 
can manufacture no more. 

Miillner acknowledges his obligations to 
Werner; but, we think, not half warmly 
enough. Werner was in fact the making of 
him; great as he has now become, our Doctor 
is nothing but a mere misletoe growing from 
that poor oak, itself already half-dead; had 
there been no Tiven'y-fourth of February, there 
were then no Twenty-ninth of February, no 
Schuld, no ^Ibandserinn, most probably no 
Konig Yngnrd. For the reader is to under- 
stand that Dr. Miillner, already a middle-aged, 
and as yet a perfectly undramatic man, began 
business with a direct copy of this Twenty^ 
fourth; a thing proceeding by Destiny, and 
ending in murder, by a knife or scythe, as in 
the Kuruh case ; with one improvement, in- 
deed, that there was a grinding-stone intro- 
duced into the scene, and the spectator had 
the satisfaction of seeing the knife previously 
whetted. The Author too was honest enough 
publicly to admit his imitation ; for he named 
this Play, the Twenty-ninth of February : and, 
in his Preface, gave thanks, though somewhat 
reluctantly, to Werner, as to his master and 
originator. For some inscrutable reason, this 
Twenly-ninlh was not sent to the green-grocer, 
but became popular: there was even the 
weakest of parodies written on it, entitled 
Euinenidcs Diister, (Eumenides Gloomy,) which 
Miillner has reprinted ; there was likewise " a 
wish expressed" that the termination might 
be made joyous, not grievous ; with which 
wish also, the indefatigable wright has com- 
plied ; and so, for the benefit of weak nerves, 
we have the IVahn, (Delusion,) which still 
ends in tears, but glad ones. In short, our 
Doctor has a peculiar merit with this Twenty' 
ninth of his; for who but he could have cut a 
second and a third face on the same cherry- 
stone, said cherry-stone having first to be 
borrowed, or indeed half-stolen 1 

At this point, however, Dr. Miillner ap- 
parently began to set up for himself; and ever 
henceforth he endeavours to persuade his own 
mind and ours that his debt to Werner ter- 
minates here. Nevertheless clear it is that 
fresh debt was every day contracting. For 
had not this one Wernerean idea taken com- 
plete hold of the Doctor's mind, — so that he 
was quite possessed with it; had, we might 
say, no other tragic idea whatever? That a 
man, on a certain day of the month, shall fall 
into crime; for which an invisible Fate shall 
silently pursue him; punishing the transgres- 
sion, most probably on the same day of the 
month, annually (unless, as in the Twenty- 
ninth, it be leap-year, and Fate in this may be, 
to a certain extent, bilked; and never resting 
till the poor wight himself, and perhaps his 
last descendant, shall be swept away with the 
besom of destruction : such, mX)re or less dis- 
guised, frequently without any disguise, is the 
tragic essence, the vital principle, natural 
or galvanic we are not deciding, of all Dr. 
Miillner's Dramas. Thus, in that everlasting 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



139 



Twenty-ninth of February, we have the principle 
iu its naked "state: some old Woodcutter or 
Forester has fallen into' deadly sin with his 
wife's sister, long ago, on that intercalary day; 
and so his whole progeny must, wittingly or 
unwittingly, proceed in incest and murder; 
the day of "the catastrophe regularly occurring, 
every four years, on that same Twenty-ninth ; 
till happily the whole are murdered, and there 
is an end. So likewise in the Schuld, (Guilt,) a 
much more ambitious performance, we have 
exactly the same doctrine of an anniversary ; 
and the interest once more turns on that 
delicate business of murder and incest. In the 
Mbandscrinn, (Fair Albanese,) again, which 
may have the credit, such as it is, of being 
Milliner's best Play, we find the Fate-theory a 
little coloured; as if the drug had begun to 
disgust, and the Doctor would hide it in a 
spoonful of syrup: it is a dying man's curse 
that operates on the criminal; which curse, 
being strengthened by a sin of very old stand- 
ing in the family of the cursee, takes singular 
eifect; the parties only weathering parricide, 
fratricide, and the old story of incest, by two 
self-banishments, and two very decisive self- 
murders. Nay, it seems as if our Doctor 
positively could not act at all without this 
Fate-panacea: in Konig Yngurd, we might 
almost think that he had made such an at- 
tempt, and found that it would not do. This 
Konig Yngurd, an imaginary Peasant-King of 
Norway, is meant, as we are kindly informed, 
to present us with some adumbration of Na- 
poleon Bonaparte ; and truly, for the two or 
three first Acts, he goes along with no small 
gallantry, in what drill-sergeants call a dash- 
ing or swashing style ; a very virtuous kind 
of man, and as bold as Ruy Diaz or any other 
Christian: when suddenly in the middle of a 
battle, far on in the Play, he is seized with 
some caprice, or whimsical qualm; retires to 
a solitaiy place, among rocks, and there, in 
the most gratuitous manner, delivers himself 
over, viva voce, to the Devil ; who indeed does 
not appear personally to take seisin of him, 
but yet, as afterwards comes to light, has with 
great readiness accepted the gift. For now 
Yngurd grows dreadfully sulky and wicked, 
does little henceforth but bully men and kill 
them; till at length, the measure of his ini- 
quities being full, he himself is bullied and 
killed; and the Author, carried through by 
this his sovereign tragic elixir, contrary to ex- 
pectation, terminates his piece with reasonable 
comfort. 

This, then, is Dr. Milliner's dramatic mys- 
tery; this is the one patent hook by which he 
would hang his clay tragedies on the upper 
spiritual world ; and so establish for himself 
a free communication, almost as if by block- 
and-tackle, between the visible Prose Earth 
and the invisible Poetic Heaven. The greater 
or less merit of this his invention, or rather 
improvement, for Werner is the real patentee, 
has given rise, we understand, to extensive 
argument. The small deer of criticism seem 
to be much divided in opinion on this point; 
and the higher orders, as we have stated, de- 
clining to throw any light whatever on it, the 
subject is still mooting with great animation. 



For our own share, we confess that we incline 
to rank it as a recipe for dramatic tears, a 
shade higher than the Page's split onion in 
the Taming of the Shrciv. Craftily hid in the 
handkerchief^, this onion was sullicient for the 
deception of Christopher Sly ; in that way at- 
taining its object ; which, alco, the Fate-inven- 
tion seems to have done with the Christopher 
Slys of Germany, and these not one but many, 
and therefore somewhat harder to deceive. 
To this onion-superiority we think Dr. M. is 
fairly entitled ; and with this it were, perhaps, 
good for him that he remained content. 

Dr. Milliner's Fate-scheme has been attacked 
by certain of his traducers on the score of its 
hostility to the Christian religion. Languish- 
ing, indeed, should we reckon the condition 
of the Christian religion to be, could Dr. Milli- 
ner's play-joinery produce any perceptible 
effect on it. Nevertheless, we may remark, 
since the matter is in hand, that this business 
of Fate does seem to us nowise a Christian 
doctrine; not even a Mohammedan or Heathen 
one. The Fate of the Greeks, though a false, 
was a lofty hypothesis, and harmonized suf- 
ficiently with the whole sensual and material 
structure of their theology: a ground of deep- 
est black, on which that gorgeous phantas- 
magoria was fitly enough painted. Besides, 
with them, the avenging Power dwelt, at least 
in its visible manifestations, among the high 
places of the earth ; visiting only kingly houses, 
and world's criminals, from whom it might be 
supposed the world, but for such miraculous in- 
terferences, could have exacted no vengeance, 
or found no protection and purification. Never, 
that we recollect of, did the Erfnnyes become 
mere sheriffs'-officers, and Fate a justice of 
the peace, haling poor drudges to the tread- 
mill for robbery of henroosts, or scattering the 
earth with steel-traps to keep down poaching. 
And rchat has all this to do with the revealed 
Providence of these days ; that power whose 
path is emphatically through the great deep ; 
his doings and plans manifested, in complete- 
ness, not by the year, or by the century, on in- 
dividuals or on nations, but stretching through 
eternity, and over the infinitude which he rules 
and sustains ] 

But there needs no recourse to theological 
arguments for judging this Fate-tenet of Dr. 
Milliner's. Its value, as a dramatic principle, 
may be estimated, it seems to us, by this one 
consideration : that in these days no person of 
either sex in the slightest degree believes it; 
that Dr. Milliner himself does not believe it 
We are not contending that fiction should be- 
come fact, or that no dramatic incident is 
genuine, unless it could be sworn to before a 
jury; but simply that fiction should not be 
falsehood and delirium. How shall any one 
in the drama, or in poetry of any sort, present 
a consistent philosophy of life, which is the 
soul and ultimate essence of all poetry, if he 
and every mortal know that the whole moral 
basis of his ideal world is a lie? And is it 
other than a lie that man's life is, or was, or 
could be, grounded on this pettifogging princi- 
ple 'of a Fate that pursues woodcutters and 
cowherds with miraculous visitations, on staled 
days of the month 1 Can we, with any profit. 



140 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



hold the mirror up to Nature in this wise ? 
When our mirror is no mirror, but only as it 
■were a nursery saucepan, and that long since 
grown rusty 1 

We might add, were it of any moment in 
this case, that we reckon Dr. Miillner's tragic 
knack altogether insufficient for a still more 
comprehensive reason ; simply for the reason 
that it is a knack, a recipe, or secret of the 
craft, which, could it be never so excellent, 
must by repeated use degenerate into a man- 
nerism, and therefore into a nuisance. But 
herein lies the difference between creation 
and manufacture; the latter has its manipula- 
tions, its secret processes, which can be learned 
by apprenticeship ; the former has not. For 
in poetry we have heard of no secret possess- 
ing the smallest effectual virtue, except this 
one general secret: that the poet be a man of 
a purer, higher, richer nature than other men ; 
which higher nature shall itself, after earnest 
inquiry, have taught him the proper form for 
imbodying its inspirations, as indeed the im- 
perishable beauty of these will shine, with 
more or less distinctness, through any form 
whatever. 

Had Dr. Miillner any visible pretension to 
this last great secret, it might be a duly to 
dwell longer and more gravely on his minor 
ones, however false and poor. As he has no 
such pretension, it appears to us that for the 
present we may take our leave. To give any 
further analysis of his individual dramas would 
be an easy task, but a stupid and thankless 
one. A Harrison's watch, though this too is 
but an earthly machine, may be taken asunder 
with some project of scientific advantage ; 
but who would spend time in screwing and 
unscrewing the mechanism of ten pepper- 
mills ■? Neither shall we offer any extract, as 
a specimen of the diction and sentiment that 
reigns in these dramas. We have said already 
that it is fair, well-ordered stage-sentiment this 
of his ; that the diction too is good, well- 
scanned, grammatical diction ; no fault to be 
found with either, except that they pretend to 
be poetry, and are throughout the most un- 
adulterated prose. To exhibit this fact in 
extracts would be a vain undertaking. Not 
the few sprigs of heath, but the thousand acres 
of it,, characterize the wilderness. Let any 
one who covets a trim heath-nosegay, clutch 
at random into Miillner's seven volumes; for 
ourselves, we would not deal further in that 
article. 

Besides his dramatic labours. Dr. Miillner is 
known to the public as a journalist. For some 
considerable time, he has edited a literary news- 
paper of his own originating, the Mitternncht- 
Blalt (Midnight Paper); stray leaves of which 
we occasionally look into. In this last capacity, 
we are happy to observe, he shows to much 
more advantage; indeed, the journalistic office 
seems quite natural to him ; and would he take 
any advice from us, which he will not, here 
were the arena in which, and not in the Fate- 
drama, he would exclusively continue to fence, 
for his bread or glory. He is not without a 
vein of small wit; a certain degree of drollery 
there is, and grinning half-risible, half-impu- 
dent ; he has a fair hand at the feebler sort of 



lampoon : the German Joe Millers also seem 
familiar to him, and his skill in the riddle is 
, respectable; so that altogether, as we said, he 
; makes a superior figure in this line, which in- 
: deed is but despicably managed in Germany, 
and his Mittemacht-Blatt is, by several degrees, 
the most readable paper of its kind we meet with 
; in that country. Not that we, in the abstract, 
' much admire Dr. Miillner's newspaper pro- 
cedure ; his style is merely the common-tavern- 
j style, familiar enough in our own periodical 
1 literature; riotous, blustering, with some tinc- 
j ture of blackguardism-, a half-dishonest style, 
and smells considerably of tobacco and spiritu- 
I ous liquor. Neither do we find that there is 
i the smallest fraction of valuable knowledge or 
opiniun communicated in the Midnight Paper; 
indeed, except it be the knowledge and opinion 
that Dr. Miillner is a great dramatist, and that all 
who presume to think otherwise are insufficient 
members of society, we cannot charge our 
memory with having gathered any knowledge 
from it whatever. It may be, too, that Dr.. 
Miillner is not perfectly original in his journal- 
istic manner: we have sometimes felt as if his 
light were, to a certain extent, a borrowed one v 
a rushlight kindled at the great pitch link of 
our own Blackwood's Magazine. But on this 
point we cannot take upon us to decide. 

One of Miillner's regular journalistic articles 
is the Kricgszeihmg, or War-intelligence, of all 
the paper-battles, feuds, defiances, and private 
assassinations, chiefly dramatic, which occur 
in the more distracted portion of the German 
Literary Republic. This Kriegszeitung Dr» 
Miillner evidently writes with great gusto, in 
a lively braggadocia manner, especially when 
touching on his own exploits ; yet to us, it is 
far the most melancholy part of the Mittemacht- 
Llatt. Alas! this is not what we search for in 
a German newspaper; how "Herr Sapphir, or 
Herr Carbuncle, or so many other Herren 
Dousterswivel, are all busily molesting one 
another ! We ourselves are pacific men ; make 
a point " to shun discrepant circles rather than 
seek them:" and how sad is it to hear of sa 
many illustrious-obscure persons living in 
foreign parts, and hear only, what was well 
known without hearing, that they also are in- 
stinct with the spirit of Satan ! For what is 
the bone that these Journalists, in Berlin and 
elsewere, are worrying over; what is the ulti- 
mate purpose of all this barking and snarling] 
Sheer love of fight, you would say; simply to 
make one another's life a little bitterer, as if 
Fate had not been cross enough to the hap- 
piest of them. Were there any perceptible 
subject of dispute, any doctrine to advocate, 
even a false one, it would be something; but 
so far as we can discover, whether from Sap- 
phire and Company, or the "Nabob of Weis- 
senfels," (our own worthy Doctor,) there is 
none. And is this their appointed function ? 
Are Editors scattered over the country, and 
supplied with victuals and fuel, purely to bite 
one another] Certainly not. But these Journal- 
ists, we think, are like the Academician's 
colony of spiders. This French virtuoso had 
found that cobwebs were worth something, 
could even be woven into silk stockings : 
whereupon, he exhibits a very handsome pail 



GERMAN PLAYWRIGHTS. 



Ul 



of cobweb hose to the Academy, is encouraged 
to proceed with the manufacture, and so col- 
lects some half-bushel of spiders, and puts 
them down in a spacious loft, with every con- 
venience for making silk. But will the vicious 
creatures spin a thread"! In place of it, they 
take to fighting with their whole vigour, 
in contempt of the poor Academician's utmost 
exertions to part (hem: and end not, till there 
is simply one spider left living, and not a shred 
of cobweb woven, or thenceforth to be ex- 
pected ! Could the weavers of paragraphs, 
like these of the cobweb, fairly exterminate 
and silence one another, it would perhaps be 
a little more supportable. But an Editor is 
made of sterner stuff. In general cases, in- 
deed, when the brains are out, the man will 
die : but it is a well known fact in Journalistics, 
that a man may not only live, but support wife 
and children by his labours, in this line, years 
after the brain (if there ever was any) has 
been completely abstracted, or reduced, by 
time and hard usage, into a state of dry 
powder. What then is to be done 1 Is there 
no end to this brawling; and will the unpro- 
fitable noise endure for ever ? By way of 
palliative, we have sometimes imagined that a 
Congress of all German Editors might be ap- 
pointed, by proclamation, in some central spot, 
say the Niirnberg Market-place, if it would 
hold them all: here we would humbly suggest 
that the whole JournaliMik might assemble on 
a given day, and under the eye of proper 
marshals, siTfficiently and satisfactorily horse- 
whip one another simultaneously, each his 
neighbour, till the very toughest had enough 
both of whipping and of being whipped. In 
this way, it seems probable, little or no injus- 
tice would be done : and each Journalist, 
cleared of gall, for several months, might re- 
turn home in a more composed frame of mind, 
and betake himself with new alacrity to the 
real duties of his office. 

But, enough! enough! The humour of 
these men maybe infectious; it is not good 
for us to be here. Wandering over the Ely- 
■sian fields of German Literature, not watch- 
ing the gloomy discords of its Tartarus, is 
what we wish to be employed in. Let the 
iron gate again close, and shut in the pallid 
kingdoms from view; we gladly revisit the 



upper air. Not in despite towards the German 
nation, which we love honestly, have we spo- 
ken thus of these its Playwrights and Jour- 
nalists. Alas! when we look around us at 
home, we feel too well that the Germans might 
say to us, — Neighbour, sweep thy own floor ! 
Neither is it with any hope of bettering the 
existence of these three individual Poetasters, 
still less with the smallest shadow of wish to 
make it more miserable, that we have spoken. 
After all, there must be Playwrights, as we 
have said : and these are among the best of 
the class. So long as it pleases them to manu- 
facture in this line, and any body of German 
Thebans to pay them, in grosrhcn or plaudits, 
for their ware, let both parlies persist in so 
doing, and fair befall them ! But the duty of 
Foreign Reviewers is of a two-fold sort. For 
not only are we stationed on the coast of the 
countr3', as watchers and spials, to report 
whatsoever remarkable thing becomes visible 
in the distance ; but we stand there also as a 
sort of Tide-waiters and Preventive-service- 
men, to contend, with our utmost vigour, that 
no improper article be landed. These offices, 
it would seem, as in the material world, so 
also in the literary and spiritual, usually fall 
to the lot of aged, invalided, impoverished, or 
otherwise decayed persons ; but this is little to 
the matter. As true British subjects, with 
ready will, though it may be, with our last 
strength, we are here to discharge that double 
duty. Movements, we observe, are making 
along the beach, and signals out sea-wards, as 
if these Klingemaims and M'illners were to 
be landed on our soil: but through the 
strength of heaven this shall not be done, till 
the "most thinking people" know "what it is 
that is landing. For the rest, if any one wishes 
to import that sort of produce, and finds it 
nourishing for his inward man, let him do so, 
and welcome. Only let him understand that 
it is not German Literature he is swallowing, 
but the froth and scum of German Literature; 
which scum, if he will only wait, we can fur- 
ther promise him that he may, ere long, enjoy 
in the new, and perhaps cheaper, form of sedi- 
ment. And so let every one be active for him- 
self. 

Jfoch ist es Tag; da riihre sich der Mann, 
Die J^aeht tritt tin, wo niemand wirken kann. 



142 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



yoltaire; 



[Foreign Review, 1829.] 



Could ambition always choose its own path, 
and were will in human undertakings synony- 
mous with faculty, all truly ambitious men 
would be men of letters. Certainly, if we 
examine that love of power, which enters so 
largely into most practical calculations, nay, 
which our Utilitarian friends have recognised 
as the sole end and origin, both motive and 
reward, of all earthly enterprises, animating 
alike the philanthropist, the conqueror, the 
money-changer, and the missionary, we shall 
find that all other arenas of ambition, com- 
pared with this rich and boundless one of 
Literature, meaning thereby whatever respects 
the promulgation of Thought, are poor, limited, 
and ineffectual. For dull, unreflective, mere- 
ly instinctive as the ordinary man may seem, 
he has nevertheless, as a quite indispensable 
appendage, a head that in some degree con- 
siders and computes ; a lamp or rushlight of 
understanding has been given him, which, 
through whatever dim, besmoked, and strange- 
ly diflYactive media it may shine, is the ulti- 
mate guiding light of his whole path : and 
here, as well as there, now as at all times in 
man's history. Opinion rules the world. 

Curious it is, moreover, to consider, in this 
respect, how diiferent appearance is from 
reality, and under what singular shape and 
circumstances the truly most important man 
of any given period might be found. Could 
some Asmodeus, by simply waiving his arm, 
open asunder the meaning of the Present, 
even so far as the Future Avill disclose it, how 
much more marvellous a sight should we 
have, than that mere bodily one through the 
roofs of Madrid ! For we know not what we 
are, any more than what we shall be. It is a 
high, solemn, almost awful thought for every 
mdividual man, that his earthly influence, 
which has had a commencement, will never 
through all ages, were he the very meanest 
of us, have an end ! What is done is done ; 
has already blended itself with the boundless, 
ever-living, ever-working Universe, and will 
also work there, for good or for evil, openly 
or secretly, throughout all time. But the life 
of every man is as the well-spring of a stream, 
whose small beginnings are indeed plain to 
all, but whose ulterior course and destination, 
as it winds through the expanses of infinite 
years, only the Omniscient can discern. Will 
it mingle with neighbouring rivulets, as a 
tributary ; or receive them as their sovereign 1 

* JHeiiioires sur Voltaire, et sur ses Ouvra^es, par hons- 
champ et Wagniire, ses Secretaires ; suiois de divers 
Ji''crits inedits de la Marquise du Cfidtelet, du President 
Henault, ffc, tous relatifs it Voltaire. (iMemoirs cou- 
cernins Voltaire and his Works, by Longchainp and 
Wagnifirc, his Secretaries; with various unpublished 
pieces by the Marquise du Chatelet, &c., all relating to 
Voltaire.) 2 Tomes. Paris, 1826. 



Is it to be a nameless brook, and will its tiny 
waters, among millions of other brooks and 
rills, increase the current of some world's- 
riverl Or is it to be itself a Rhine or Danaw, 
whose goings forth are to the uttermost lands, 
its flood an everlasting boundary-line on the 
globe itself, the bulwark and highway of 
whole kingdoms and continents 1 We know 
not : only in either case, we know its path is 
to the great ocean : its waters, were they but 
a handful, are Jtcrc, and cannot be annihilated 
or permanently held back. 

As little can M'e prognosticate, with any 
certainty, the future influences from the pre- 
sent aspects of an individual. How many 
Demagogues, Crossuses, Conquerors fill their 
own age with joy or terror, with a tumult that 
promises to be perennial ; and in the next 
age die away into insignificance and oblivion f 
These are the forests of gourds, that overtop 
the infant cedars and aloe-trees, but, like the 
Prophet's gourd, wither on the third day. 
What was it to the Pharaohs of Egypt, in that 
old era, if Jethro the Midianitish priest and 
grazier accepted the Hebrew outlaw as his 
herdsman 1 Yet the Pharaohs, with all their 
chariots of war, are buried deep in the v/recks 
of time; and that Moses still lives, not among 
his own tribe only, but in the hearts and daily 
business of all civilized nations. Or figure 
Mahomet, in his youthful years, " travelling to 
the horse-fairs of Syria !" Nay, to take an 
infinitely higher instance, who has ever for- 
gotten those lines of Tacitus ; inserted as a 
small, transitory, altogether trifling circum- 
stance in the history of such a potentate as 
Nero ? To us it is the most earnest, sad, and 
sternly significant passage that we know to 
exist in writing : Ergo abolcndo rumori Nero 
subdidit reos, et (jtieEsitissimis panis nffrdt, qtios 
j)cr flagitia invisos, vulgus CHnisTiANos appella- 
hat. Auclor naminis ejus CanisTus, (jui, Tiberio 
impcritantc, per Procuralorem Pontium Pilatum 
supplicio affectus erat. lieprcssaque in preesens 
exiliahilis superstilio rursus erumpebat, non modo 
per Jndceam o-rigincm ejus muli, sed per urbcm 
eliam, quo cunda undique airona aut pudenda 
confluunt, celebranturque. " So, for the quieting 
of this rumour,* Nero judicially charged with 
the crime, and punished with most studied 
severities, that class, hated for their general 
wickedness, whom the vulgar call Christians. 
The originator of that name was one Christ, 
who, in the reign of Tiberius, suffered death 
by sentence of the procurator, Pontius Pilate. 
The baneful superstition, thereby repressed 
for the time, again broke out, not only over 
Judea, the native soil of that mischief, but 
in the City also, where from every side all' 

• Of his having set fire to Rome. 



VOLTAIRE. 



143 



atrocious and abominable things collect and 
flourish."* Tacitus was the wisest, most pene- 
trating man of his generation ; and to such 
depth, and no deeper, has he seen into this 
transaction, the most important that has oc- 
curred or can occur in the annals of mankind. 
Nor is it only to those primitive ages, when 
religions took their rise, and a man of pure 
and high mind appeared not merely as a 
teacher and philosopher, but as a priest and 
prophet, that our observation applies. The 
same uncertainty, in estimating present things 
and men, holds more or less in all times ; for 
in all times, even in those which seem most 
trivial, and open to research, human society 
rests on inscrutably deep foundations; which 
he is of all others the most mistaken, who 
fancies he has explored to the bottom. Neither 
is that sequence, which we love to speak of 
as "a chain of causes," properly to be iigured 
as a "chain," or line, but rather as a tissue, 
or superficies of innumerable lines, extending 
in breadth as well as in length, and with a 
complexity, which will foil and utterly be- 
wilder the most assiduous computation. In 
fact, the wisest of us must, for by far the most 
part, judge like the simplest; estimate im- 
portance by mere magnitude, and expect that 
what strongly affects our own generation, will 
strongly atfect those that are to follow. In this 
way it is that conquerors and political revo- 
lutionists come to figure as so mighty in their 
influences; whereas truly there is no class of 
persons, creating such an uproar in the world, 
who in the long run produce so very slight an 
impression on its affairs. When Tamerlane 
had finished building his pyramid of seventy 
thousand human skulls, and was seen " stand- 
ing at the gate Damascus, glittering, in steel, 
with his battle-axe on his shoulder," till his 
fierce hosts filed out to new victories and new 
carnage, the pale onlooker might have fancied 
that Nature was in her death-throes ; for havoc 
and despair had taken possession of the earth, 
the sun of manhood seemed setting in seas of 
blood. Yet, it might be, on that very gala-day 
of Tamerlane, a little boy was playing nine- 
pins on the streets of Mentz, whose history 
was more important to men than that of 
twenty Tamerlanes. The Tartar Khan, with 
his shaggy demons of the wilderness, "passed 
away like a whirlwind" to be forgotten for 
ever; and that German artisan has wrought 
a benefit, which is yet immeasurably expand- 
ing Itself, and will continue to expand itself 
through all countries and through all times. 
What are the conquests and expeditions of the 
whole corporation of captains, from Walter 
the Pennyless to Napoleon Bonaparte, com- 
pared with these " movable types " of Johannes 
Faust ? Truly, it is a mortifying thing for 
your Conqueror to reflect, how perishable is 
the metal which he hammers Avith such vio- 
lence : how the kind earth will soon shroud 
up his bloody footprints; and all that he 
achieved and skilfully piled together will be 
but like his own "canvas city " of a camp, — 
this evening loud with life, to-morrow all 
struck and vanished, "a few earth-pits and 



♦ Tacit. Annal. xv. 44. 



heaps of straw !" For here, as always, it 
continues true, that the deepest force is the 
stillest; that, as in the Fable, the mild shining 
of the sun shall silently accomplish what the 
fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain 
essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in 
mind, that not by material, but by moral power, 
are men and their actions governed. How 
noiseless is thought ! No rolling of drums, no 
tramp of squadrons, or immeasurable tumult 
of baggage-wagons, attends its movements : in 
what obscure and sequestered places may the 
head be meditating, which is one day to be 
crowned with more than imperial authority; 
for Kings and Emperors will be among its 
ministering servants; it will rule not over,, 
but in all heads, and with these its solitary 
combinations of ideas, as with magic formulas 
bend the world to its will! The time may ^ 
come, when Napoleon himself will be better 
known for his laws than for his battles; and 
the victory of Waterloo prove less momentous 
than the opening of the first Mechanics' In- 
stitute. 

We have been led into such rather trite re- 
flections, by these volumes of Mcinoir^on Vul- 
tairc ; a man in whose history the relative im- 
portance of intellectual and physical power is 
again curiously evinced, i'ttis also was a 
private person, by birth nowise an elevated 
one ; yet so far as present knowledge will ena- 
ble us to judge, it may be said, that to abstract 
Voltaire and his activity from the eighteenth 
century, were to produce a greater difference 
in the existing figure of things, than the want 
of any other individual, up to this day, could 
have occasioned. Nay, with the single excep- 
tion of Luther, there is, perhaps, in these 
modern ages, no other man of a merely intel- 
lectual character, whose influence and reputa- 
tion have become so entirely European as that 
of Voltaire. Indeed, like the great German 
Reformer's, his doctrines too, almost from the 
first, have aflected not only the belief of the 
thinking world, silently propagating themselves 
from mind to mind ; but in a high degree also, 
the conduct of the active and political world; 
entering as a distinct element into some of the 
most fearful civil convulsions which European 
history has on record. 

Doubtless, to his own contemporaries, to such 
of them at least as had any insight into the 
actual state of men's minds, Voltaire already 
appeared as a note-worthy and decidedly his- 
torical personage : yet, perhaps, not the wildest 
of his admirers ventured to assign him such a 
magnitude as he now figures in, even with his 
adversaries and detractors. He has grown in 
apparent importance, as we receded from him, 
as the nature of his endeavours became more 
and more visible in their results. For, unlike 
many great men, but like all great agitators, 
Voltaire everywhere shows himself emphati- 
cally as the man of his century: uniting in his 
own person whatever spiritual accomplish- 
ments were most valued by that age; at the 
same time, with no depth to discern its ulterior 
tendencies, still less with any magnanimity to 
attempt withstanding these, his greatness and 
his littleness alike fitted him to produce an im- 
i mediate effect; for he leads whither the multi- 



144 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tnde was of itself dimly minded to run, and 
keeps the van not less by skill in commandiiijr, 
than by cunning; in obeying. Besides, now 
that we look on ihe matter from some distance, 
the efforts of a thousand coadjutors and disci- 
ples, nay, a series of mighty political vicissi- 
tudes, in the production of which these efforts 
had but a subsidiary share, have all come, na- 
turally in such a case, to appear as if exclu- 
sively his work; so that he rises before us as 
the paragon and epitome of a whole spiritual 
period, now almost passed away, yet remarka- 
ble in itself, and more than ever interesting to 
us, who seem to stand, as it were, on the con- 
fines of a new and better one. 

Nay, had we forgotten that ours is the " Age 
of the Press," when he who runs may not only 
read, but furnish us with reading; and simply 
counted the books, and scattered leaves, thick 
as the autumnal in Vallorabrosa, that have been 
written and printed concerning this man, we 
might almost fancy him the most important 
person, not of the eighteenth century, but of all 
the centuries from Noah's flood downwards. 
We have Lives of Voltaire by friend and by foe: 
Condorcet, Duvernet, Lepan, have each given 
us a whole ; portions, documents, and all manner 
of authentic or spurious contributions have 
been supplied by innumerable hands ; of which 
we mention only the labours of his various 
secretaries : Collini's, published some twenty 
years ago, and now these two massive octavos 
from Longchamp and Wagniere. To say no- 
thing of the Baron de Grimm's Collections, 
unparalleled in more than one respect; or of 
the six-and-thirty volumes of scurrilous eaves- 
dropping, long since printed under the title of 
Menwires de kachuun.onl ; or of the daily and 
hourly attacks and defences that appeared 
separately in his lifetime, and all the judicial 
piec«s, whether in the style of apotheosis or 
of excommunication, that have seen the light 
since then; a mass of fugitive writings, the 
very diamond edition of which might fill whole 
libraries. The peculiar talent of the French 
in all narrative, at least in all anecdotic, de- 
partments, rendering most of these works ex- 
tremely readable, still further favoured their 
circulation, both at home and abroad : so that 
now, in most countries, Voltaire has been read 
of and talked of, till his name and life have 
grown familiar like those of a village acquaint- 
ance. In England, at least, where for almost 
a century the study of foreign literature has, 
we may say,confined itself to that of the French, 
with a slight intermixture from the elder Ita- 
lians, Voltaire's writings and such writings as 
treated of him, were little likely to want readers. 
We suppose, there is no literary era, not even 
any domestic one, concerning which English- 
men in general have such information, at least 
have gathered so manv anecdotes and opinions, 
as concerning this of Voltaire. Nor have native 
additions to the stock been wanting, and these 
of a due variety in purport and kind: maledic- 
tions, expostulations, and dreadful death-scenes, 
painted like Spanish Sinhenitos, by weak well- 
meaning persons of the hostile class ; eulogies, 
generally of the gayer sort, by open or secret 
friends : all this has been long and extensively 
carried on among us. There is even an Eng- 



lish Life of Voltaire ,* nay, we remember to 
have seen portions of his writings cited, in ter- 
rorum, and with criticisms, in some pamphlet, 
" by a country gentleman," either on ihe Edu- 
cation of the People, or else on the question of 
Preserving the Game. 

With the " Age of the Press," and such mani- 
festations of it on this subject, we are far from 
quarrelling. We have read great part of these 
thousand-and-firsi "Memoirs on Voltaire," by 
Longchamp and Wagniere, not without satis- 
faction ; and can cheerfully look forward to 
still other "Memoirs" following in their train. 
Nothing can be more in the course of nature 
than the wish to satisfy one's self with know- 
ledge of all sorts about any distinguished per- 
son, especially of our own era ; the true study 
of his character, his spiritual individuality, 
and peculiar manner of existence, is full of 
instruction for all mankind : even that of his 
looks, sayings, habitudes, and indifferent ac- 
tions, were not the records of them generally 
lies, is rather to be commended; nay, are not 
such lies themselves, when they keep within 
bounds, and the subject of them has been dead 
for some time, equal to snipe-shooting, or Col- 
burn-Novels, at least little inferior in the great 
art of getting done with life, or, as it is tech- 
nically called, killing time ] For our own 
part, we say, — would that every Johnson in 
the world had his veridical Boswell, or leash 
of Boswells ! We could then tolerate his 
Hawkins also, though not veridical. With 
regard to Voltaire, in particular, it seems to 
us not only innocent but profitable, that the 
whole truth regarding him should be well un- 
derstood. Surely, the biography of such a 
man, who, to say no more of him, spent his 
best efforts, and as many still think, success- 
fully, in assaulting the Christian religion, must 
be a matter of considerable import; what he 
did, and what he could not do; how he did it, 
or attempted it, that is, with what degree of 
strength, clearness, especially with what moral 
intents, what theories and feelings on man and 
man's life, are questions that will bear some 
discussing. To Voltaire, individually, for the 
last fifty-one years, the discussion has been 
indifferent enough ; and to us it is a discussion 
not on one remarkable person only, and chiefly 
for the curious or studious, but involving con- 
siderations of highest moment to all men, and 
inquiries which the utmost compass of our 
philosophy will be unable to embrace. 

Here, accordingly, we are about to offer 
some further observations on this qucestio 
vexata ; not without hope that the reader may 
accept them in good part. Doubtless, when 
we look at the whole bearings of the matter, 
there seems little prospect of any unanimity 
respecting it, either now, or withir a calcula- 
ble period: it is probable that many will con- 
tinue, for a long time, to speak of this " uni- 

♦ "By Frank Hall Standish, Esq." (London, 18^1) : a 
work, which we can rficominenri only to such as feel 
themselves in extreme want of information nn this sub- 
ject, and, except in their own lansuase, unable to acquire 
any. It is written very badly, though with sincerity, 
anii not without considerable indications of talent ; to all 
appearance, by a minor, niany of whose statements and 
opinions (for he seems an inTnirinsr, honest -hearted, 
rather decisive character) must have begun to aatcnish 
even himself, several years ago. 



VOLTAIRE. 



145 



versal genius," this " apostle of Reason," and 
" father of sound Philosophy ;" and many again 
of this "monster of impiety," this "sophist," 
and "atheist," and "ape-demon;" or, like the 
late Dr. Clarke of Cambridge, dismiss him more 
briefly with information that he is " a driveller:" 
neither is it essential that these two parties 
should, on the spur of the instant, reconcile 
themselves herein. Nevertheless, truth is 
better than error, were it only " on Hannibal's 
vinegar." It may be expected that men's 
opinions concerning Voltaire, which is of some 
moment, and concerning Voltairism, which is 
of almost boundless moment, will, if they can- 
not meet, gradually at every new comparison 
approach towards meeting; and what is still 
more desirable, towards meeting somewhere 
nearer the truth than they actually stand. 

With honest wishes to promote such ap- 
proximation, there is one condition, which, 
above all others, in this inquiry, we must beg 
the reader to impose on himself: the duty of 
fairness towards Voltaire, of Tolerance to- 
wards him, as towards all men. This, truly, 
is a duty, which we have the happiness to hear 
daily inculcated ; yet which, it has been well 
said, no mortal is at bottom disposed to prac- 
tise. Nevertheless, if we really desire to un- 
derstand the truth on any subject, not merely, 
as is much more common, to confirm our al- 
ready existing opinions, and gratify this and 
the other pitiful claim of vanity or malice in 
respect of it, tolerance may be regarded as the 
most indispensable of all prerequisites; the 
condition, indeed, by which alone any real 
progress in the question becomes possible. In 
respect of our fellow-men, and all real insight 
into their characters, this is especially true. 
No character, w-e may affirm, was ever rightly 
understood, till it had first been regarded Math a 
certain feeling, not of tolerance only, but of 
sympathy. For here, more than in any other 
case, it is verified that the heart sees farther 
than the head. Let us be sure, our enemy is 
not that hateful being we are too apt to paint 
him. His vices and basenesses lie combined 
in far other order before his own mind, than 
before ours ; and under colours which palliate 
them, nay, perhaps, exhibit them as virtues. 
Were he the wretch of our imagining, his life 
would be a burden to himself; for it is not by 
bread alone that the basest mortal lives; a cer- 
tain approval of conscience is equally essen- 
tial even to physical existence; is the fine 
all-pervading cement by which that wondrous 
union, a Self, is held together. Since the man, 
therefore, is not in Bedlam, and has not shot 
or hanged himself, let us take comfort, and 
conclude that he is one of two things: either 
a vicious dog, in man's guise, to be muzzled, 
and mourned over, and greatly marvelled at ; 
or a real man, and, consequently, not without 
moral worth, which is to be enlightened, and 
so far approved of. But to judge rightly of 
his character, we must learn to look at it, not 
less with his eyes, than with our own ; we 
must learn to pity him, to see him as a fellow- 
creature, in a word, to love him, or his real 
spiritual nature will ever be mistaken by us. 
In interpreting Voltaire, accordingly, it will be 
needful to bear some things carefully in mind, 
19 



and to keep many other things as carefully in 
abeyance. Let us forget that our opinions 
were ever assailed by him, or ever defended; 
that we have to thank him, or upbraid him, for 
pain or for pleasure; let us forget that we are 
Deists, or Millenarians, Bishops, or Radical 
Reformers, and remember only that we are 
men. This is a European subject, or there 
never was one ; and must, if we would in the 
least comprehend it, be looked at neither from 
the parish belfry, nor any Peterloo Platform ; 
but, if possible, from some natural and infi- 
nitely higher point of vision. 

It is a remarkable fact, that throughout the 
last fifty years of his life, Voltaire was seldom 
or never named, even by his detractors, with- 
out the epithet " great" being appended to him ; 
so that, had the syllables suited such a junc- 
tion, as they did in the happier case of Chark- 
Magnc, we might almost have expected that, 
not Voltaire, but Voltaire-re-grund-homme would 
be his designation with posterity. However, 
posterity is much more stinted in its allow- 
ances on that score ; and a multitude of things 
remain to be adjusted, and questions of very 
dubious issue to be gone into, before such 
coronation titles can be conceded with any 
permanence. The million, even the wiser 
part of them, are apt to lose their discretion, 
when "tumultuously assembled;" for a small 
object, near at hand, may subtend a large 
angle ; and often a Pennenden Heath has been 
mistaken for a Field of Runnymede ; whereby 
the couplet on that immortal Dalhousie proves 
to be the emblem of many a man's real for- 
tune with the public: 

And Ihnn, Dalhousie, the ?reat God of war, 
Lieiitenant-Colone! to the Earl of Mar ; 
the latter end corresponding poorly with the 
beginning. To ascertain what was the true 
significance of Voltaire's history, both as re- 
spects himself and the world; what was his 
specific character and value as a man ; what 
has been the character and value of his in- 
fluence on society, of his appearance as an ac- 
tiveagent in the culture of Europe; all this leads 
us into much deeper investigations; on the 
settlement of Avhich, however, the whole busi- 
ness turns. 

To our own view, we confess, on looking at 
Voltaire's life, the chief quality that shows 
itself is one for which adroitness seems the 
fitter name. Greatness implies several condi- 
tions, the existence of which, in his case, it 
might be difficult to demonstrate; but of his 
claim to this other praise there can be no dis- 
puting. Whatever be his aims, high or low, 
just or the contrary, he is at all times, and to 
the utmost degree, expert in pursuing them. 
It is to be observed, moreover, that his aims in 
general were not of a simple sort, and the 
attainment of them easy : few literary men 
have had a course so diversified with vicissi- 
tudes as Voltaire's. His life is not spent in a 
corner, like that of a studious recluse, but on 
the open theatre of the world ; in an age full 
of commotion, when society is rending itself 
asunder. Superstition already armed for deadly 
battle against Unbelief; in which battle he 
himself plays a distinguished part. From his 
earliest years, we find him in perpetual coir 
N 



146 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



munication with the higher personages of 
his time, often with the highest: it is in circles 
of authority, of reputation, at lowest, of fashion 
and rank, that he lives and works. Ninon de 
I'EncIos leaves the boy a legacy to buy books ; 
he is still young, when he can say of his supper 
companions, " We are all Princes or Poets." 
In after life, he exhibits himself in company 
or correspondence with all manner of princi- 
palities and powers, from Queen Caroline of 
England to the Empress Catherine of Russia, 
from Pope Benedict to Frederic the Creat. 
Meanwhile, shifting from side to side of Europe, 
hiding in the country, or living sumptuously 
in capital cities, he quits not his pen, with 
which, as with sinne enchanter's rod, more 
potent than any king's sceptre, he turns and 
winds the mighty machine of European Opi- 
nion ; approves himself, as his schoolmaster 
had predicted, the Coryphee du Deismc ; and, 
not content with this elevation, strives, and 
nowise ineffectually, to unite with it a poetical, 
historical, philosophic, and even scientific pre- 
eminence. Nay, we may add, a pecuniary 
one ; for he speculates in the funds, diligently 
solicits pensions and promotions, trades to 
America, is long a regular victualling-contrac- 
tor for armies; and thus, by one means and 
another, independently of literature, which 
would never yield much money, raises his in- 
come from 800 francs a-year to more than 
centuple that sum.* And now, having, besides 
all this commercial and economical business, 
written some thirty quartos, the most popular 
that were ever written, he returns after long 
exile to his native city, to be welcomed there al- 
most as a religious idol ; and closes a life, pros- 
perous alike in the building of country-seats, 
and the composition of Hcnrindcs and Philoso- 
phical Dictionaries, by the most appropriate 
demise; by drowning, as it were, in an ocean 
of applause, so that as he lived for fame, he 
may be said to have died of it. 

Such various, complete success, granted 
(jnly to a small portion of men in any age of 
the world, presupposes, at least, with every 
allowance for good fortune, an almost un- 
rivalled expertness of management. There 
must have been a great talent of some kind at 
work here : a cause proportionate to the effect. 
It is wonderful, truly, to observe with what 
perfect skill Voltaire steers his course through 
so many conflicting circumstances : how he 
weathers this Cape Horn, darts lightly through 
that Mahlstrora ; always either sinks his 
enemy, or shuns him ; here waters, and careens, 
and traffics with the rich savages ; there lies 
land-locked till the hurricane is overblown ; 
and so, in spite of all billows, and sea-monsters, 
and hostile fleets, finishes his long Manilla 
voyage, with streamers flying, and deck piled 
with ingots ! To say nothing of his literary 
character, of which this same dexterous ad- 
dress will also be found to be a main feature, 
let us glance only at the general aspect of his 
conduct, as manifested both in his writings 
and actions. By turns, and ever at the right 
season, he is imperious and obsequious; now 
shoots abroad, from the mountain tops, Hype- 

* See Tome ii. p. 328 of these Jifhnoires. 



rion-like, his keen, innumerable shafts; anon, 
when danger is advancing, flies to obscure 
nooks; or, if taken in the fact, swears it was 
but in sport, and that he is the peaceablest of 
men. He bends to occasion; can, to a certain 
extent, blow hot or blow cold; and never at- 
tempts force, where cunning will serve his 
turn. The beagles of the Hierarchy and of 
the Monarchy, proverbially quick of scent, and 
sharp of tooth, are out in quest of him ; but this 
is a lion-fox which cannot be captured. By 
wiles and a thousand doublings, he utterly dis- 
tracts his pursuers; he can burrow in the 
earth, and all trace of him is gone.* With a 
strange system of anonymity and publicity, of 
denial and assertion, of Mystification in all 
senses, has Voltaire surrounded himself. He 
can raise no standing armies for his defence, 
yet he too is a "European power," and not 
undefended; an invisible, impregnable, though 
hitherto unrecognised bulwark, that of Public 
Opinion, defends him. With great art, he 
maintains this stronghold ; though ever and 
anon sallying out from it, far beyond the per- 
mitted limits. But he has his coat of darkness, 
and his shoes of swiftness, like that other 
Killer of Giants. We find Voltaire a supple 
courtier, or a sharp satirist; he can talk blas- 
phemy, and build churches, according to the 
signs of the times. Frederic the Great is not 
too high for his diplomacy, nor the poor Prin- 
ter of his Zadig too low ;f he manages the 
Cardinal Fleuri, and the Cure of St. Sulpice; 
and laughs in his sleeve at all the world. We 
should pronounce him to be one of the best 
politicians on record ; as we have said, the 
adroitcst of all literary men. 

At the same time, Voltaire's worst enemies, 
it seems to us, will not deny that he had 
naturally a keen sense for rectitude, indeed, for 
all virtue : the utmost vivacity of temperament 
characterizes him; his quick susceptibility for 
every form of beauty is moral as well as in- 
tellectual. Nor was his practice without in- 
dubitable and highly creditable proofs of this. 
To the help-needing he was at all times a 
ready benefactor: many were the hungry ad- 
venturers who profited of his bounty, and then 
bit the hand that had fed them. If we enume- 
rate his generous acts, from the case of the 
Abbe Desfontaines down to that of the widow 
Calas, and the Serfs of Saint Claude, we shall 
find that few private men have had so wide a 
circle of charity, and have watched over it so 
well. Should it be objected that love of repu- 
tation entered largely into these proceedings, 
Voltaire can afford a handsome deduction on 
that head: should the uncharitable even cal- 
culate that love of reputation was the sole 
motive, we can only remind them that love of 
swr/i reputation is itself the effect of a social, 
humane disposition ; and wish, as an immense 

* Of one sucl) "taking to cover," we have a curious 
and rather ridiculous account in this work, by Long- 
champ. It was with the Duchess du Maine that he 
sought shelter, and on a very sliijht occasion : neverthe- 
less he had to lie perdue, for two months, at the Castle 
of Sceaux ; and, with closed windows, and burning 
candles in daylight, compose Zadig, Babouc, Memnon, 
Sec, for his amusement. 

tSee in Longchamp (pp. 154—163) how by natural 
legerdemain, a knave may be caught, and the changt 
rendu il des imprimeurs iiifidiles. 



VOLTAIRE. 



147 



improvement, that all men were animated with 
it. Voltaire was not without his experience 
of human baseness ; but he siill had a fellow- 
feeling for human suflerings ; and delighted, 
were it only as an honest luxury, to relieve 
them. His attachments seem remarkably 
constant and lasting : even such sots as Thiriot, 
whom nothing but habit could have endeared 
to him, he continues, and after repeated in- 
juries, to treat and regard as friends. To his 
equals we do not observe him envious, at least 
not palpably and despicably so ; though this, we 
should add, might be in him, who was from the 
first so paramountly popular, no such hard 
attainment. Against Montesquieu, perhaps 
against him alone, he cannot help entertaining 
a small secret grudge; yet ever in public he 
does him the amplest justice : VJrkqidn Gro- 
tiiis of the fire-side becomes, on all grave occa- 
sions, the author of the Esprit dcs Loix. 
Neither to his enemies, and even betrayers, is 
Voltaire implacable or meanly vindictive : the 
instant of their submission is also the instant 
of his forgiveness ; their hostility itself pro- 
vokes only casual sallies from him ; his heart 
is too kindly, indeed too light, to cherish any 
rancour, any continuation of revenge. If he 
has not the virtue to forgive, he is seldom 
without the prudence to forget: if, in his life- 
long contentious, he cannot treat his opponents 
with any magnanimity, he seldom, or perhaps 
never once, treats them quite basely ; seldom 
or never with that absolute unfairness which 
the law of retaliatiou might so often have 
seemed to justify. We would say that, if not 
heroic, he is at all times a perfectly civilized 
man; which, considering that his war was 
with exasperated theologians, and a "war to 
the knife," on their part, may be looked upon 
as ratiier a surprising circumstance. He ex- 
hibits many minor virtues, a due appreciation 
of the highest; and fewer faults than, in his 
situation, might have been expected, and per- 
haps pardoned. 

All this is well, and may fit out a highly ex- 
pert and much esteemed man of business, in 
the widest sense of that term ; but is still far 
from constituting a " great character." In fact, 
there is one deficiency in Voltaire's original 
structure, which, it appears to us, must be 
quite fatal to such claims for him : we mean 
his inborn levity of nature, his entire want of 
Earnestness. Voltaire was by birth a Mocker, 
and light Pococurante : which natural disposi- 
tion his way of life confirmed into a predomi- 
nant, indeed all-pervading habit. Far be it 
from us to say, that solemnity is an essential 
of greatness; that no great man can have 
other than a rigid vinegar aspect of counte- 
nance, never to be thawed or warmed by bil- 
lows of mirth ! There are things in this world 
to be laughed at, as well as things to be ad- 
mired ; and his is no complete mind, that can- 
not give to each sort its due. Nevertheless, 
contempt is a dangerous element to sport in ; 
a deadly one, if we habitually live in it. How, 
indeed, to take the lowest view of this matter, 
shall a man accomplish great enterprises, — 
enduring all toil, resisting temptations, laying 
aside every weight, — unless he zealously love 
what he pursues "! The faculty of love, of 



admiration, is to be regarded as the sign and 
the measure of high souls: unwisely directed, 
it leads to many evils ; but without it, there 
cannot be any good. Ridicule, on the other 
hand, is indeed a faculty much prized by its 
possessors; yet, intrinsically, it is a small 
faculty ; we may say, the^smallest of all facul- 
ties that other men are at the pains to repay 
with any esteem. It is directly opposed to 
Thought, to Knowledge, properly so called ; 
its nourishment and essence is Denial, which 
hovers onl}' on the surface, while Knowledge 
dwells far below. Moreover, it is by nature 
selfish and morally trivial ; it cherishes nothing 
but our Vanity, M'hich may in general be left 
safely enough to shift for itself. Little " dis- 
course of reason," in any sense, is implied in 
Ridicule: a scoffing man is in no lofty mood, 
for the time ; shows more of the imp than of 
the angel. This too when his scotfing is what 
we call just, and has some foundation on 
truth : while again the laughter of fools, that 
vain sound, said in Scripture to resemble the 
"crackling of thorns under the pot," — which 
they cannot heat, and only soil and begrime, — 
must be regarded, in these latter times, as a 
very serious addition to the sum of human 
wretchedness ; and may not always, when 
considering the Increase of Crime in the Me- 
tropolis, escape the vigilance of Parliament. 

We have, oftener than once, endeavoured 
to attach some meaning to that aphorism, vul- 
garly imputed to Shaftesbury, which, however, 
we can find nowhere in his works, that ridicule 
is the test of truth. But of all chimeras, that 
ever advanced themselves in the shape of phi- 
losophical doctrines, this is to us the most 
formless and purely inconceivable. Did or 
could the unassisted human faculties ever un- 
derstand it, much more believe it ? Surely, so 
far as the common mind can discern, laughter 
seems to depend not less on the laugher than 
on the laughee; and who gave laughers a pa- 
tent to be always just, and always omniscienf! 
If the philosophers of Nootka Sound were 
pleased to laugh at the manceuvres of Cook's 
seamen, did that render these manoeuvres use- 
less, and were the seamen to stand idle, or take 
to leather canoes, till the laughter abated ] Let 
a discerning public judge. 

But^ leaving these questions for the present, 
we may observe at least that all great men 
have been careful to subordinate this talent or 
habit of ridicule; nay, in the ages which we 
consider the greatest, most of the arts that 
contribute to it have been thought disgraceful 
for freemen, and confined to the exercise of 
slaves. With Voltaire, however, there is no such 
subordination visible : by nature, or by prac- 
tice, mockery has grown to be the irresistible 
bias of his disposition ; so that for him, in all 
matters, the first question is not what is true, 
but what is false ; not what is to be loved, and 
held fast, and earnestly laid to heart, but what 
is to be contemned, and derided, and sportfully 
cast out of doors. Here truly he earns abun- 
dant triumph as an image-breaker, but pockets- 
little real wealth. Vanity, with its adjuncts. 
as we have said, finds rich solacement; but 
for aught better, there is not much. Reverence, 
the highest feeling that man's nature is capa* 



148 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ble of, the crown of his whole moral manhood, 
and precious, like fine gold, were it in the rudest 
forms, he seems not to understand, or have 
heard of, even by credible tradition. The 
glory of knowing and believing is all but a 
.stranger to hirn; only with that of question- 
ing and qualifying is he familiar. Accord- 
ingly, he sees but a little way into Nature : the 
mighty All, in its beauty, and infinite myste- 
rious grandeur, humbling the small Me into 
nothingness, has never even for moments been 
revealed to him; only this and that other atom 
of it, and the differences and discrepancies of 
these two, has he looked into, and noted down. 
His theory of the world, his picture of man 
and man's life, is little; lor a Poet and Philoso- 
pher, even pitiful. Examine it, in its highest 
developments, )'ou find it an altogether vulgar 
picture ; simply a reflex, from more or fewer 
mirrors of Self and the poor interests of Self. 
" The Divine Idea, that which lies at the bot- 
tom of Appearance," was never more invisi- 
ble to any man. He reads History not with the 
€ye of a devout Seer, or even of a Critic ; but 
through a pair of mere anti-catholic specta- 
cles. It is not a mighty drama, enacted on the 
theatre of Infinitude, with Suns for lamps, and 
Eternity as a back-ground ; whose author is 
God, and whose purport and thousand-fold 
moral lead us up to the " dark with excess of 
light" of the Throne of God; but a poor wea- 
risome debating-club dispute, spun through 
ten centuries, between the Encyclopedic and the 
Sorbonnc. Wisdom or folly, nobleness or base- 
ness, are merely superstitious or unbelieving: 
God's Universe is a larger Patrimony of St. 
Peter, from Avhich it were well and pleasant to 
hunt the Pope. 

In this way, Voltaire's nature, which was 
originally vehement rather than deep, came in 
its maturity, in spite of all his wonderful gifts, 
to be positively shallow. We find no heroism 
•of character in him, from first to last ; nay, 
there is not, that we know of, one great thought, 
in all his six-and-thirty quartos. The high 
worth implanted in him by Nature, and still 
often manifested in his conduct, does not shine 
■there like a light, but like a coruscation. The 
-enthusiasm, proper to such a mind, visits him ; 
but it has no abiding virtue in his thought, no 
local habitation and no name. There is in him 
a rapidity, but at the same time a pettiness; a 
certain violence, and fitful abruptness, which 
takes from him all dignity. Of his cmporlemens 
and tragi-comical explosions, a thousand an- 
ecdotes are on record; neither is he, in these 
cases, a terrific volcano, but a mere bundle of 
rockets. He is nigh shooting poor Dorn, the 
Frankfort constable ; actually fires a pistol, 
into the lobby, at him; and this, three days 
after that melancholy business of the " Q^uvrc de 
Poesie du Roi mon Muiire" had been finally ad- 
justed. A bookseller, that, with the natural 
instinct of fallen mankind, overcharges him, 
receives from this Philosopher, by way of 
payment at sight, a slap on the face. Poor 
Longchamp, with considerable tact, and a 
praiseworthy air of second-table respectability, 
details various scenes of this kind : how Vol- 
taire dashed away his combs, and maltreated 
his wig, and otherwise fiercely comported 



himself, the very first morning : how once, 
having a keenness of appetite, sharpened by 
walking, and a diet of weak tea, he became 
uncommonl}' anxious for supper; and Clairaut 
and Madame du Chatelet, sunk in algebraic 
calculations, twice promised to come down, 
but still kept the dishes cooling, and the Phi- 
losopher at last desperately battered open their 
locked door with his foot; exclaiming " Vous 
e'.cs done dc concert pour me fairc mourir? " — And 
yet Voltaire had a true kindness of heart; all 
his domestics and dependents loved him, and 
continued with him. He has many elements of 
goodness, but lioating loosely; nothing is com- 
bined in steadfast union. It is true, he presents 
in general a surface of smoothness, of cultured 
regularity ; yet, under it, there is not the silent 
rock-bound strength of a World, but the wild 
tumults of a Chaos are ever bursting through. 
He is a man of power, but not of beneficent 
authority; we fear, but cannot reverence him; 
we feel him to be stronger, not higher. 

Much of this spiritual short-coming and per- 
version might be due to natural defect : but 
much of it also is due to the age into which 
he was cast. It was an age of discord and 
division ; the approach of a grand crisis in 
human affairs. Already we discern in it all 
the elements of the French Revolution; and 
wonder, so easily do we forget how entangled 
and hidden the meaning of the present gene- 
rally is to us, that all men did not foresee the 
comings on of that fearful convulsion. On 
the one hand, a high all-attempting activit}-^ of 
Intellect : the most peremptory spirit of in- 
quiry abroad on every subject; things human 
and things divine alike cited without mis- 
givings before the same boastful tribunal of so- 
called Reason, which means here a merely 
argumentative Logic; the strong in mind ex- 
cluded from his regular influence in the state, 
and deeply conscious of that injury. On the 
other hand, a privileged few, strong in the 
subjection of the many, yet in itself weak; a 
piebald, and for most part altogether decrepit 
battalion, of Clergy, of purblind Nobility, or 
rather of Courtiers, for as yet the Nobility is 
mostly on the other side : these cannot fight 
with Logic, and the day of Persecution is well- 
nigh done. The whole force of law, indeed, 
is still in their hands; but the far deeper force, 
which alone gives efficacy to law, is hourly 
passing away from them. Hope animates one 
side; fear the other; and the battle will be 
fierce and desperate. For there is wit without 
wisdom on the part of the self-styled Philoso- 
phers; feebleness with exasperation on the 
part of their opponents; pride enough on all 
hands, but little magnanimity ; perhaps no- 
where any pure love of truth, only everywhere 
the purest, most ardent love of self. In such 
a state of things, there lay abundant principles 
of discord : these two influences hung like 
fast-gathering electric clouds, as yet on op- 
posite sides of the horizon, but with a malig- 
nity of aspect, which boded, whenever they 
might meet, a sky of fire and blackness, thun- 
derbolts to waste the earth, and the sun and 
stars, though but for a season, to be blotted out 
from the heavens. For there is no conducting 
medium to unite softly these hostile elements; 



VOLTAIRE. 



149 



there is no true virtue, no true wisdom, 
on the one side or on the other. Never per- 
haps, was there an epoch, in the history of 
the world, when universal corruption called 
so loudly for reform ; and they who undertook 
that task were men intrinsically so worthless. 
Not by Gracchi, but by Catilines ; not by Lu- 
thers, but by Aretines, was Europe to be re- 
novated. The task has been a long and bloody 
one ; and is still far from done. 

In this condition of affairs, Avhat side such a 
man as Voltaire was to take could not be doubt- 
ful. Whether he ought to have taken eiiher 
side ; whether he should not rather have 
stationed himself in the middle; the partisan 
of neither, perhaps hated by both; acknow- 
ledging, and forwarding, and striving to re- 
concile, what truth was in each ; and preach- 
ing forth a far deeper truth, which, if his own 
century had neglected it, had persecuted it, 
future centuries would have recognised as 
priceless : all this was another question. Of 
no man, however gifted, can we require what 
he has not to give : but Voltaire called him- j 
self Philosopher, nay, ihc Philosopher. And [ 
such has often, indeed generally, been the fate [ 
of great men, and Lovers of Wisdom : their ] 
own age and country have treated them as of 
no account; in the great Corn-Exchange of the 
world, their pearls have seemed but spoiled 
barley, and been ignominiously rejected. Weak 
in adherents, strong only in their faith, in 
their indestructible consciousness of worth 
and well-doing, they have silently, or in words, 
appealed to coming ages, when their own ear 
would indeed be shut to the voice of love, and 
of hatred, but the Truth that had dwelt in them 
would speak with a voice audible to all. Bacon 
left his works to future generations, when 
some centuries should have elapsed. " Is it 
much for me," said Kepler, in his isolation, 
and extreme need, "that men should accept 
my discovery? If the Almighty waited six 
thousand years for one to see what He had 
made, I ma}- surely wait two hundred, for one 
to understand what I have seen 1" All this, 
and more, is implied in love of wisdom, in 
genuine seeking of truth ; the noblest function 
that can be appointed for a man, but requiring 
also the noblest man to fulfil it. 

With Voltaire, however, there is no symptom, 
perhaps there was no conception, of such 
nobleness ; the high call for which, indeed, in 
the existing state of things, his intellect may 
have had as little the force to discern, as his 
heart had the force to obey. He follows a 
simpler course. Heedless of remoter issues, 
he adopts the cause of his own party ; of that 
class with whom he lived, and was most anx- 
ious to stand well ; he enlists in their ranks, 
not without hopes that he may one day rise to 
be their general. A resolution perfectly ac- 
cordant with his prior habits, and temper of 
/riind; and from which his whole subsequent 
procedure, and moral aspect as a man natural- 
ly enough evolves itself. Not that we would 
say, Voltaire was a mere prize-fighter; one 
of "Heaven's Sv/iss," contending for a cause 
which he only half, or not at all approved of. 
Far from it. Doubtless he loved truth, doubt- 
less he partially felt himself to be advocating 



truth ; nay, we know not that he has ever yet, 
in a single instance, been convicted of wilfully 
perverting his belief; of uttering, in all his 
controversies, one deliberate falsehood. Nor 
should this negative praise seem an altogether 
slight one, for greatly were it to be wished 
that even the best of his better-intentioned op- 
ponents had always deserved the like. Never- 
theless, his love of truth is not that deep, in- 
finite love, which beseems a Philosopher ; 
which many ages have been fortunate enough 
to witness ; nay, of which his own age had 
still some examples. It is a far inferior love, 
we should say, to that of poor Jean Jacques, 
half-sage, half-maniac as 'he was; it is more a 
prudent calculation than a passion. Voltaire 
loves Truth, but chiefly of the triumphant 
sort; we have no instance of his fighting for 
a quite discrowned and outcast Truth ; it is 
chiefly when she walks abroad, in distress, it 
may be, but still with queen-like insignia, and 
knighthoods and renown are to be earned in 
her battles, that he defends her, that he charges 
gallantly against the Cades and Tylers. Nay, 
at all times, belief itself seems, w^th him, to- 
be less the product of Meditation than of Argu- 
ment. His first question with regard to any 
doctrine, perhaps liis final test of its worth and 
genuineness, is: can others be convinced of 
this 1 Can I truck it, in the market, for power 1 
"To such questioners," it has been said,. 
" Truth, who buys not, and sells not, goes on 
her way, and makes no answer." 

In fact, if we inquire into Voltaire's ruling 
motive, we shall find that it was at bottom but 
a vulgar one : ambition, the desire of ruling, 
by such means as he had, over other men. He 
acknowledges no higher divinity than Public 
Opinion ; for whatever he asserts or performs,, 
the number of votes is the measure of strength 
and value. Yet let us be just to him; let us 
admit that he, in some degree, estimates his 
votes, as well as counts them. If love of fame, 
which, esjiecially for such a man, we can only 
call another modification of Vanity, is always 
his ruling passion, he has a certain taste in 
gratifying it. His vanity, which cannot be 
extinguished, is ever skilfully concealed; even 
his just claims are never boisterously insisted 
on ; throughout his whole life he shows no 
single feature of the quack. Nevertheless, 
even in the height of his glory, he has a 
strange sensitiveness to the judgment of the 
world: could he have contrived a Dionysius' 
Ear, in the Rue Traversiere, we should have 
found him watching at it, night and day. Let 
but any little evil-disposed Abbe, any Freron, 
or Piron, 

Pauvre Piron, qui ne fat jainais rien. 
Pas meiiie Jicademicien, 

write a libel or epigram on him, what a fluster 
he is in ! We grant he forbore much, in these 
cases; manfully consumed his own spleen, 
and sometimes long held his peace : but it was 
his part to have alwa3's done so. Why should 
such a man ruffle himself with the spite of 
exceeding small persons? Why not let these 
poor devils write; why should they not earn 
a dishonest penny, at his expense, if they had 
no readier way] But Voltaire cannot part 
with his " voices," his " most sweet voices ;" 
K 2 



150 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



for they are his gods; take these, and what 
has he left? Accordingly, in literature and 
morals, in all his comings and goings, we find 
him striymg, with a religious care, to sail 
strictly with the wind. In Art, the Parisian 
Parterre is his court of last appeal : he con- 
sults the Cftfe de Procope, on his wisdom or his 
folly, as if it were a true Delphic Oracle. The 
following adventure belongs to his fifty-fourth 
year, when his fame might long have seemed 
abundantly established. We translate from 
the Sieur Longchamp's thin, half-roguish, 
mildly obsequious, most lackey-like Narra- 
tive : 

"Judges could appreciate the merits of Se- 
miramis, which has continued on the stage, and 
always been seen there with pleasure. Every 
one knows how the two principal parts in this 
piece contributed to the celebrity of two great 
tragedians. Mademoiselle Dumesnil, and M. le 
Kain. The enemies of M. de Voltaire renewed 
their attempts m the subsequent representa- 
tions; but it only the better confirmed his tri- 
umph. Piron, to console himself for the de- 
feat of his party, had recourse to his usual 
remedy; pelting the piece with some paltry 
epigrams, which did it no harm. 

" Nevertheless, M. de Voltaire, who always 
loved to correct his works, and perfect them, 
became desirous to learn, more especially and 
at first hand, what good or ill the public were 
saying of his Tragedy; and it appeared to him 
that he could nowhere learn it better than in 
the Cafe dc Procope, which was also called the 
Jntre (cavern) de Procope, because it was very 
dark, even in full day, and ill-lighted in the 
evenings; and because you often saw there a 
set of lank, sallow poets, who had somewhat 
the air of apparitions. In this Cafe, which 
fronts the Comcdic Francaisc,\).s.d. been held, for 
more than sixty years, the tribunal of those 
self-called Arlstmrhs, who fancied they could 
pass sentence without appeal, on plays, au- 
thors, and actors. M. de Voltaire wished to 
compeer there, but in disguise, and altogether 
incognito. It was on coming out from the 
playhouse that the judges usually proceeded 
thither, to open what they called their great 
sessions. On the second night of Semiramh, 
he borrowed a clergyman's clothes; dressed 
himself in cassock 'and long clock: black 
stockings, girdle, bands, breviary itself; no- 
thing was forgotten. He clapt on a large 
peruke, unpowdered, very ill combed, which 
covered more than the half of his cheeks, and 
left nothing to be seen but the end of a long 
nose. The peruke was surmounted by a large 
three-cornered hat, corners half bruised in. In 
this equipment, then, the author of Semiramis 
proceeded on foot to the Cafe de Procope, where 
he squatted himself in a corner, and waiting 
for the end of the play, called for a bavaroise, 
a small roll of bread, and the gazette. It was 
not long till those familiars of the Parterre 
and tenants of the Cafe stept in. They in- 
stantly began discussing the new Tragedy. 
Its partisans and its adversaries pleaded their 
cause, with wannth ; each giving his reasons. 
Impartial persons also spoke their sentiment ; 
and repeated some fine verses of the piece. 
iJuring all this time, M. de Voltaire, with 



spectacles on nose, head stooping over the 
gazette which he pretended to be reading, was 
listening to the debate : profiting by reason- 
able observations, suffering much to "hear very 
absurd ones, and not answer them, which irri- 
tated him. Thus, during an hour and a half, 
had he the courage and patience to hear Semi- 
ramis talked of and babbled of, without speak- 
ing a word. At last, all these pretended judges 
of the fame of authors having gone their 
ways, without converting one another, M. de 
Voltaire also went off; took a coach in the 
Rue Mazarine, and returned home about eleven 
o'clock. Though I knew of his disguise, I 
confess I was struck and almost frightened to 
see him accoutred so. I took him for a spec- 
tre, or shade of Ninus, that was appearing to 
me : or at least, for one of those ancient Irish 
debaters, arrived at the end of their career, 
after wearing themselves out in school-syllo- 
gisms. I helped him to doff" all that apparatus, 
which I carried next morning to its true 
oAvner, — a doctor of the Sarbonne." 

This stroke of art, which cannot in any 
wise pass for sublime, might have its uses and 
rational purpose in one case, and only in one: 
if Semiromis was meant to be a popular show, 
that was to live or die by its first impression 
on the idle multitude ; which accordingly we 
must infer to have been its real, at least its 
chief destination. In any other case, we can- 
not but consider this Haroun-Alraschid visit to 
the Caf^ de Procope as questionable, and alto- 
gether inadequate. If Semiramis was a Poem, 
a living Creation, won from the empyrean by 
the silent poAver, and long-continued Pro- 
methean toil of its author, what could the 
Cafd de Procope know of it, what could all 
Paris know of it, "on the second night 1" 
Had it been a Milton's Paradise Lost they might 
have despised it till after the fiftieth year ! 
True, the object of the Poet is, and must be, 
to " instruct by pleasing," yet not by pleasing 
this man and that man; only by pleasing man, 
by speaking to the pure nature of man, can 
any real " instruction," in this sense, be con- 
veyed. Vain does it seem to search for a 
judgment of this kind, in the largest Cafe, in 
the largest Kingdom, " on the second night." 
The deep, clear consciousness of one mind 
comes infinitely nearer it, than the loud outcry 
of a million that have no such consciousness ; 
whose " talk," or whose " babble," but distracts 
the listener; and to most genuine Poets has, 
from of old, been in a great measure indiflier- 
ent. For the multitude of voices is no au- 
thority; a thousand voices may not, strictly 
examined, amount to one vote. Mankind in 
this world are divided into flocks, and fol- 
low their several bell-wethers. Now, it is 
well known, let the bell-wether rush through 
any gap, the rest rush after him, were it into 
bottomless quagmires. Nay, so conscientious 
are sheep in this particular, as a quaint natu- 
ralist and moralist has noted, "if you hold a 
stick upon the wether, so that he is forced to 
vault in his passage, the whole flock will do 
the like, when the stick is withdrawn; and the 
thousandth sheep shall be seen vaulting impe- 
tuously over air, as the first did over an other- 
wise impassable barrier!" A further peculiar- 



VOLTAIRE. 



isr 



ity, which, in consulting Acts of Parliament, 
and other authentic records, not only as regards 
"Catholic Disabilities," but many other mat- 
ters, you may find curiously verified in the hu- 
man species also ! — On the whole, we must con- 
sider this excursion to Prompc's literary Cavern 
as illustrating Voltaire in rather pleasant style ; 
but nowise much to his honour. Fame seems 
a far too high, if not the highest object with 
him; nay, sometimes even popularity is 
clutched at; we see no heavenly polar-star in 
this voyage of his ; but only the guidance of 
a proverbially uncertain icind. 

Voltaire reproachfully says of St. Louis, 
that "he ought to have been above his age;" 
but, in his own case, we can find few symp- 
toms of such heroic superiority. The same 
perpetual appeal to his contemporaries, the 
same intense regard to reputation, as he viewed 
it, prescribes for him both his enterprises and 
his manner of conducting them. His aim is 
to please the more enlightened, at least the 
politer part of the world; and he oflTers them 
simply what they most wish for, be it in the- 
atrical shows for their pastime, or in skeptical 
doctrines for their edification. For this latter 
purpose, Ridicule is the weapon he selects, 
and it suits him well. This was not the age 
of deep thoughts; no Due de Richelieu, no 
Prince Conti, no Frederic the Great would 
have listened to such : only sportful contempt, 
and a thin conversational logic will avail. 
There may be wool-quilts, which the lath- 
sword of Harlequin will pierce, when the club 
of Hercules has rebounded from them in vain. 
As little was this an age for high virtues; no 
heroism, in any form, is required, or even ac- 
knowledged; but only, in all forms, a certain 
bienscancc. To this rule, also, Voltaire readily 
conforms; indeed, he finds no small advantage 
in it. For a lax public morality not only al- 
lows him the indulgence of many a little private 
vice, and brings him in this and the other 
windfall of menus plaisirs, but opens him the 
readiest resource in many enterprises of dan- 
ger. Of all men, Voltaire has the least dispo- 
sition to increase the Army of Martyrs. No 
testimony will he seal with his blood; scarcely 
any will he so much as sign with ink. His 
obnoxious doctrines, as we have remarked, he 
publishes under a thousand concealments ; 
with underplots and wheels within wheels ; so 
that his whole track is in darkness, only his 
works see the light. No Proteus is so nimble, 
or assumes so many shapes ; if, by rare chance, 
caught sleeping, he whisks through the small- 
est hole, and is out of sight, while the noose is 
getting ready. Let his judges talce him to 
task, he will shuffle and evade ; if directly 
questioned, he will even lie. In regard to this 
last point, the Marquis de Condorcet has set 
up a defence for him, M'hich has, at least, the 
merit of being frank enough. 

" The necessity of lying in order to disavow 
any work," says he, " is an extremity equally 
repugnant to conscience and nobleness of 
character: but the crime lies with those unjust 
men, who render such disavowal necessary to 
the safety of him whom they force to it. If 
you have made a crime of what is not one ; 
if. by absurd or by arbitrary laws, you have in- 



fringed the natural right, which all men have, 
not only to form an oj nion, but to render it 
public ; then you dest ve to lose the right 
which every man has . f hearing the truth 
from the mouth of another; a right, which is 
the sole basis of that rigorous obligation, not 
to lie. If it is not permitted to deceive, the 
reason is, that to deceive any one, is to do him 
a wrong, or expose yourself to do him one ; 
but a wrong supposes a right; and no one has 
the right of seeking to secure himself the 
means of committing an injustice." — Vie de 
Voltaire, p. 32. 

It is strange, how scientific discoveries do 
maintain themselves : here, quite in other 
hands, and in an altogether difl^erent dialect, 
we have the old Catholic doctrine, if it ever 
was more than a Jesuitic one, " that faith need 
not be kept with heretics." Truth, it appears, 
is too precious an article for our enemies; is 
fit only for friends, for those who will pay us 
if we tell it them. It may be observed, how- 
ever, that, granting Condorcet's premises, this 
doctrine also must be granted, as indeed is 
usual with that sharp-sighted writer. If the 
doing of right depends on the receiving of it; 
if our fellow-men, in this world, are not per- 
sons, but mere things, that for services bestowed 
will return services, — steam-engines that will 
manufacture calico, if we put in coals and 
water, — then, doubtless, the calico ceasing, our 
coals and water may also rationally cease ; the 
questioner threatening to injure us for the 
truth, we may rationally tell him lies. But if, 
on the other hand, our fellow-man is no steam- 
engine, but a man; united Avith us, and with 
all men, and with the Maker of all men, in 
sacred, mysterious, indissoluble bonds, in an 
all-embracing Love, that encircles alike the 
seraph and the glow-worm ; then will our du- 
ties to him rest on quite another basis than 
this very humble one oi quid pro quo; and the 
Marquis de Condorcet's conclusion will be 
false; and might, in its practical extensions, 
be infinitely pernicious. 

Such principles and habits, too lightly 
adopted by Voltaire, acted, as it seems to us, 
with hostile effect on his moral nature, not 
originally of the noblest sort, but which, under 
other influences, might have attained to far 
greater nobleness. As it is, we see in him 
simply a Man of the World, such as Paris and 
the eighteenth century produced and approved 
of: a polite, attractive, most cultivated, but 
essentially self-interested man ; not without 
highly amiable qualities; indeed, with a gene- 
ral disposition which we could have accepted 
without disappointment in a mere Man of the 
World, but must find very defective, some- 
times altogether out of place, in a Poet and 
Philosopher. Above this character of a Pa- 
risian "honourable man," he seldom or never 
rises ; nay, sometimes we find him hovering 
on the very lowest boundaries of it, or, per- 
haps, even fairly below it. We shall nowise 
accuse him of excessive regard for money, of 
any wish to shine by the influence of mere 
wealth: let those commercial speculations, 
including even the victualing-contracts, pass 
for laudable prudence, for love of independ- 
ence, and of the power to do good. But 



152 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



what are we to make of that hunting after 
pensions, and even after mere titles] There 
is an assiduity displayed here, which some- 
times almost verges towards sneaking. Well 
might it provoke the scorn of Alfieri; for 
there is nothing better than the spirit of " a 
French plebeian," apparent in it. Much, we 
know, very much should be allowed for differ- 
ence of national manners, which in general 
mainly determine the meaning of such things : 
nevertheless, to our insular feelings, that fa- 
mous Trajan cst-il-rontcnt ? especiall}' when we 
consider who the Trajan was, will always re- 
main an unfortunate saying. The more so, as 
Trajan himself turned his back on it, without 
answer; declining, indeed, through life, to 
listen to the voice of this charmer, or disturb 
his own " ame paisible," for one moment, though 
with the best philosopher in Nature. Nay, 
Pompadour herself was applied to ; and even 
some considerable progress made, by that un- 
derground passage, had not an envious hand 
too soon and falaljy intervened. D'Alembert 
says, there are two things that can reach the 
top of a pyramid, the eagle and the reptile. 
Apparently, Voltaire wished to combine both 
methods ; and he had, with one of them, but 
indifferent success. 

The truth is, we are trying Voltaire by too 
high a standard; comparing him with an ideal 
which he himself never strove after, perhaps 
never seriously aimed at. He is no great Man, 
but only a great Persifiw ; a man for whom 
life, and all that pertains to it, has, at best, but 
a despicable meaning ; who meets its difficul- 
ties not with earnest force, but with gay agility ; 
and is found always at the top, less b}' power 
in swimming, than by lightness in floating. 
Take him in this character, forgetting that any 
other was ever ascribed to him, and we find 
that he enacted it almost to perfection. Never 
man better understood the whole secret o( Per- 
siflage ; meaning, thereb}^ not only the external 
faculty of polite contempt, but that art of 
general inward contempt, by which a man of 
this sort endeavours to subject the circum- 
stances of his Destiny to his Volition, and be, 
what is the instinctive effort of all men, though 
in the midst of material Necessity, morally 
Free. Voltaire's latent derision is as light, 
copious, and all-pervading as the derision 
which he utters. Nor is this so simple an at- 
tainment as we might fancy ; a certain kind 
and degree of Stoicism, or approach to Stoic- 
ism, is necessary for the completed Persijlcw ; 
as for moral, or even practical completion, in 
any other way. The most indifferent-minded 
man is not by nature indifferent to his own 
pain and pleasure: this is an indifference, 
which he must by some method study to ac- 
quire, or acquire the show of; and which, it is 
fair to say, Voltaire manifests in a rather re- 
spectable degree. Without murmuring, he 
has reconciled himself to most things : the 
human lot, in this lower world, seems a strange 
business, yet, on the whole, with more of the 
farce in it, than of the tragedy ; to him, it is 
nowise heart-rending, that this Planet of ours 
should be sent sailing through Space, like a 
miserable, aimless Ship-of-Fools, and he him- 
self be a fool among the rest, and only a very 



little wiser than they. He does not, like Boling- 
broke, "patronise Providence," though such 
sayings, as Si D.ieu ncxislait pas il favdrait I'in- 
vcnlcr, seem now and then to indicate a tendency 
of that sort: but, at all events, he never openly 
levies war against Heaven ; well knowing that 
the time spent in frantic malediction, directed 
thitlicr, might be spent otherwise with more 
profit. There is, truly, no Wcrtcrism in him, 
either in its bad or its good sense. If he sees 
no unspeakable majesty in heaven and earth, 
neither does he see any unsufferable horror 
there. His view of the world is a cool, gently 
scornful, altogether prosaic one: his sublimest 
Apocalypse of Nature lies in the microscope 
and telescope ; the Earth is a place for pro- 
ducing corn ; the Starry Heavens are admirable 
as a nautical time-keeper. Yet, like a prudent 
man, he has adjusted himself to his condition, 
such as it is : he does not chant any Miserere 
over human life, calculating that no charitable 
dole, but only laughter, would be the reward 
of such an enterprise; does not hang or drown 
himself, clearly understanding that death of 
itself will soon save him that trouble. AfHic- 
tion, it is true, has not for him any precious 
jewel in its head ; on the contrary, it is an 
unmixed nuisance; yet, happily, not one to be 
howled over, so much as one to be speedily 
removed out of sight: if he does not leara 
from il Humility, and the sublime lesson of 
Resignation, neither does it teach him hard- 
hearledness, and sickly discontent; but he 
bounds lightly over it, leaving both the jewel 
and the toad at a safe distance behind him. 

Nor was Voltaire's history without per- 
plexities enough to keep this principle in exer- 
cise; to try whether in life, as in literature, the 
ridicnlitm were really better than the accr. We 
must own, that on no occasion does it alto- 
gether fail him ; never does he seem perfectly 
at a nonplus ; no adventure is so hideous, that 
he cannot, in the long run, find some means 
to laugh at it, and forget it. Take, for instance, 
that last ill-omened visit of his to Frederic the 
Great. This was, probably, the most mortify- 
ing incident in Voltaire's whole life: an open 
experiment, in the sight of all Europe, to ascer- 
tain whether French Philosophy had virtue 
enough in it to found any friendly union, in such 
circumstances, even between its great master 
and his most illustrious disciple ; and an ex- 
periment which answered in the negative, as 
was natural enough ; for Vanity is of a devisive 
not of a uniting nature ; and between the King 
of Letters and the King of Armies there existed 
no other tie. They should have kept up an 
interchange of flattery, from afar : gravitating 
towards one another like celestial luminaries, 
if they reckoned themselves such ; yet always 
with a due centrifugal force ; for if either shot 
madly from his sphere, nothing but collision, 
and concussion, and mutual recoil, could be 
the consequence. On the whole, we must pity 
Frederic, environed with that cluster of Philo-, 
sophers : doubtless he meant rather well ; yet 
the French at Rosbach, with guns in their 
hands, Avere but a small matter, compared with 
these French in Sans-Souci. Maupertuis sits 
sullen, monosyllabic; gloomy like the bear of 
his own arctic zone : Voltaire is the mad piper 



VOLTAIRE. 



153 



that will make him dance to tunes and amuse ] 
the people. In this roaly circle, with its para- 
sites and bashaws, what heats and jealousies 
must there not have been; what secret heart- 
burnings, smooth-faced malice, plottings.coun- 
terplottings, and laurel-water pharmacy, in all 
its branches, before the ring of etiquette fairly 
burst asunder, and the establishment, so to 
speak, exploded ! Yet over all these distress- 
ing matiei's Voltaire has thrown a soft veil of 
gayety : he remembers neither Doctor Akakia, 
nor Doctor Akakia's patron, with any ani- 
mosity; but merel}' as actors in the grand 
farce of life along with him, a new scene of 
which has now commenced, quite displacing 
the other from the stage. The arrest at Frank- 
fort, indeed, is a soar morsel ; but this, too, he 
swallows, with an effort. Frederic, as we are 
given to understand, had these whims by kind; 
was, indeed, a wonderful scion from such a 
stock ; for what could equal the avarice, malice, 
and rabid snappishness of old Frederic Wil- 
liam, the father 1 

"He had a minister at the Hague, named 
Luicius," says the wit: "this Luicius was, of 
all royal ministers extant, the worst paid. The 
poor man, with a view to warm himself, had a 
few trees cut down, in the garden of Honslardik, 
then belonging to the House of Prussia; im- 
mediately thereafter he received despatches 
from the king, his mas4er, keeping back a 
year of his salary. Luicius, in despair, cut his 
throat with the only razor he had (uvec k seul 
rasoir (ptil eut .) an old lackey came to his as- 
sistance, and unfortunately saved his life. At 
an after period, T myself saw his Excellency 
at the Hague, and gave him an alms at the gate 
of that Palace called La Vieille Cow; which 
belongs to the King of Prussia, and where this 
unhapp3' Ambassador had lived twelve years." 

With the J\oi-Phtlofnj)lic himself, Voltaire in 
a little while recommences correspondence ; 
and to all appearance, proceeds quietly in his 
office of " buckwashcr," that is, of verse-cor- 
rector to his Majesty, as if nothing whatever 
had happened. 

Again, what human pen can describe the 
troubles this unfortunate Philosopher had with 
his women 1 A gadding feather-brained, ca- 
pricious, old-coquettish, embittered, and em- 
bittering set of wantons from the earliest to the 
last! Widow Denis, for example, that diso- 
bedient niece, whom he rescued from fur- 
nished lodgings and spare diet, into pomp and 
plenty, how did she pester the last stage of his 
existence, for twenty-four years long! Blind 
to the peace and roses of Ferney : ever han- 
kering and fretting after Parisian display; not 
without flirtation, though advanced in life; 
losing money at play, and purloining where- 
with to make it good ; scolding his servants, 
quarrelling with his secretaries, so that the too- 
indulgent uncle must turn off his beloved Col- 
lini, nay, almost be run through the body by 
him, for her sake ! The good Wagniere, who 
succeeded this fiery Italian in the secretarysnip, 
and loved Voltaire with a most creditable affec- 
tion, cannot, though a simple, humble, and quite 
philanthropic man, speak of Madame Denis 
without visible overflowings of gall. He openly 
accuses her of hastening her uncle's death by her 
20 



importunate stratagems to keep him in Paris,, 
where washerheaven. Indeeditisclearthat,his 
goods and chattels once made sure of, her chief 
care was that so fiery a patient might die soon 
enough; or, at best, according to her own con- 
fession, " how she was to get him buried." We 
have known superannuated grooms, nay effete 
saddle-horses, regarded with more real sympa- 
thy in their home, than was the best of uncles 
by the worst of nieces. Had not this surprising 
old man retained the sharpest judgment, and 
the gayest, easiest temper, his last days, and 
last years, must have been a continued scene 
of violence and tribulation. 

Little better, worse in several respects, 
though at a time when he could better endure 
it, was the far-famed Marquise du Chatelet. 
Many a tempestuous day and wakeful night 
had he with that scientific and too-fascinating 
shrew. She speculated in mathematics and 
metaphysics ; Ijut was an adept also in far, 
very far different acquirements. Setting aside 
its whole criminality, which, indeed, perhaps 
went for little there, this literay amour wears 
but a mixed aspect; short sun-gleams, with 
long tropical tornadoes ; touches of guitar- 
music, soon followed by Lisbon earthquakes. 
Marmontel, we remember, speaks of A;?m'£'s being 
used, at least brandished, and for quite other 
purposes than carving. Madame la Marquise 
was no saint, in any sense ; but rather a So- 
crates' spouse, who Avould keep patience, and 
the whole philosophj' of gayety, in constant 
practice. Like Queen Elizabeth, if she had 
the talents of a man, she had more than the 
caprices of a woman. 

We shall take only one item, and that a small 
one, in this mountain of misery: her strange 
habits and methods of locomotion. She is 
perpetually travelling: a peaceful philosopher 
is lugged over the world, to Cirey, to Lune- 
ville, to that pied a ierre in Paris; I'esistance 
avails not ; here, as in so many other cases, 
il faut se ranger. Sometimes, precisely on the 
eve of such departure, her domestics, exas- 
perated by hunger and ill usage, will strike 
work, in a body ; and a new set has to be col- 
lected at an hour's warning. Then Madame 
has been known to keep the postilion crack- 
ing and sMc;-t-ing at the gate, from dawn till 
dewy eve, simply because she was playing 
cards, and the games went against her. But 
figure a lean and vivid-tempered philosopher 
starting from Paris at last; under cloud of 
night, for it is always at night; during hard 
frost; in a huge lumbering coach, or rather 
wagon, compared with which, indeed, the ge- 
nerality of modern wagons were a luxurious 
conveyance. With four starved, and perhaps 
spavined hacks, he slowly sets forth, "under a 
mountain of bandboxes :" at his side sits the 
wandering virago; in front of him, a serving- 
maid, with additional bandboxes " ct divers effcis 
de s'l muttressc." At the next stage, the posti- 
lions have to be beat up ; they come out swear- 
ing. Cloaks and fur-pelisses avail little 
against the January-cold; "time and hours" 
are, once more, the only hope: but lo, at the 
tenth mile, this Tyburn-coach breaks down ! 
One many-voiced discordant wail shrieks 
through the solitude, making night hideous, — 



154 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



but in vain ; the axle-tree has given way, the 
vehicle has overset, and marchionesses, cham- 
bermaids, bandboxes, and philosophers, are 
weltering in inextricable Chaos. 

" The carriage was in the stage nextNangis, 
about half-way to that town, when the hind 
axle-tree broke, and it tumbled on the road, to 
M. de Voltaire's side : Madame du Chatelet, and 
her maid, fell above him, with all the bundles 
and bandboxes, for these were not tied to the 
front, but only piled up on both hands of the 
maid ; and so observing the laws of equilibrium 
and gravitation of bodies, they rushed towards 
the corner where M. de Voltaire lay squeezed 
■together. Under so many burdens, which half- 
suffocated him, he kept shouting bitterly (pojis- 
sait lies cris ais^us) ; but it was impossible to 
change place ; all had to remain as it was, till 
the two lackeys, one of whom was hurt by the 
fall, could come up, with the postilion, to dis- 
encumber the vehicle: they first drew out all 
the luggage, next the women, then M. de Vol- 
taire. Nothing could be got out except by the 
top, that is, by the coach-door, which now 
opened upwards: one of the lackeys and a 
postilion clambering aloft, and fixing them- 
selves on the body of the vehicle, drew them 
up, as from a well ; seizing tiie first limb that 
came to hand, whether arm, or leg : and then 
passed them down to the two stationed below, 
who set them finally on the ground." — Vol. ii. 
p. 166. 

What would Dr. Kitchener, with his Travel- 
ler's Oracle, have said to all this 1 For there is 
snow on the ground ; and four peasants must 
be roused from a village half a league off, be- 
fore that accursed vehicle can so much as be 
lifted from its beam ends ! Vain is it for Long- 
champ, far in advance, sheltered in an hospi- 
table though half-dismantled chateau, to pluck 
pigeons and lie in haste to roast them : they will 
never, never be eaten to supper, scarcely to 
breakfast next morning! — Nor is it now only, 
but several times, that this unhappy axle-tree 
plays them foul ; nay once, beggared by Ma- 
dame's gambling, they have not cash to pay 
for mending it, and the smith, though they are 
in keenest flight, almost for their lives, will not 
trust them. 

We imagine that these are trying things for 
any philosopher. Of the thousand other more 
private and perennial grievances ; of certain 
discoveries and explanations, especially, which 
it still seems surprising that human philoso- 
phy could have tolerated, we make no mentiim; 
indeed, with regard to the latter, few earthly 
considerations could tempt a Reviewer of sen- 
sibility to mention them in this place. 

The Marquise du Chatelet, and her husband, 
have been much wondered at in England: the 
calm magnanimity with which M. le Marquis 
conforms to the custom of the country, to the 
wishes of his helpmate, and leaves her, he him- 
self meanwhile fighting, or at least drilling, for 
his King, to range over Space, in quest of lo\'es 
and lovers ; his friendly discretion, in this parti- 
cular; no less so, his blithe benignant gullibili- 
ty, the instant a conlrcleins de famiUe renders his 
countenance needful, — have had all justice 
done them among us. His lady, too, is a won- 
der , offers no mean study to psychologists: 



she is a fair experiment to try how far that De- 
licacy, which we reckon innate in females, 
is only incidental and the product of fashion ; 
how far a woman, not merely immodest, but 
without the slightest fig-leaf of common de- 
cency remaining, with the whole character, in 
short, of awK//e debauchee, may still have any 
moral worth as a woman. We ourselves have 
wondered a little over both these parties ; and 
over the goal towards which so strange a "pro- 
gress of society" might be tending. But still 
more wonderful, not without a shade of the 
sublime, has appeared to us the cheerful thral- 
dom of this maltreated philosopher ; and with 
what exhaustless patience, not being wedded, 
he endured all these forced-marches, whims, 
irascibilities, delinquencies, and thousand-fold 
unreasons ; braving " the battle and the breeze," 
on that wild Bay of Biscay, for such a period. 
Fifteen long years, and was not mad, or a 
suicide at the end of them I But the like fate, 
it would seem, though worthy D'Israeli has 
omitted to enumerate it in his Calamities of Au- 
thors, is not unknown in literature. Pope also 
had his Mrs. Martha Blount ; and, in the midst 
of that warfare with united Duncedom, his 
daily tale of Egyptian bricks to bake. Let us 
pity the lotof genius, in this sublunary sphere! 

Every one knows the earthly termination of 
Madame la Marquise ; and how, by a strange, 
almost satirical Nemesis, she was taken in her 
own nets, and her worst sin became her final 
punishment. To no purpose was the un- 
paralleled credulity of M. le Marquis; to no 
purpose, the amplest toleration, and even help 
ful knavery of M. de Voltaire : " les assiduites 
de 31. lie Saint-TMnibert," and the unimaginable 
consultations to which they gave rise at Cirey, 
were frightfully parodied in the end. The last 
scene was at Luneville, in the peaceable court 
of King Stanislaus. 

" Seeing that the aromatic-vinegar did no 
good, we tried to recover her from that sudden 
lethargy by rubbing her feet, and striking in 
the palms of her hands; but it was of no use: 
she had ceased to be. The maid was sent olf 
to Madame de Boufllers' apartment, tp inform 
the company that Madame du Chatelet was 
worse. Instantly they all rose from the sup- 
per-table : M. du Chatelet, M. de Voltaire, and 
the other guests rushed into the room. So 
soon as they understood the truth, there was a 
deep consternation ; to tears, to cries, suc- 
ceeded a mournful silence. The husband was 
led away, the other individuals went out suc- 
cessively, expressing the keenest sorrow. M. 
de Voltaire and M. de Saint-Lambert remained 
the last by the bedside, from which thej^ could 
not be drawn away. At length, the former, 
absorbed in deep grief, left the room, and with 
difficulty reached the main door of the Castle, 
not knowing whither he went. Arrived there, 
he fell down at the foot of the outer stairs, and 
near the box of a sentry, where his head came 
on the pavement. His lackey, who was follow- 
ing, seeing him fall and struggle on the ground, 
ran forward and tried to lift him. At this 
moment, M. de Saint-I/ambert, retiring by the 
same way, also arrived ; and observing M. de 
Voltaire in that situation, hastened to assist 
the lackey. No sooner was M. de Voltaire ou 



VOLTAIRE. 



155 



his feet, than opening his eyes, dimmed with 
tears, and recognising M. de Saint-Lambert, he 
said to him, with sobs and the most pathetic 
accent: 'Ah, my friend, it is you that have 
killed her !' Then, all on a sudden, as if he 
were starting from a deep sleep, he exclaimed 
in the tone of reproach and despair : ' Eh ! mon 
Dieu! Monsieur, de quoi vovs avisiez-vous de lui 
faircun e^ifantf They parted thereupon, with- 
out adding a single word; and retired to their 
several apartments, overwhelined and almost 
annihilated by the excess of their sorrow." — 
Vol. ii. p. 250. 

Among all threnetical discourses on record, 
this last, between men overwhelmed and almost 
annihilated by the excess of their sorrow, has 
probably an unexampled character. Some days 
afterwards, the first paroxysm of "reproach 
and despair" being somewhat assuaged, the 
sorrowing widower, not the glad legal one, 
composed this quatrain: 

L'univers a perdu la suhlime Emilie. 

Elle aima les plaisirs, les arts, lu virite: 

Les dieux, en lui donnant leur lime et leur ginie, 

JV ' avaient gardi pour eux que Vimmortaliti. 

After which, reflecting, perhaps, that with 
this sublime Emilie, so meritoriously singular 
in loving pleasure, " his happiness had been 
chiefly on paper," he, like the bereaved Uni- 
verse, consoled himself, and went on his way. 

Woman, it has been sufficiently demon- 
strated, was given to man as a benefit, and for 
mutual support; a precious ornament and 
staff whereupon to lean in many trying situa- 
tions : but to Voltaire she proved, so unlucky 
was he in this matter, little else than a broken 
reed, which only ran into his hand. We con- 
fess that looking over the manifold trials of 
this poor philosopher witii the softer, or as he 
may have reckoned it, the harder sex, — from 
that Dutchwoman who published his juvenile 
letters, to the Niece Denis, who as good as 
killed him with racketing, — we see, in this 
one province, very great scope for almost all 
the cardinal virtues. And these internal con- 
vulsions add an incessant series of contro- 
versies and persecutions, political, religious, 
literary, from without; and we have a life 
quite rent asunder, horrent with asperities and 
chasms, where even a stout traveller might 
have faltered. Over all which Chamouni- 
needles and Staubbach-Falls, the great Pevsi- 
flmr skims along in this his little poetical air- 
ship, more softly than if he travelled the 
smoothest of merely prosaic roads. 

Leaving out of view the worth or worthless- 
ness of such a temper of mind, we are bound, 
in all seriousness, to say, both that it seems to 
have been Voltaire's highest conception of 
moral excellence, and that he has pursued and 
realized it with no small success. One great 
praise therefore he deserves, — that of unity 
with himself; that of havivg an aim, and stead- 
fastly endeavouring after it, nay, as we have 
found, of attaining it; for his ideal Voltaire 
seems, to an unusual degree, manifested, made 
practically apparent, in the real one. There 
can be no doubt that this attainment of Persi- 
ficur, in the wide sense we here give it, was 
of all others the most admired and sought 
after in Voltaire's age and country; nay, in 



our own age and country, we have still in- 
numerable admirers of it, and unwearied 
seekers after it, on every hand of us : never- 
theless, we cannot but believe that its acme is 
past; that the best sense of our generation 
has already weighed its significance, and found 
it wanting. Voltaire himself, it seems to us, 
were he alive at this day, would find other 
tasks than that of mockery, especially of 
mockery in that style : it is not by Derision 
and Denial, but by far deeper, more earnest, 
diviner means that aught truly great has been 
eflected for mankind; that the fabric of man's 
life has been reared, through long centuries, 
to its present height. If we admit that this 
chici of Pcrsiflems had a steady, conscious aim 
in life, the still higher praise of having had a 
right or noble aim cannot be conceded him 
without many limitations, and may, plausibly 
enough, be altogether denied. 

At the same time, let it not be forgotten, that 
amid all these blighting influences, Voltaire 
maintains a certain indestructible humanity 
of nature ; a soul never deaf to the cry of 
wretchedness; never utterly blind to the light 
of truth, beauty, goodness. It is even, in some 
measure, poetically interesting to observe this 
fine contradiction in him: the heart acting 
M'ithout directions from the head, or perhaps 
against its directions ; the man virliious, as it 
were, in spite of himself. For at all events, it 
will be granted that, as a private man, his 
existence was beneficial, not huitf'ul, to his 
fellow-men : the Calases, the Sirvens, and so 
many orphans and outcasts whom he cherished 
and protected, ought to cover a multitude of 
sins. It was his own sentiment, and, to all ap- 
pearance, a sincere one : 

J'ai fait tin peu de bien ; c'est mon meilleur ouvran-c. 

Perhaps there are few men, with such princi- 
ples and such temptations as his were, that 
could have led such a life; few that could 
have done his work, and come through it with 
cleaner hands. If Ave call him the greatest 
of all Pcrsijleurs, let us add that, morally speak- 
ing also, he is the best: if he excels all men 
in universality, sincerity, polished clearness of 
mockery, he perhaps combines with it as 
much worth of heart as, in any man, that 
habit can admit of. 

It is now wellnigh time that we should quit 
this part of our subject: nevertheless, in seek- 
ing to form some picture of Voltaire's practi- 
cal life, and the character, outward as well as 
inward, of his appearance in society, our 
readers will not grudge us a few glances at the 
last and most striking scene he enacted there. 
To our view, that final visit to Paris has a 
strange half-frivolous, half-fateful aspect; there 
is, as it were, a sort of dramatic justice in 
this catastrophe, that he, who had all his life 
hungered and thirsted after public f'avour,should 
at length die by excess of it; should find the 
door of his Ileaven-on-earth unexpectedly 
thrown wide open, and enter there, only to be, 
as he himself said, " smothered under roses." 
Had Paris any suitable theogony or theology, 
as Rome and Athens had, this might almost 
be reckoned, as those ancients accounted of 
death by lightning, a sacred death, a death 



156 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



from the gods; from their many-headed god, 
PopuiAKiTT. In the benignant quietude of 
Ferney, Voltaire had lived long, and, as his 
friends calculated, might still have lived long ; 
but a series of trifling causes lured him to 
Parib, and in three months he is no more. At 
all hours of his history, he might have said 
with Alexander: "O Athenians, what toil do 
I undergo to please you ;" and the last plea- 
sure, his Athenians demand of him, is that he 
would die for them. 

Considered with reference to the world at 
large, this journey is further remarkable. It 
is the most splendid triumph of that nature 
recorded in these ages ; the loudest and show- 
iest homage ever paid to what we moderns 
call Literature ; to a man that had merely 
thought, and published his thoughts. Much 
false tumult, no doubt, there was in it; yet 
also a certain deeper significance. It is inte- 
resting to see how universal and eternal in 
man is love of wisdom; how the highest and 
the lowest, how supercilious princes, and rude 
peasants, and all men must alike show honour 
to Wisdom, or the appearance of Wisdom ; nay, 
properly speaking, can show honour to nothing 
else. For it is not in the power of all Xerxes's 
hosts to bend one thought of our proud heart: 
these "may destroy the case of Anaxarchus; 
himself they cannot reach;" only to spiritual 
worth can the spirit do reverence ; only in a 
.soul deeper and better than ours can we see 
any heavenly mystery, and in humbling our- 
selves feel ourselves exalted. That the so 
ebullient enthusiasm of the French was in 
this case perfectly well directed, we cannot 
undertake to say; yet we rejoice to see and 
know that such a principle exists perennially 
in man's inmost bosom ; that there is no heart 
so sunk and stupified, none so withered and 
pampered, but the felt presence of a nobler 
heart will inspire it and lead it captive. 

Few royal progresses, few Roman triumphs, 
have equalled this long triumph of Voltaire. 
On his journey, at Bourg-en-Bresse, "he was 
recognised," says Wagniere, " while the horses 
were changing, and in a few moments the 
whole town crowded about the carriage ; so 
that he was forced to lock himself for some 
time in a room of the inn." The Maitre-de- 
poste ordered his postilion to 3aike better 
horses, and said to him with a broad oath : 
" Va bon train, creve mes chcvaux, je ?«' en f — ; 
tu mines M. dc Voltaire." At Dijon, there were 
persons of distinction that wished even to 
dress themselves as waiters, that they might 
serve him at supper, and see him by this stra- 
tagem. 

"At the barrier of Paris," continues Wag- 
niere, " the officers asked if we had nothing 
with us contrary to the King's regulations: 
" On my word, gentlemen," (Ma foi, Messieurs,) 
replied M. de Voltaire, "I believe there is 
nothing contraband here except myself." I 
alighted from the carriage, that the inspector 
might more readily examine it. One of the 
guards said to his comrade: Ccsf pardieuf M. 
de Voltaire. He plucked at the coat of the per- 
son who was searching, and repeated the same 
words, looking fixedly at me. I could not help 
laughing; then all gazing with the greatest 



astonishment mingled with respect, begged M. 
de Voltaire to pass on whither he pleased." — 
Vol. i. p. 121. 

Intelligence soon circulated over Paris; 
scarcely could the arrival of Kien-Long, or the 
Grand Lama of Thibet, have excited greater 
ferment. Poor Longchamp, demitted or rather 
dismissed from Voltaire's service, eight-and- 
twenty years before, and now, as a retired 
map-dealer (having resigned in favour of his 
son) living quietly '•dans un petit logemcnt d 
part," a fine smooth, garrulous old man, — 
heard the news next morning in his remote 
ligemcnt, in the Estrapade ; and instantly hud- 
dled on his clothes, though he had not been out 
for two days, to go and see what truth was in it.. 

"Several persons of my acquaintance, whom 
I met, told me that they had heard the same. 
I went purposely to the Cafe Procope, where 
this news formed the subject of conversation 
among several politicians, or men of letters, 
who talked of it with warmth. To assure my- 
self still further, I walked thence towards the 
Qnai dcs Theatins, where he had alighted the 
night before, and, as was said, taken up his 
lodging in a mansion near the church. Coming 
out from the Rue de la Seine, I saw afar off, a 
great number of people gathered on the Quai, 
not far from the Pont-Royal. Approaching 
nearer, I observed that this crowd was col- 
lected in front of the Marquis de Villette's 
Hotel, at the corner of the Rue de Beaune. 
I inquired what the matter was. The people 
answered me, that M. de Voltaire was in that 
house ; and they were waiting to see him when 
he came out. They were not sure, however, 
whether he would come out that day ; for it 
was natural to think that an old man of eighty- 
four might need a day or two of rest. From 
that moment, I no longer doubted the arrival 
of M. de Voltaire in Paris." — Vol. ii. p. 353. 

By dint of address, Longchamp, in process 
of time, contrived to see his old master; had 
an interview of ten ininutes; was for falling 
at his feet; and wept, with sad presentiments, 
at parting. Ten such minutes were a great 
matter; for Voltaire had his levees, and 
couchees, more crowded than those of any 
Emperor; princes and peers thronged his ante- 
chamber; and when he went abroad, his car- 
riage was as the nucleus of a comet, whose 
train extended over whole districts of the city. 
He himself, says Wagniere, expressed dissatis- 
faction at much of this. Nevertheless, there 
were some plaudits, which, as he confessed, 
went to his heart. Condorcet mentions that 
once a person in the crowd inquiring who this 
great man was, a poor woman answered, 
'' C'cst sauvcur dex Calas." Of a quite different 
sort was the tribute paid him by a quack, in 
the Place Louis XV., haranguing a mixed 
multitude on the art of juggling with cards; 
" Here gentlemen," said he, " is a trick I learned 
at Ferney, from that great man who makes so 
much noise among you, that famous M. de 
Voltaire, the master of us all!" In fact, mere 
gaping curiosity, and even ridicule was abroad 
as well as real enthusiasm. The clergy toO' 
were recoiling into ominous groups; already 
some Jesuitic drums eccelesiastic had beat to 
arms. 



VOLTAIRE. 



157 



Figuring the lean, tottering, lonely old man 
in the midst of all this, how he looks into it, 
clear and alert, though no longer strong and 
calm, we feel drawn towards him by some tie 
of affection, of kindly sympathy. Longchamp 
says, he appeared " extremely worn, though 
still in the possession of all his senses, and 
with a very firm voice." The following little 
sketch, by a hostile journaHst of the day, has 
fixed itself deeply with us : — 

"M. de Voltaire appeared in full dress, on 
Tuesday, for the first time since his arrival in 
Paris. He had on a red coat lined with er- 
mine ; a large peruke, in the fashion of Louis 
XIV., black, unpowdered; and in which his 
withered figure was so buried that you saw 
only his two eyes shining like carbuncles. 
His head was surmounted by a square red cap 
in the form of a crown, which seemed only 
laid on. He had, in his hand, a small nibbed 
caoe ; and the public of Paris, not accustomed 
to see him in this accoutrement, laughed a 
good deal. This personage, singular in all, 
wishes doubtless to have nothing in common 
with ordinary men." — Vol. ii. p. 466. 

This head — this wondrous microcosm in 
the Grande pcrvquc a la Louis XIV. — was so 
soon to be distenanted of all its cunning gifts; 
ithese eyes, shining like carbuncles, were so 
soon to be closed in long night! — We must 
now give the coronation ceremony, of which 
the reader may have heard so much: borrow- 
ing from this same skeptical hand, which, 
however, is vouched for by Wagniere ; as, in- 
deed. La Harpe's more heroical narrative of 
that occurrence is well known, and hardly dif- 
fers from the following, except in style: — 

" On Monda}', M. de Voltaire, resolving to 
enjoy the triumph which had been so long 
promised him, mounted his carriage, that azure- 
coloured vehicle, bespangled with gold stars, 
which a wag called the chariot of the empy- 
rean ; and so repaired to the Academie Fran- 
gaise, which that day had a special meeting. 
Twenty-two members were present. None of 
the prelates, abbes, or other ecclesiastics, who 
belong to it, would attend, or take part in these 
singular deliberations. The sole exceptions 
were the Abbes de Boismont and Milot; the 
one a court rake-hell (nme), with nothing but 
the guise of his profession, the other a varlet 
(rui-trc), having no favour to look for, either 
from the Court or the Church. 

•'The Academie went out to meet M. de 
Voltaire: he was led to the director's seat, 
which that office-bearer and the meeting in- 
vited him to accept. His portrait had been 
hung up above it. The company, without 
drawing lots, as is the custom, proceeded to 
work, and named him, by acclamation. Direc- 
tor for tlie April quarter. The old man, once 
set a going, was about to talk a great deal ; 
but they told him, that they valued his health 
too much to hear him, — that they would reduce 
him to silence. M. d'Alembert accordingly 
occupied the session, by reading his Eloge rlc 
Dcspreaux, which had already been communi- 
cated on a public occasion, and where he had 
inserted various flattering things for the pre- 
sent visiter. 

" M. de Voltaire then signified a wish to visit 



the Secretary of the Academie, whose apart- 
ments are above. With this gentleman he 
stayed some time; and at last set out for the 
Comedie Francaise. The court of the Louvre, 
vast as it is, was full of people waiting for 
him. So soon as his notable vehicle came in 
sight, the cry arose, Lc Voild ! The Savoyards, 
the apple-women, all the rabble of the quarter, 
had assembled there : and the acclamations, 
Vive Vollairc! resounded as if they would never 
end. The Marquis de Villette, who had ar- 
rived before, came to hand him out of his car- 
riage, where the Procureur Clos was seated 
beside him : both these gave him their arms, 
and could scarcely extricate him from the 
press. On his entering the playhouse, a crowd 
of more elegance, and seized with true enthu- 
siasm for genius, surrounded him: the ladies, 
above all, threw themselves in his way, and 
stopped it, the better to look at him ; some 
were seen squeezing forward to touch his 
clothes; some plucking hair from his fur. 
M. le Due de Chartres, not caring to advance 
too near, showed, though at a distance, no less 
curiosity than others. 

" The saint, or rather the god, of the evening, 
was to occupy the box belonging to the Gentle- 
men of the Bedchamber,* opposite that of the 
Counte d'Artois. Madame Denis and Madame 
de Villette were already there ; and the pit 
was in convulsions of joy, awaiting the mo- 
ment when the poet should appear. There 
was no end till he placed himself on the front 
seat, beside the ladies. Then rose a cry : La 
Couronne f and Brizard, the actor, came and 
put the garland on his head. "Ah, Heaven! 
will you kill me then 1" (J.h, Dieu ! vous voidez 
done me faire mourir !) cried M. de Voltaire, 
weeping with joy, and restating this honour. 
He took the crown in his hand, and presented 
it to Bellc-ct-bonnc ■.■\ she withstood; and the 
Prince deBeauvau, seizing the laurel, replaced 
it on the head of our Sophocles, who could 
refuse no longer. 

" The piece {Iraie) was played, and with 
more applause than usual, though scarcely 
with enough to correspond to this triumph of 
its author. Meanwhile the players were in 
straits as to what they sliould do; and during 
their deliberations the tragedy ended ; the 
curtain fell, and the tumult of the people was 
extreme, till it rose again, disclosing a show 
like that of the Ccntinaire. M. de Voltaire's 
bust, which had been placed shortly before in 
the foyer (green-room) of the Coraedie Fran- 
caise, had been brought upon the stage, and 
elevated on a pedestal ; the whole body of 
comedians stood round it in a semicircle, with 
palms and garlands in their hands: there was 
a crown already on the bust. The pealing of 
musical flourishes, of drums, of trumpets, had 
announced the ceremony; and Madame Vestris 
held in her hand a paper, which was soon 
understood to contain verses, lately composed 
by the Marquis de Saint-Marc. She recited 
them with an emphasis proportioned to the 
extravagance of the scene. They ran as 
follows : — 



* He himself, as is perhaps too well known, was one. 
fThe Marquise de Villette, a foster-child of his. 




158 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Aux yeuz de Paris enchanti, 

Regois en ce jotir un hommage. 

Que covjirmera d' age, en age 

La sevire postirite ! 
JVon til n'as pas besoin d' atteindre au noir rivage 
Pour jouir des honiieurs de V immortalite : 

Voltaire, re^nis la couronne 

Que Von vient de te presenter ; 

II est beau de la miriter, 

Quand e'est la France qui la donne .'* 

" This was encored : the actress recited it 
again, Next, each of them went forward and 
]aid his garland round the bust. Mademoiselle 
Fanier, in a fanatical ecstasy, kissed it, and all 
the others imitated her. 

" This long ceremony, accompanied with 
infinite vivals, being over, the curtain again 
dropped ; and when it rose for Nanmc, one of 
M. de Voltaire's comedies, his bust was seen 
on the right-hand side of the stage, where it 
remained during the whole play. 

" M. le Comte d'Artois did not choose to 
show himself too openly; but being informed, 
according to his orders, as soon as M. de Vol- 
taire appeared in the theatre, he had gone 
thither incognito ; and it is thought that the 
old man, once when he went out for a moment, 
had the honour of a short interview with his 
Royal Highness. 

" Nanine finished, comes a new hurly-burly, 
— a new trial for the modesty of our philoso- 
pher ! He had got into his carriage, but the 
people would not let him go; they threw them- 
selves on the horses, they kissed them : some 
young poets even cried to unyoke these ani- 
mals, and draw the modern Apollo home with 
their own arms ; unhappily, there were not 
enthusiasts enough to volunteer this service, 
and he at last got leave to depart, not without 
vivats, which he may have heard on the Pont- 
Royal, and even in his own house. . . . 

" M. de Voltaire, on reaching home, wept 
anew; and modestly protested that if he had 
known the people were to play so many follies, 
he would not have gone." — Vol. ii. 

On all these wonderful proceedings we shall 
leave our readers to their own reflections; re- 
marking only, that this happened on the 30th 
of March, (1778,) and on the 30th of May, 
about the same hour, the object of such ex- 
traordinary adulation was in the article of 
death; the hearse already prepared to receive 
his remains, for which even a grave had to be 
stolen. "He expired," says Wagniere, "about 
a quarter past eleven at night, with the most 
perfect tranquillity, after having suffered the 
cruellest pains, in consequence of those fatal 
drugs, which his own imprudence, and es- 
pecially that of the persons who should have 
looked to it, made him swallow. Ten minutes 
before his last breath, he took the hand of 
Morand, his valet-de-chambre, who was watch- 
ing by him, pressed it and said Adieu, mon chcr 
Morand, je me meurs, (Adieu, my dear Morand, 
I am gone.) These are the last words uttered 
by M. de Voltaire."f 



*A8 Dryden said of Swift, so may we say: Our 
cousin Saint-Marc has no turn for poetry. 

tOn this sickness of Voltaire, and his death-bed de- 
portment, many foolish books have been written ; con- 
cerning which it is not necessary to say any thing. The 
conduct of the Parisian clergy, on that occasion, see.iis 



We have still to consider this man in his 
specially intellectual capacity, which, as with 
every man of letters, is to be regarded as the 
clearest, and, to all practical intents, the most 
important aspect of him. Voltaire's intellectual 
endowment and acquirement, his talent or 
genius as a literary man, lies opened to us in 
a series of Writings, unexampled, as we be- 
lieve, in two respects ; their extent, and their 
diversity. Perhaps there is no writer, not a 
mere compiler, but writing from his own in- 
vention or elaboration, who has left so many 
volumes behind him; and if to the merely 
arithmetical, we add a critical estimate, the 
singularit}^ is still greater; for these volumes 
are not written without an appearance of due 
care and preparation ; perhaps there is not 
one altogether feeble and confused treatise, 
nay, one feeble and confused sentence, to be 
found in them. As to variety, again, they 
range nearly over ail human subjects; from 
Theology down to Domestic Economy; from 
the Familiar Letter to the Political History; 
from the Pasquinade to the Epic Poem. Some 
strange gift, or union of gifts, must have been 
at work here; for the result is, at least, in the 
highest degree uncommon, and to be wondered 
at, if not to be admired. 

If through all this many-coloured versatility, 
we try to decipher the essential, distinctive 
features of Voltaire's intellect, it seems to us 
"that we find there a counterpart to our theory 
of his moral character; as, indeed, if that 
theory was accurate, we must do: for the 
thinking and the moral nature, distinguished 
by the necessities of speech, have no such dis- 
tinction in themselves ; but, rightly examined, 
exhibit in every case the strictest sympathy 

totally unworthy of their cloth ; nor was their reward, 
so far as concerns tliese individuals, inappropriate : that 
of findin;; themselves once more bilked, o?ice more 
persiflcs by that strange old man, in his last decrepitude, 
who, in his strength, had wrought them and others so 
many griefs. Surely the parting agonies of a fellow 
mortal, when the spirit of our brother, rapt in the 
whirlwinds and thick ghastly vapors of death, clutches 
blindly for help, and no help is there, are not the scenes 
where a wise faith would seek to exult, when it can no 
longer hope to alleviate ! For the rest, to touch further 
on those their idle tales of dying horrors, remorse, and 
the like ; to write of such, to believe them, or disbelieve 
them, or in any wise discuss them, were but a continua- 
tion of the same ineptitude. lie, who, after the im- 
perturbable exit of so many Cartouches and Thurtells, 
in every age of the world, can continue to regard the 
manner of a man's death as a test of his religions 
orthodoxy, may boast himself impregnable to merely 
terrestrial logic. Voltaire had enough of suffering, and 
of mean enough sulfsring, to encounter, without any 
addition from theological despair. His last interview 
with the clergy, who had been sent for by his friends, 
that the rites of burial might not be denied him, is thus 
described by Wagniere as it has been by all other 
credible reporters of it : — 

"Two days before that mournful death, M. I'Abbe 
Mignot, his nephew, went to seek the Cur6 of Saint- 
Sulpice and the Abbe Guatier, and brought them into 
his uncle's sick-room ; who, being informed that the 
Abb6 Guatier was there, "Ah, well 1" said he, "give 
him my compliments and my thanks." The Abbe 
spoke some words to him exhorting him to patience. 
The Cure of Saint-Sulpice then came forward, having 
announced himself, and asked of M. de Voltaire, elevat- 
ing his voice, if he acknowledged the divinity of our 
Lord Jesus Christ? The sick man pushed one of his 
hands against the Cure's calotte, (coif,) shoving him 
back, and cried, turning abruptly lo the other side, " Let 
me die in peace I" (Laissei-moi mourir en paix !) The 
Cure seemingly considered his person soiled, and his 
coif dishonoured, by the touch of a philosopher. He- 
made the sick nurse give him a liitle brushing, and then, 
went out with liie Abbe Guatier." — Vol. i. pi 161; 



VOLTAIRE. 



15& 



and correspondence ; are, indeed, but different 
phases of the same indissoluble unity, — a liv- 
ing mind. In life, Voltaire was found to be 
without good claim to the title of philosopher; 
and now, in literature, and for similar reasons, 
we find in him the same deficiencies. Here, 
too, it is not greatness, but the verj' extreme 
of expertness, that we recognise ; not strength, 
so much as agility ; not depth, but superficial 
extent. That truly surprising ability seems 
rather the unparalleled combination of many 
common talents, than the exercise of any finer 
or higher one: for here, too, the want of 
earnestness, of intense continuance, is fatal to 
him. He has the eye of a lynx ; sees deeper, 
at the first glance, than any other man; but J 
no second glance is given. Thus Truth, ] 
which, to the philospher, has from of old been 
said to live in a well, remains for the most | 
part hidden from him ; we may say for ever ; 
hidden, if we take the highest, and only philo- 
sophical species of Truth; for this does not l 
reveal itself to any mortal, without quite i 
another sort of meditation than Voltaire ever ; 
seems to have bestowed on it. In fact, his 
deductions are uniformly of a forensic, argu- 
mentative, immediately practical nature; often 
true, we will admit, so far as they go ; btit not 
the whole truth ; and false, when taken for the 
whole. In regard to feeling, it is the same 
with him : he is, in general, humane, mildly 
affectionate, not without touches of nobleness ; 
but light, fitful, discontinuous; "a smart free- 
thinker, all things in an hour." He is no Poet 
and Philosopher, but a popular sweet Singer 
and Haranguer; in all senses, and in all 
styles, Concionator, which, for the most part, 
will turn out to be an altogether different 
character. It is true, in this last province 
he stands unrivalled ; for such an audience, 
the most fit and perfectly persuasive of all 
preachers : but in many far higher provinces, 
he is neither perfect nor unrivalled ; has been 
often surpassed ; was surpassed even in his 
own age and nation. For a decisive, thorough- 
going, in any measure gigantic, force of 
thought, he is far inferior to Diderot; with all 
the liveliness, he has not the soft elegance; 
with more than the wit, he has but a small 
portion of the wisdom that belonged to Fonte- 
nelie : as in real sensibility, so in the delinea- 
tion of it, in pathos, loftiness, and earnest 
eloquence, he cannot, making all fair abate- 
ments, and there are many, be compared with 
Rousseau. 

Doubtless, an astonishing fertility, quick- 
ness, address ; an openness also, and univer- 
sal susceptibility of mind, must have belonged 
to him. As little can we deny that he mani- 
fests an assiduous perseverance, a capability 
of long-continued exertion, strange in so vola- 
tile a man ; and consummate skill in hus- 
banding and wisely directing his exertion. 
The very knowledge he had amassed, granting, 
which is but partly true, that it was super- 
ficial, remembered knowledge, might have dis- 
tinguished him as a mere Dutch commentator. 
From Newton's Principia to the Shastcr and 
Vcdam, nothing has escaped him; he has 
glanced into all literatures and all sciences ; 
nay, studied in them, for he can speak a 



rational word on all. It is knoAvn, for instance, 
that he understood Newton when no other 
man in France understood him; indeed, his 
countrymen may call Voltaire their discoverer 
of intellectual England, — a discovery, it is 
true, rather of the Curtis than of the Columbus 
sort, yet one which in his day still remained 
to be made. Nay, from all sides he brings 
new light into his country: now, for the first 
time, to the upturned wondering eyes of 
Frenchmen in general, does it become clear 
that Thought has actually a kind of existence 
in other kingdoms; that some glimmei-ings of 
civilization had dawned here and there on the 
human species, prior to the Steele dc Louis 
Quaiorze. Of Voltaire's acquaintance with 
History, at least with what he called History, 
be it civil, religious, or literary ; of his in- 
describable collection of facts, gathered from 
all sources, — from European Chronicles and 
State Papers, from eastern Zcmh and Jewish 
Talmnds, we need not remind any reader. It 
has been objected that his information was 
often borrowed at second-hand ; that he had 
his plodders and pioneers, whom, as living 
dictionaries, he skilfully consulted in time of 
need. This also seems to be partly true, but 
deducts little from our estimate of him: for 
the skill so to borrow is even rarer than the 
power to lend. Voltaire's knowledge is not a, 
mere show-room of curiosities, but truly a 
museum for purposes of teaching: every ob- 
ject is in its place, and there for its uses ; no- 
where do we find confusion, or vain display ; 
everywhere intention, instructiveness, and the 
clearest order. 

Perhaps it is this very power of Order, of 
rapid, perspicuous Arrangement, that lies at 
the root of Voltaire's best gifts ; or rather, we 
should say, it is that keen, accurate intellectual 
vision, from which, to a mind of any intensity. 
Order naturally arises. This clear quick 
vision, and the methodic arrangement which 
springs from it, are looked upon as peculiarly 
French qualities ; and Voltaire, at all times, 
manifests them in a more than French degree. 
Let him but cast his eye over any subject, in a 
moment he sees, though indeed only to a short 
depth, yet with instinctive decision, where the 
main bearings of it for that short depth lie; 
what is, or appears to be, its logical coherence ; 
how causes connect themselves with effects ; 
how the whole is to be seized, and in lucid 
sequence represented to his own or to other 
minds. In this respect, moreover, it is happy 
for him that, below the short depth alluded to, 
his view does not properly grow dim, but alto- 
gether terminates; thus there is nothing further 
to occasion him misgivings ; has he not 
already sounded into that basis of bottomless 
Darkness on which all things firmly rest? 
What lies below is delusion, imagination, some 
form of Superstition or Folly; which he, 
nothing doubting, altogether casts away. Ac- 
cordingly, he is the most intelligible of writers ; 
everywhere transparent at a glance. There 
is no delineation or disquisition of his, that has 
not its whole purport written on its forehead ; 
all is precise, all is rightly adjusted; that keen 
spirit of Order shows itself in the whole, and 
in every line of the whole. 



160 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



If we say that this power of Arrangement, as 
applied both to the acquisition and to the com- 
munication of ideas, is Voltaire's most ser- 
viceable faculty in all his enterprises, we say 
nothing singular : for take the word in its 
largest acceptation, and it comprehends the 
whole office of Understanding, logically so 
called ; is the means whereby man accom- 
plishes whatever, in the way of outward force, 
has been made possible for him ; conquers all 
practical obstacles, and rises to be the "king 
of this lower world." It is the organ of all that 
.Knowledge which can properly be reckoned 
synonymous with Power; for hereby man 
strikes, with wise aim, into the infinite agencies 
of Nature, and multiplies his own small 
strength to unlimited degrees. It has been 
said also that man may rise to be the " god of 
this lower world ;" but that is a far loftier 
height, not attainable by such powerful know- 
ledge, but by quite another sort, for which 
Voltaire in particular shows hardly any apti- 
tude. 

In truth, readily as we have recognised his 
spirit of Method, with its many uses, we are 
far from ascribing to him any perceptible por- 
tion of that greatest praise in thinking, or in 
writing, the praise of philosophic, still less of 
poetic Method, which, especially the latter, must 
be the fruit of deep feeling as well as of clear 
vision, — of genius as well as of talent; and is 
much more likely to be found in the composi- 
tions of a Hooker, or a Shakspeare, than of a 
Voltaire. The Method discernible in Voltaire, 
and this on all subjects whatever, is a purely 
business Method. The order that arises from 
it is not Beauty, but, at best, Regularity. His 
objects do not lie round him in pictorial, not 
always in scientific grouping; but rather in 
commodious rows, where each may be seen 
and come at, like goods in a well-kept ware- 
house. We might say there is not the deep 
natural symmetry of a forest oak, but the simple 
artificial symmetry of a parlor chandelier. 
Compare, for example, the plan of the Hcn- 
riade to that of our so barbarous Hcimlet. The 
plan of the former is a geometrical diagram 
by Fermai ; that of the latter a cartoon by 
Raphael. The Ilenrinde, as we see it com- 
pleted, is a polished, square-built Tuileries; 
Hamlet is a mysterious, star-paved Valhalla, 
and dwelling of the gods. 

Nevertheless, Voltaire's style of Method is, 
as we have said, a business one; and for his 
purposes, more available than any other. It 
carries him swiftly through his work, and 
carries his reader swiftly through it; there 
is a prompt intelligence between the two ; 
the whole meaning is communicated clearl}', 
and comprehended without effort. From this 
also it may follow, that Voltaire will please 
the young more than he does the old ; that the 
first perusal of him will please better than the 
second, if indeed any second be thought neces- 
sary. But what merit (and it is considerable) 
the pleasure and profit of this first perusal pre- 
supposes, must be honestly allowed him. Here- 
in it seems to us lies the grand quality in all 
his performances. Those Histories of his, for 
instance, are felt, in spite of their sparkling 
rapidity, and knowing air of philosophic in- 



sight, to be among the shallowest of all histo- 
ries ; mere beadrolls of exterior occurrences, 
of battles, edifices, enactments, and other quite 
superficial phenomena ; yet being clear bead- 
rolls, well adapted for memory, and recited in 
a lively tone, we listen with satisfaction, and 
learn somewhat; learn much, if we began 
knowing nothing. Nay, sometimes the sum- 
mary, in its skilful though crowded arrange- 
ment, and brilliant well-defined outlines, has 
almost a poetical as well as a didactic merit. 
Charles the Twclfih may still pass for a model in 
that often-attempted species of Biography : the 
clearest details are given in the fewest words; 
we have sketches of strange men and strange 
countries, of wars, adventures, negotiations, 
in a style which, for graphic brevity, rivals 
that of Sallust. It is a line-engraving, on a 
reduced scale, of that Swede and his mad life ; 
without colours, yet not Avithout the fore- 
shortenings and perspective observances, — 
nay, not altogether without the deeper har- 
monies which belong to a true Picture. In re- 
spect of composition, whatever may be said of 
its accuracy or worih otherwise, we cannot but 
reckon it greatly the best of Voltaire's Histo- 
ries. 

In his other prose works, in his Novels, and 
innumerable Essays and fugitive pieces, the 
same clearness of order, the same rapid pre- 
cision of view, again forms a distinguishing 
merit. His Zadigs and Baboius and Cundides, 
which, considered as products of imagination, 
perhaps rank higher with foreigners than anj^ 
of his professedly poetical performances, are 
instinct with this sort of intellectual life : the 
sharpest glances, though from an oblique point 
of sight, into at least the surface of human life, 
into the old familiar world of business, which 
truly from his oblique station, looks oblique 
enough, and yields store of ridiculous combi- 
nations. The Wit, manifested chiefly in these 
and the like performances, but ever flowing, 
unless purposely restrained, in boundless abun- 
dance, from Voltaire's mind, has been often and 
duly celebrated. It lay deep-rooted in his na- 
ture; the inevitable produce of such an un- 
derstanding with such a character, and was 
from the first likely, as it actually proved in 
the latter period of his life, to become the main 
dialect in which he spoke and even thought. 
Doing all justice to the inexhaustible readiness, 
the quick force, the polished acuteness, of Vol- 
taire's Wit, we may remark, at the same time, 
that it was nowise the highest species of em- 
ployment for such a mind as his ; that, indeed, 
it ranks essentially among the lowest species 
even of Ridicule. It is at all times mere lo- 
gical pleasantry ; a gayety of the head, not of 
the heart; there is scarcely a twinkling of Hu- 
mour in the whole of his numberless sallies. 
Wit of this sort cannot maintain a demure 
sedateness ; a grave yet infinitely kind aspect, 
warming the inmost soul with true loving 
mirth; it has not even the force to laugh out- 
right, but can only snifl'and litter. It grounds 
itself, not on fond sportful sympathy, but on 
contempt, or at best, on indifl'erence. It stands 
related to Humour as Prose does to Poetry ; of 
which, in this department at least, Voltaire ex- 
hibits no symptom. The most determinedly 



VOLTAIRE. 



161 



ludicrous composition of his, the Pucdle, which 
■cannot on other grounds be recommended to 
any reader, has no higher merit than that of an 
audacious caricature. True, he is not a buf- 
foon ; seldom or never violates the rules, we 
shall not say of propriety, yet of good breeding: 
to this negative praise he is entitled. But as 
for any high claim to positive praise, it cannot 
be made good. We look in vain, through his 
whole writings, for one lineament of a QvAxote 
or a Shandy; even of a Hiultbras or Bailie of the 
Books. Tndeed, it has been more than onte ob- 
served that Humour is not a national gift with 
the French, in late times; that since Mon- 
taigne's day it seems to have well nigh vanish- 
ed from among them. 

Considered in his technical capacity of Poet, 
Voltaire need not, at present, detain us very 
long. Here too his excellence is chiefly intel- 
lectual, and shown in the way of business-like 
method. Every thing is well calculated for a 
■given end ; there is the utmost logical fitness 
of sentiment, of incident, of general contri- 
vance. Nor is he without an enthusiasm that 
sometimes resembles inspiration ; a clear fel- 
low-feeling for the personages of his scene he 
always has ; with a chameleon susceptibility 
he takes some hue of every object ; if he can- 
not be that object, he at least plausibly enacts 
it. Thus we have a result everywhere con- 
sistent with itself; a contrivance, not without 
nice adjustments, and brilliant aspects, which 
•pleases with that old pleasure of " ditiicultics 
overcome," and the visible correspondence of 
means to end. That the deeper portion of our 
soul sits silent, unmoved under all this ; recog- 
nising no universal, everlasting Beauty, but 
only a modish Elegance, less the work of po- 
etical creation than a process of the toilette, 
need occasion no surprise. It signifies only that 
Voltaire was a French Poet, and wrote as tiie 
French people of that day required and ap- 
proved. We have long known that French 
poetry aimed at a different result than ours; 
that its splendour was what we should call a 
dead, artificial one; not the manifold soft sum- 
mer glories of Nature, but a cold splendour, as 
of polished metal. 

On the whole, in reading Voltaire's poetry, 
that adventure of the Cafe dc Procope should 
ever be held in mind. He was not without an 
eye to have looked, had he seen others looking, 
into the deepest nature of poetry; nor has he 
failed here and there to cast a glance in that 
direction : but what preferment could such 
enterprises earn for him in the Cafe de Pic- 
cope.^ What could it profit his all-precious 
"fame," to pursue them farther] In the end, 
he seems to have heartily reconciled himself 
to use and wont, and striven only to do better 
what he saw all others doing. Yet his private 
poetical creed, which could not be a catholic 
one, was, nevertheless, scarcely so bigoted as 
might have been looked for. That censure of 
Shakspeare, which elicited a re-censure in 
England, perhaps rather deserved a " recom- 
mendatory epistle," all things being considered. 
He calls Shakspeare "a genius full of force 
and fertility, of nature and sublimity," though 
unhappily " without the smallest spark of good 
taste, or the smallest acquaintance with the 
21 



rules," which, in Voltaire's dialect, is not so 
false; Shakspeare having really almost no 
Parisian ban gout whatever, and walking 
through "the rules," so often as he-sees good, 
with the most astonishing tranquillity. After 
a fair enough account of Hamlet, the best of 
those "farces moiis'rueuscs nu'on appellc tragedies," 
where, however, there are " scenes so beauti- 
ful, and passages so grand and so terrible," 
Voltaire thus proceeds to resolve two great 
problems: 

" The first, how so many wonders could ac- 
cumulate in a single head 1 for it must be con- 
fessed that all the divine Shakspeare's plays 
are written in this taste : the second, how 
men's minds could have been elevated so as to 
look at these plays with transport ; and how 
they are still followed after, in a century which 
has produced Addison's Cato ? 

"Our astonishment at the first wonder will 
cease, when we understand that Shakspeare 
took all his tragedies from histories or ro- 
mances; and that in this case he only turned 
into verse the romance of Clindivs, Gertrude, 
and Hamlet, written in full by Saxo Grammati- 
cus, to whom be the praise. 

"The second part of the problem, that is to 
say, the pleasure men take in these tragedies, 
presents a little more difficulty; but here is {en 
voici) the solution, according to the deep reflec- 
tions of certain philosophers. 

"The English chairmen, the sailors, hack- 
nej'-coachmen, shop-porters, butchers, clerks 
even are passionately fond of shows : give them 
cock-fights, bull-bailings, fencing -matches, 
burials, duels, gibbets, witchcraft, apparitions, 
they run thither in crowds; nay, there is more 
than one patrician as curioiis as the populace. 
The citizens of London found in Shakspeare's 
tragedies, satisfaction enough for such a turn 
of mind. The courtiers were obliged to follow 
the torrent: how can you help admiring what 
the more sensible part of the town admires? 
There was nothing better for a hundred and 
fifty years ; the admiration grew with age, and 
became an idolatry. Some touches of genius, 
some happy verses full of force and nature, 
which you remember in spite of yourself, 
atoned for the remainder, and soon the whole 
piece succeeded by the help of some beauties 
of detail." — GLuvres, t. xlvii. p. 300. 

Here, truly, is a comfortable little theory, 
which throws light on more than one thmg. 
However, it is couched in mild terms, com- 
paratively speaking. Frederic the Great, for 
example, thus gives his verdict: 

"To convince yourself of the wretched taste 
that up to this day prevails in Germany, you 
have only to visit the public theatres. You 
will there see, in action, the abominable plays 
of Shakspeare, translated into our language; 
and the whole audience fainting with rapture 
(se pdrner d'aise) in listenihg to those ridiculous 
farces, worthy of the savages of Canada. I 
call them such, because they sin against all 
the rules of the theatre. One may pardon 
those mad sallies in Shakspeare, for the birth 
of the arts is never the point of their maturity. 
But here, even now, we have a Gocl: de / «•- 
lichingen, which has just made its appearance 
on the scene ; a detestible imitation of those 
o2 



162 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



miserable English pieces ; and the pit applauds, 
and demands with enthusiasm the repetition 
of these disgusting ineptitudes (de ces degoutantcs 
■platiiudes.) — De la Lit terat lire Alkmandc. Ber- 
lin, 1780.* 

We have not cited these criticisms with a 
view to impugn them ; but simply to ascertain 
where the critics themselves are standing. 
This passage of Frederic's has even a touch 
of pathos in it ; may be regarded as the expiring 
cry of " Gout" in that country, who sees him- 
self suddenly beleaguered by strange, appall- 
ing, Supernatural influences, which he mis- 
takes for Lapland witchcraft, or Cagliostro 
jugglery ; and so he drowns, grasping his 
opera-hat, in an ocean of " Dezoutantcs plati- 
tudes." On the whole, it would appear that 
Voltaire's view of poetry was radically ditferent 
from ours ; that, in fact, of what we should 
strictly call poetry, he had almost no view 
whatever. A Traged)% a Poem, with him is 
not to be " a manifestation of man's Reason in 
forms suitable to his Sense ;" but rather a 
highly complex egg-dance, to be danced before 
the King, to a given tune, and without break- 
ing a single egg. Nevertheless, let justice be 
shown to him, and to French poetry at large. 
This latter is a peculiar growth of our modern 
ages ; has been labouriously cultivated, and is 
not without its own value. We have to re- 
mark also, as a curious fact, that it has been, 
at one lime or other, transplanted into all coun- 
tries, England, Germany, Spain; but though 
under the sunbeams of royal protection, it 
would strike root nowhere. Nay, now it seems 
falling into the sere and yellow leaf in its own 
natal soil : the axe has already been seen near its 
root; and perhaps, in no great lapse of years, 
this species of poetry may be to the French, 
what it is to all other nations, a pleasing re- 
miniscence. Yet the elder French loved it 
with zeal ; to them it must have had a true 
worth : indeed we can understand how, when 
Life itself consisted so much in Display, these 
representatives of Life may have been the only 
suitable ones. And now, when the nation feels 
itself called to a more grave and nobler destiny 
among nations, the want of a new literature 
also begins to be felt. As yet, in lookilig at 
their too purblind, scrambling controversies 
of Romantidsts and Classnists, we cannot find 
that our ingenious neighbours have done much 
more than make a commencement in this enter- 
prise : however, a commencement seems to 
be made ; they are in what may be called the 
eclectic state ; trying all thmgs, German, Eng- 
lish, Italian, Spanish, with a candour and real 
love of improvement, which give the best 
omens of a still higher success. From the 
peculiar gifts of the French, and their peculiar 
spiritual pos'ition, we may expect, had they 
once more attained to an original style, many 
important benefits, and important accessions 
to the Literature of the World. MeanAvhile, in 
considering and duly estimating what that 
people has, in past times, accomplished, Vol- 
taire must always be reckoned among their 
most meritorious Poets. Inferior in what we 



* We quote from the compilation : Ooethe in den Zeug- 
nisseii der Miilebenden, a. 124. 



may call general poetic temperament to Ra- 
cine; greatly inferior, in some points of it, to 
Corneille, he has an intellectual vivacity, a 
quickness both of sight and of invention, which 
belongs to neither of these two. We believe 
that, among foreign nations, his Tragedies, 
such works as Zaire and Mahomet, are con- 
siderably the most esteemed of this school. 

However, it is nowise as a Poet, Historian, 
or Novelist, that Voltaire stands so prominent 
in Europe; but chiefly as a religious Polemic, 
as a vehement opponent of the Christian 
Faith. Viewed in this last character, he may 
give rise to many grave reflections, only a 
small portion of which can here be so much as 
glanced at. We may say, in general, that his 
style of controversy is of a piece with himself; 
not a higher, and scarcely a lower style than 
might have been expected from him. As in a 
moral point of view, Voltaire nowise wanted a 
love of truth, yet had withal a still deeper love 
of his own interest in truth; was, therefore, 
intrinsically no Philosopher, but a highly-ac- 
complished Trivialist; so likewise, in an in- 
tellectual point of view, he manifests himself 
ingenious and adroit, rather than noble or 
comprehensive; fights for truth or victory, not 
by patient meditation, but by light sarcasm, 
whereby victory may indeed, for a time, be 
gained ; but little Truth, what can be named 
Truth, especially in such matters as this, is to 
be looked for. 

No one, we suppose, ever arrogated for Vol- 
taire any praise of originality in this discus- 
sion; we suppose there is not a single idea, of 
any moment, relating to the Christian religion, 
in all his multifarious writings, that had not 
been set forth again and again before his en- 
terprises commenced. The labours of a very 
mixed multitude, from Porphyry down to Shaf- 
tesbury, including Hobbeses, Tindals, Tolands^ 
some of them skeptics of a much nobler class, 
had left little room for inerit in this kind : nay, 
Bayle, his own countryman, had just finished 
a life spent in preaching skepticism precisely 
similar, and by methods precisely similar, 
when Voltaire appeared on the arena. Indeed, 
skepticism, as u-e have before observed, was 
at this period universal among the higher ranks 
in France, with whom Voltaire chiefly associ- 
ated. It is only in the merit and demerit of 
grinding down this grain into food for the 
people, and inducing so many to eat of it, that 
Voltaire can claim any singularity. However, 
we quarrel not with him on this head: there 
may be cases where the want of originality is 
even a moral merit. But it is a much more 
serious ground of offence that he intermeddled 
in Religion without being himself, in any mea- 
sure, Religious ; that he entered the Temple 
and continued there, with a levity, which, in 
any Temple where men worship, can beseem 
no brother man; that, in a word, he ardently, 
and with long-continued eflT)rt, warred against 
Christianity, v/ithout understanding beyond the 
mere superficies of what Christianity was. 

His polemical procedure in this matter, it 
appears to us, must now be admitted to have 
been, on the whole, a shallow one. Through 
all its manifold forms, and involutions, and re- 
petitions, it turns, we believe exclusively, oa 



VOLTAIRE. 



16^ 



one point; what Theologians have called the 
" plenary Inspiration of the Scriptures." This 
is the single wall, against which, through long 
years, and with innumerable battering-rams and 
catapults and pop-guns, he unweariedly batters. 
Concede him this, and his ram swings freely, to 
and fro, through space ; there is nothing further 
it can even aim at. That the Sacred Books 
could be aught else than a Bank-of-Faith Bill, 
for such and such quantities of Enjoyment, 
payable at sight in the other world, value re- 
ceived ; which bill becomes waste paper, the 
stamp being questioned : — that the Christian 
Religion could have any deeper foundation 
than Books, could possibly be written in the 
purest nature of man, in mysterious, inefface- 
able characters, to which Books, and all Reve- 
lations, and authentic traditions, were but a \ 
subsidiary matter, were but as the light where- 
by that divine lorUlng was to be read ; — nothing 
of this seems to have, even in the faintest 
manner, occurred to him. Yet herein, as we 
believe that the whole world has now begun 
to discover, lies the real essence of the ques- 
tion ; by the negative or affirmative decision 
of which the Christian Religion, any thing that 
is worth calling by that name, must fall, or 
endure for ever. We believe, also, that the 
wiser minds of our age have already come to 
agreement on this question ; or rather never 
were divided regarding it. Christianity, the 
" Worship of Sorrow," has been recognised as 
divine, on far other grounds than " Essays on 
Miracles," and by considerations infinitel}' 
deeper than would avail in any mere " trial by 
jury." He who argues against it or for it, in 
this manner, may be regarded as mistaking its 
nature : the Ithuriel, though to our eyes he 
wears a body, and the fashion of armour, can- 
not be wounded with material steel. Our 
fathers were wiser than we, when they said in 
deepest earnestness, what we often hear in 
shallow mockery, that Religion is " not of 
Sense, but of Faith ;" not of Understanding, 
but of Reason. He who finds himself without 
this latter, who by all his studying has failed 
to unfold it in him.self, may have studied to 
great or to small purpose, we say not which ; 
but of the Christian Religion, as of many other 
things, he has and can have no knowledge. 

The Christian Doctrine we often hear 
likened to the Greek Philosophy, and found, 
on all hands, some measurable way superior 
to it: but this also seems a mistake. The 
Christian Doctrine, that doctrine of Humility, 
in all senses, godlike, and the parent of all 
godlike virtues, is not superior, or inferior, or 
equal, to any doctrine of Socrates or Thales; 
being of a totally difierent nature ; differing 
from these, as a perfect Ideal Poem docs from 
a Correct Computation in Arithmetic. He 
who compares it with such standards may la- 
ment that, beyond the mere letter, the purport 
of this divine Humility has never been dis- 
closed to him ; that the loftiest feeling hitherto 
vouchsafed to mankind is as yet hidden from 
his eyes. 

For the rest, the question how Christianity 
originated is doubtless a high question ; re- 
solvable enough, if we view only its surface, 
which was all that Voltaire saw of it; involved 



in sacred, silent, unfathomable depths, if we 
investigate its interior meanings ; which m-ean- 
ings, indeed, it may be, every new age will 
develop to itself in a new manner, and with 
new degrees of light; for the whole truth may 
be called infinite, and to man's eye discernible 
only in parts: but the question itself is nowise 
the ultimate one in this matter. 

We understand ourselves to be risking no 
new assertion, but simply reporting what is 
already the conviction of the greatest in our 
age, when we say, — that cheerfully recognising, 
gratefully appropriating whatever Voltaire has 
proved, or any other man has proved, or shall 
prove, the Christian Religion, once here, cannot 
again pass away ; that, in one or the other 
form, it will endure through all time; that, as 
in Scripture, so also in the heart of man, is 
written, "the Gates of Hell shall not prevail 
against it." Were the memory of this Faith 
never so obscured, as, indeed, in all times, the 
coarse passions and perceptions of the world 
do all but obliterate it in the hearts of most; 
yet in every pure soul, in every Poet and Wise 
Man, it finds a new Missionary, a new Martyr, 
till the great volume of Universal History is 
finally closed, and man's destinies are fulfilled 
in this earth. "It is a height to which the 
human species were fated and enabled to at- 
tain ; and from which, having once attained 
it, they can never retrograde." 

These things, which it were far out of our 
place to attempt adequately elucidating here, 
must not be left out of sig'm, in appreciating 
Voltaire's polemical M-orth. We find no trace 
of these, or of any the like essential considera- 
tions having been present with him, in examin- 
ing the Christian Religion ; nor indeed was il 
consistent with his general habits that they 
should be so. Totally destitute of religious 
Reverence, even of common practical serious- 
ness; by nature or habit, undevout both in 
heart and head ; not only without any Belief, 
in other than a material sense, but without the 
possibility of acquiring any, he can be no safe 
or permanently useful guide in this investiga- 
tion. We may consider him as having opened 
the way to future inquirers of a truer spirit ; 
but for his own part, as having engaged in an 
enterprise, the real nature of which was well- 
nigh unknown to him; and engaged in it with - 
the issue to be anticipated in such a case;- 
producing chiefly confusion, dislocation, de- 
struction, on all hands; so that the good he 
achieved is still, in these times, found mixed 
with an alarming proportion of evil, from 
which, indeed, men rationally doubt whether 
much of it will in any time be separable. 

We should err widely, too, if in estimat- • 
ing what quantity, altogether overlooking what 
quality, of intellect Voltaire may have mani- 
fested on this occasion, we took the result 
produced as any measure of the force applied. 
His task was not one of Affirmation, but of 
Denial; not a task of erecting and rearing up, 
which is slow and laborious; but of destroy- 
ing and overturning, which in most cases is- 
rapid and far easier. The force necessary fo^; 
him was nowise a great and noble one; but a 
small, in some respects a mean one, to be 
nimbly and seasonably put in use. The 



164 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Epbesian Temple, which it had employed 
many wise heads and strong arms, for a life- 
time, to build, could be 7;«-bui]t by one mad- 
jnan, in a single hour. 

Of such errors, deficiencies, and positive 
Bjisdeeds, it appears to us, a just criticism 
must accuse Voltaire ; at the same time, we 
can nowise join in the condemnatory clamour 
which so many worthy persons, not without 
the best intentions, to liris day keep up against 
him. His whole character seems to be plain 
enough, common enough, had not extraneous 
influences so perverted our views regarding it : 
nor, morally speaking, is it a worse character, 
but considerably a better one, than belongs to 
the mass of men. Voltaire's aims in opposing 
the Christian Religion wei^e unhappily of a 
mixed nature : yet, after all, very nearly such 
aims as we have often seen directed against 
it, and often seen directed in its favour : a 
little love of finding Truth, with a great love 
of making Proselytes ; which last is in itself 
a natural, universal feeling; and if honest, is, 
even in the worst cases, a subject for pit}', ra- 
ther than for hatred. As a light, careless, 
courteous Man of the World, he offers no 
hateful aspect ; on the contrary, a kindly, gay, 
rather amiable one : hundreds of men, with 
half his worth of disposition, die daily, and 
their little world laments them. It is time 
that he too should be judged of by his intrin- 
sic, not by his accidental qualities ; that jus- 
tice should be done to him also; for injustice 
can profit no man and no cause. 

In fact, Voltaire's chief merits belong to 
Nature and himself; his chief faults are of 
his time and country- In that famous era of 
the Pompadours and Kncijclopedies, he forms the 
main figure ; and was sucli, Ave have seen, 
more by resembling the multitude, than by 
differing from them. It was a strange age 
that of Louis XV.; in several points, a novel 
one in the history of mankind. In regard to 
its luxury and depravity, to the high culture 
of all merely practical and material faculties, 
sind the entire torpor of all the purely contem- 
plative and spiritual, this era considerably re- 
sembles that of Ihe Roman Emperors. There, 
too, was external splendour and internal 
squalour ; the highest completeness in all sen- 
sual arts, including among these not cookery 
and its adjuncts alone, but even " efl^ect-paint- 
ing" and "effect-writing;" only the art of 
virtuous living was a lost one. Instead of 
Love for Poetry, there was " Taste " for it ; 
refinement in manners, with utmost coarse- 
ness in morals : in a word, the strange spec- 
tacle of a social system, embracing large, 
cultivated portions of the human species, and 
founded only on Atheism. With the Romans, 
things went what we should call their natural 
coarse : Liberty, public spirit, quietly declined 
into a rapiit-mortuum ; Self-love, Materialism, 
Baseness even to the disbelief in all possibi- 
iity of Virtue, stalked more and more imperi- 
ously abroad ; till the body-politic, long since 
deprived of its vital circulating fluids, had 
now become a putrid carcass, and fell in pieces 
to be the prey of ravenous wolves. Then 
•was there, under those Attilas and Alarics, a 
Vorld's-spectacle of destruction and despair, 



compared with which the often-commemorated 
" horrors of the French Revolution," and all 
Napoleon's wars, were but the gay jousting of 
a tournament to the sack of stormed cities. 
Our European community has escaped the like 
dire consummation; and by causes, which, 
as may be hoped, will always secure it from 
such. Nay, were there no other cause, it may 
be asserted, that in a commonwealth where 
the Christiair religion exists, where it once 
has existed, public and private Virtue, the 
basis of all Strength, never can become ex 
tinct; but in every new age, and even from the 
deepest decline, there is a chance, and in the 
course of ages, a certainty of renovation. 

That the Christian Religion, or any Religion, 
continued to exist; that some martyr heroism 
still lived in the heart of Europe to rise against 
mailed Tyranny when it rode triumphant, — 
was indeed no merit in the age of LoUis XV., 
but a happy accident which it could not alto- 
gether get rid of. For that age too is to be 
regarded as an experiment, on the great scale, 
to decide the question, not yet, it would ap- 
pear, settled to universal satisfaction: With 
what degree of vigour a political system, 
grounded on pure Self-interest, never so en- 
lightened, but without a God, or any recogni- 
tion of the godlike in man, can be expected to 
flourish; or whether, in such circumstances, 
a political system can be expected to flourish, 
or even to subsist at all 1 It is contended by 
many that our mere love of personal Pleasure, 
or Happiness as it is called, acting on every 
individual, with such clearness as he may 
easily have, will of itself lead him to respect 
the rights of others, and wisely employ his 
own : to fulfil, on a mere principle of eco- 
nomy, all the duties of a good patriot; so that, 
in what respects the State, or the merely so- 
cial existence of mankind, Belief, beyond the 
testimony of the senses, and Virtue, beyond 
the very common Virtue of loving what is 
pleasant, and hating what is painful, are to be 
considered as supererogatory qualifications, 
as ornamental, not essential. Many there are, 
on the other hand, who pause over this doc- 
trine ; cannot discover, in such a universe of 
conflicting atoms, any principle by which the 
whole shall cohere : for, if every man's self- 
ishness, infinitely expansive, is to be hemmed 
in only by the infinitely-expansive selfishness 
of every other man, it seems as if we should 
have a world of mutually-repulsive bodies 
with no centripetal force to bind them toge- 
ther; in which case, it is well known they 
would, by and by, difl^use themselves over 
space, and constitute a remarkable Chaos, but 
no habitable Solar or Stellar System. 

If the age of Louis XV. was not made an 
f.rjwrimcntum crvcis in regard to this question, 
one reason may be that such experiments are 
too expensive. Nature cannot afford, above 
once or twice in the thousand years, to destroy 
a whole Avorld, for purposes of science ; 
but must content herself with destroying one 
or two kingdoms. The age of Louis XV,, so 
far as it went, seems a highly illustrative ex- 
periment. We are to remark, also, that its 
operation was clogged by a very considerable 
disturbing force; by a large remnant, namely. 



VOLTAIRE. 



US 



of the old faith in Religion, in the invisible, 
celestial nature of Virtue, which our French 
Purifiers, by their utmost efforts of lavation, 
had not been able to wash away. The men 
did their best, but no man can do more. Their 
Avorst enemy, we imagine, will not accuse 
them of any undue regard to things unseen 
and spiritual : far from practising this invisi- 
ble sort of Virtue, they cannot even believe 
in its possibility. The high exploits and en- 
durances of old ages were no longer virtues, 
but " passions ; " these antique persons had a 
taste for being heroes, a certain fancy to die 
for the truth: the more fools they! With our 
Pldlosnphcrs, the only virtue of any civilization 
was that they call " Honour," the sanctioning 
deity of which is that wonderful " Force of 
Public Opinion." Concerning which virtue 
of Honour, we must be permitted to say that 
she reveals herself too clearly, as the daughter 
and heiress of our old acquaintance Vanity, 
who indeed has been known enough, ever 
since the foundation of the world, at least 
since the date of that " Ijucifer, son of the 
Morning;" but known chiefly in her proper 
character of strolling actress, or cast-clothes 
Abigail ; and never till that new era had seen 
her issue set up as Queen and all-sufficient 
Dictatress of man's whole soul, prescribing 
with nicest precision what, in all practical 
and all moral emergencies, he was to do and 
to forbear. Again, with regard to this same 
Force of Public Opinion, it is a force well 
known to all of us, respected, valued as of in- 
dispensable utility, but nowise recognised as 
a final or divine force. We might ask what 
divine, what truly great thing had ever been 
effected by this force 1 Was it the Force of 
Public Opinion that drove Columbus to Ame- 
rica; John Kepler, not to fare sumptuously 
among Rodolph's Astrologers and Fire-eaters, 
but to perish of want, discovering the true 
System of the Stars 1 Still more ineffectual 
do we find it as a basis of public or private 
Morals. Nay, taken by itself, it may be called 
a baseless basis ; for without some ulterior 
sanction, common to all minds ; without some 
belief in the necessary, eternal, or which is 
the same, in the supramundane, divine nature 
of Virtue, existing in each individual, what 
could the moral judgment of a thousand or a 
thousand thousand individuals avail us 1 
AVithout some such celestial guidance, whence- 
soever derived, or howsoever named, it ap- 
pears to us the Force of Public Opinion would, 
by and by, become an extremely unprofitable 
one. "Enlighten Self-interest!" cries the 
Philosnphc : "Do but sufficiently enlighten it! 
We ourselves have seen enlightened Self-in- 
terests, ere now ; and truly, for most part, 
their light was only as that of a horn-lantern, 
sufficient to guide the bearer himself out of 
various puddles : but to us and the world of 
comparatively small advantage. And figure the 
human species, like an endless host, seeking 
its way onwards through undiscovered Time, 
in black darkness, save that each had his horn- 
lantern, and the vanguard some few of glass! 
However, we will not dwell on controversial 
niceties. What we had to remark was that 
this era, called of Philosophy, was in itself but 



a poor era ; that any little morality it had was 
chiefly borrowed, and from those very ages 
which it accounted so barbarous. For this 
"Honour," this "Force of Public Opinion," is 
not asserted, on any side, to have much reno- 
vating, but only a sustaining or preventive 
power ; it cannot create new Virtue, but at best 
may preserve what is alieally there. Nay, of 
the age of Louis XV., we may say that its very 
Power, its material strength, its knowledge, all 
that it had, was borrowed. It boasted itself to 
be an age of illumination; and truly illumina- 
tion there was of its kind : only, except the 
illuminated windows, almost nothing to be seen 
thereby. None of those great Doctrines or In- 
stitutions that have "made man in all points 
a man ;" none even of those Discoveries that 
have the most subjected external Nature to his 
purposes, were made in that age. What 
Plough, or Printing-press, what Chivalry, or 
Christianity ; nay, what Steam-engine, or Qua- 
kerism, or Trial by Jury, did these Encyclo- 
pedists invent for mankind? They invented 
simply nothing ; not one of man's virtues, not 
one of man's powers, is due to them: in all 
these respects, the age of Louis XV. is among 
the most barren of recorded ages. Indeed, thef 
whole trade of our Philosophcs was directly the 
opposite of invention : it was not to produce, 
that they stood there ; but to criticise, to quarrel 
with, to rend in pieces, what had been already 
produced; — a quite inferior trade : sometimes 
a useful, but on the whole a mean trade ; ofteis 
the fruit, and always the parent, of meanness/ 
in every mind that permanently follows it. 

Considering the then position of affairs, itis- 
not singular that the age of Louis XV. should 
have been what it was : an age without noble- 
ness, without high virtues, or high manifesta- 
tions of talent; an age of shallow clearness, of 
polish, self-conceit, skepticism, and all forms 
of Persiflage. As little does it seem surprising, 
or peculiarly blamable, that Voltaire, the lead- 
ing man of that age, should have partaken 
largely of all its qualities. True, his giddy 
activity took serious efiect, the light firebrands, 
which he so carelessly scattered abroad, kin- 
dled fearful conflagrations: but in these there 
has been good as well as evil ; nor is it just 
that, even for the latter, he, a limited mortal,, 
should be charged with more than mortal'tr 
responsibility. After all, that parched, blighted 
period, and the period of earthquakes and 
tornadoes which followed it, have now well- 
nigh cleared away: they belong to the Past, 
and for us and those that come after us, are 
not without their benefits, and calm historical 
meaning. 

" The thinking heads of all nations," says a- 
deep observer, " had in secret come to majority ;- 
and, in a mistaken feeling of their vocation, 
rose the more fiercely against antiquated con- 
straint. The Man of Letters is, by instinct^ 
opposed to a Priesthood of old standing: the 
literary class and the clerical must wage a war 
of extermination, when they are divided; for 
both strive after one place. Such division 
became more and more perceptible, the nearer 
we approached the period of European man-' 
hood, the epoch of triumphant Learning; and 
Knowledge and Faith came into more dccidetf- 



tm 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



contradiction. In the prevailing Faith, as was 
thought, lay the reason of the universal degra- 
dation ; and b}' a more and more searching 
Knowledge men hoped to remove it. On all 
hands, the Religious feeling suffered, under 
manifold attacks against its actual manner of 
existence, against the Forms in which hitherto 
it had imbodied itself. The result of that mo- 
dern way of thought was named Philosophy ; 
and in this all was included that opposed itself 
to the ancient way of thought, especially, 
therefore, all that opposed itself to Religion. 
The original personal hatred against the 
Catholic Vaith passed, by degrees, into hatred 
against the Bible; against the Christian Reli- 
gion, and at last against Religion altogether. 
Nay, more, this hatred of Religion naturally 
.extended itself over all objects of enthusiasm 
in general; proscribed Fancy and Feeling, 
Morality and love of Art, the Future and the 
Antique; placed man, with an effort, foremost 
in the series of natural productions ; and 
changed the infinite, creative music of the 
Universe into the monotonous clatter of a 
boundless Mill, which, turned by the stream 
of Chance, and swimming thereon, was a Mill 
of itself, without Architect and Miller, properly, 
a genuine pcrpcluum mobile, a real, self-grinding 
Mill. 

" One enthusiasm was generously left to poor 
mankind, and rendered indispensable as a 
touchstone of the highest culture, for all job- 
bers in the same : Enthusiasm for this mag- 
nanimous Philosophy, and above all, for these 
its priests and mystagogues. France was so 
happy as to be the birthplace and dwelling of 
this new Faith, which had thus, from patches 
of pure knowledge, been pasted together. Low 
as Poetry ranked in this new Church, there 
were some poets among them, who for effect's 
sake made use of the old ornaments and old 
lights; but, in so doing, ran a risk of kindling 
the new world-system by ancient fire. More 
cunning brethren, however, were at hand to 
help ; and always in season poured cold water 
on the warming audience. The members of 
this Church were restlessly employed in clear- 
ing Nature, the Earth, the Souls of men, the 
Sciences, from all Poetry; obliterating every 
vestige of the Holy: disturbing, by sarcasms, 
the memory of all lofty occurrences, and lofty 
men; disrobing the world of all its variegated 
vesture. * * * * Pity that Nature con- 
tinued so wondrous and incomprehensible, so 
poetical and infinite, all efforts to modernize 
her notwithstanding! However, if any- 
where an old superstition, of a higher world 
and the like, came to light, instantly, on all 
hands, was a springing of rattles ; that, if pos- 
sible, the dangerous spark might be extin- 
guished, by appliances of philosophy and wit : 
yet Tolerance was the watchword of the culti- 
vated; and in France, above all, synonymous 
with Philosophy. Highly remarkable is this 
history of modern Unbelief; the key to all the 
vast phenomena of recent times. Not till last 
century, till the latter half of it, does the no- 
velty begin ; and in a little while, it expands to 
an immeasurable bulk and variety: a second 
JReformation, a more comprehensive, and more 
specific, was unavoidable : and naturally it first 



visited that land which was the most modern- 
ized, and had the longest lain in an asthenic 
state, from the want of freedom. * * * 

"At the present epoch, however, we stand 
high enough to look back with a friendly smile 
on those bygone days; and even in those 
marvellous follies to discern curious crystal- 
lizations of historical matter. Thankfully will 
we stretch out our hands to those Men of 
Letters and Pkilosopkcs : for this delusion too 
required to he exhausted ; and the scientific 
side of things to have full value given it. More 
beauteous and many-coloured stands Poesy, 
like a leafy India, when contrasted with the 
cold, dead Spitzbergen of that closet-logic. 
That in the middle of the globe, an India, so 
warm and lordly, might exist, must also a cold 
motionless sea, dead cliffs, mist instead of the 
starry sky, and a long night, make both Poles 
uninhabitable. The deep meaning of the laws 
of Mechanism lay heavy on those anchorites 
in the deserts of Understanding: the charm of 
the first glimpse into it overpowered them : the 
Old avenged itself on them ; to the first feel- 
ing of self-consciousness, they sacrificed, with 
wondrous devotedness, what was holiest and 
fairest in the world! and were the first that, 
in practice, again recognised and preached 
forth the sacredness of Nature, the infinitude 
of Art, the independence of Knowledge, the 
worth of the Practical, and the all-presence of 
the Spirit of History ; and so doins, nut an end 
to a Spectre-dynasty, more puieui,, universal, 
and terrific than perhaps they themselves were 
aware of."* 

How far our readers will accompany Novalis 
in such high-soaring speculation is not for us 
to say. Meanwhile, that the better part of 
them have already, in their own dialect, united 
Avith him, and with us, in candid tolerance, in 
clear acknowledgment, towards French Phi- 
losophy, towards this Voltaire and the spiritual 
period which bears his name, we do not hesi- 
tate to believe. Intolerance, animosity, can 
forward no cause; and least of all beseems the 
cause of moral and religious truth. A wise 
man has well reminded us, that " in any con- 
troversy, the instant we feel anger, we have 
already ceased striving for Truth, and begun 
striving for Ourselves." Let no man doubt that 
Voltaire and his disciples, like all men and 
all things that live and act in God's world, 
will one day be found to have " worked to- 
gether for good." Nay that with all his evil, 
he has already accomplished good, must be 
admitted in the soberest calculation. How 
much do we include in this one little word : 
He gave the death-stab to modern Superstition. 
That horrid incubus, which dwelt in darkness, 
shunning the light, is passing away; with all 
its racks, and poison-chalices, and foul sleep- 
ing-draughts, is passing away without return. 
He who sees even a little way into the signs 
of the times, sees well that both the Smithfield 
fires and the Edinburgh thumbscrews (for 
these too must be held in remembrance) are 
things which have long, very long, lain be- 
hind us ; divided from us by a wall of cen- 
turies, transparent indeed, but more impassable 

* Xovalis Schriften, i., s. 198. 



NOVALIS. 



ler 



than adamant. For, as we said, Superstition 
is iu its death-lair ; the last agonies may endure 
for decades, or for centuries; but it carries the 
iron in its heart, and will not vex the earth any 
more. 

That, with Superstition, Religion is also 
passing away, seems to us a still more un- 
grounded fear. Religion cannot pass away. 
The burning of a little straw may hide the 
stars of the sky ; but the stars are there, and 
will re-appear. On the whole, we must repeat 
the often-repeated saying, that it is unworthy 
a religious man to view an irreligious one 
either with alarm or aversion or with any other 
feeling than regret, and hope, and brotherly j 



commiseration. If he seek Truth, is he not 
our brother, and to be pitied 1 If he do not 
seek truth, is he not still our brother, and to 
be pitied still more 1 Old Ludovicus Vives 
has a story of a clown that killed his ass be- 
cause it had drunk up the moon, and he thought 
the world could ill spare that luminary. So he 
killed his ass, uf lunum rcdckrct. The clown 
was well-intentioned, but unwise. Let us not 
imitate him ; let us not slay a faithful servant 
who has carried us far. He has not drunk the 
moon ; but only the reflection of the moon, in 
his own poor water-pail, where, too, it may be, 
he was drinking with purposes the most harm- 
less. 



IN'OYALIS.* 

[FoKHiGN Review, 1829.] 



A NUMBEH of years ago, Jean Paul's copy 
of Novalis led him to infer that the German 
reading world was of a quick disposition ; in- 
asmuch as with regard to books that required 
more than one perusal, it declined perusing 
them at all. Paul's Novalis, we suppose, was 
of the first Edition, uncut, dusty, and lent him 
from the Public Library with willingness, nay, 
with joy; but times, it would appear, must be 
considerably changed since then ; indeed, were 
we to judge of German reading habits from 
these volumes of ours, we should draw quite 
an opposite conclusion of Paul's ; for they are 
of the fourth Edition, perhaps therefore the 
ten-thousandth copy, and that of a Book de- 
manding, whether deserving or not, to be 
oftener read than almost any other it has ever 
been our lot to examine. 

Without at all entering into the merits of 
Novalis, we may observe that we should reckon 
it a happy sign of Literature, were so solid a 
fashion of study here and there established in 
all countries ; for directly in the teeth of most 
" intellectual tea-circles," it may be asserted 
that no good Book, or good thing of any sort, 
shows its best face at first; nay, that the com- 
monest quality in a true work of Art, if its ex- 
cellence have any depth and compass, is that 
at first sight it occasions a certain disappoint- 
ment; perhaps even, mingled with its undeni- 
able beauty, a certain feeling of aversion. Not 
as if we meant, by this remark, to cast a stone 
at the old guild of literary Improvisators, or 
any of that diligent brotherhood whose trade it 
is to blow soap-bubbles for their fellow-crea- 
tures ; which bubbles, of course, if they are 
not seen and admired this moment, will be 
altogether lost to men's eyes the next. Con- 
sidering the use of these blowers, in civilized 
communities, we rather wish them strong 
lungs, and all manner of prosperity : but simply 



* Jifovalis Schriften. Heransgegehen von Ludtcifr Tieck 
jind Friedrick Sclileg-el. (Novalis' Writings. Edited l)y 
Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel.) Fourth Edition. 
fJvols. Berlin, 1&26. 



we would contend that such soap-bubble guild 
should not becom.e the sole one in Literature ; 
that being indisputably the strongest, it should 
content itself with this pre-eminence, and not 
tyrannically annihilate its less prosperous 
neighbours. For it should be recollected that 
Literature positively has other aims than this 
of amusement from hour to hour; nay, per- 
haps, that this, glorious as it may be, is not 
its highest or true aim. We do say, therefore, 
that the Improvisator corporation should be 
kept within limits ; and readers, at least a 
certain small class of readers, should under- 
stand that some few departments of human 
inquiry have still their depths and difficulties ; 
that the abstruse is not precisely synonymous 
with the absurd; nay, that light itself may be 
darkness, in a certain stale of the eyesight ; 
that, in short, cases may occur when a little 
patience and some attempt at thought would 
not be altogether superfluous in reading. Let 
the mob of gentlemen keep their own ground, 
and be happy and applauded there : if they 
overstep that ground, they indeed may flourish 
the better for it, but the reader will suffer 
damage. For in this way, a reader, accustomed 
to see through every thing in one second of 
time, comes to forget that his wisdom and 
critical penetration are finite and not infinite; 
and so commits more than one mistake in his 
conclusions. The Reviewer, too, who indeed 
is only a preparatory reader, as it were, a sort 
of sieve and drainer for the use of more luxuri- 
ous readers, soon follows his example: these 
two react still further on the mob of gentle- 
men ; and so among them all, with this action 
and reaction, matters grow worse and worse. 

It rather seems to us as if, in this respect 

of faithfulness in reading, the Germans were 

somewhat ahead of us English ; at least we 

: have no such proof to show of it as that fourth 

I Edition of Novalis. Our Coleridge's Friend, 

for example, and Biographia Li'craria, are but 

a slight business compared with these Schrif- 

I te7i ; little more than the Alphabet, and that in 



168 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



gilt letters, of such Philosophy and Art as is 
here taught in the form of Grammar and Rhe- 
torical Compend : yet (Coleridge's works were 
triumphantly condemned by the whole review- 
ing world, as clearly unintelligible; and among 
readers they have still but an unseen circula- 
tion ; like living brooks, hidden for the present 
under mountains of froth and theatrical snow- 
paper, and which only at a distant day, when 
these mountains shall have decomposed them- 
selves into gas and earthly residuum, may 
roll forth in their true limpid shape, to glad- 
den the general eye with what beauty and 
everlasting freshness does reside in them. It 
is admitted, too, on all hands, that Mr. Cole- 
ridge is a man of" genius," that is, a man 
having more intellectual insight than other 
men ; and strangely enough, it is taken for 
granted, at the same time, that he has less in- 
tellectual insight than any other. For why 
else are his doctrines to be thrown out of 
doors, without examination, as false and 
worthless, simply becaiise they are obscure ? 
Or how is their so palpable falsehood to be 
accounted for to our minds, except on this ex- 
traordinary ground ; that a man able to origi- 
nate deep thoughts (such is the meaning of 
genius) is unable to sec them when originated ; 
that the creative intellect of a Philosopher is 
destitute of that mere faculty of logic which 
belongs to " all Attorneys, and men educated 
in Edinburgh ?" The Cambridge carrier, 
when asked whether his horse could " draw 
inferences," readily replied, " Yes, any thing 
in reason ; " but here, it seems, is a man of 
genius who has no similar gift. 

We ourselves, we confess, are too 3'oung in 
the study of human nature to have met with 
any such anomaly. Never yet has it been our 
fortune to fall in with any man of genius, 
whose conclusions did not correspond better 
with his premises, and not worse, than those 
of other men ; whose genius, when it once 
came to be understood, did not manifest itself in 
a deeper, fuller, truer view of all things human 
and divine, than the clearest of your so laud- 
able " practical men " had claim to. Such, 
we say, has been our uniform experience ; so 
uniform, that we now hardly ever expect to 
see it contradicted. True it is, the old Pytha- 
gorean argument of " the master said it," has 
long ceased to be available : in these days, no 
man, except the Pope of Rome, is altogether 
exempt from error of judgment ; doubtless a 
man of genius may chance to adopt false opi- 
nions ; nay, rather, like all other sons of Adam, 
except that same enviable Pope, must occa- 
sionally adopt such. Nevertheless, we reckon 
it a good maxim, that "no error is fully con- 
futed till we have seen not only that it is an 
error, but Iwiv it became one ; " till finding that 
it clashes with the principles of truth, estab- 
lished in our own mind, we find also in what 
way it had seemed to harmonize with the prin- 
ciples of truth established in that other mind, 
perhaps so unspeakably superior to ours. 
Treated bj^ this method it still appears to us, 
according to the old saying, that the errors of 
the wise man are literally more instructive 
than the truths of a fool. For the wise 
jnan travels in lofty, far-seeing regions ; the 



fool in low-lying, high-fenced lanes : retracing 
the footsteps of the former, to discover where 
he deviated, whole provinces of the Universe 
are laid open to us ; in the path of the latter, 
granting even that he have not deviated at all, 
little is laid open to us but two wheel-ruts and 
two hedges. 

On these grounds we reckon it more profit- 
able, in almost any case, to have to do with 
men of depth, than with men of shallowness : 
and were it possible, we would read no book 
that was not written by one of the former 
class ; all members of which we would love 
and venerate, how perverse soever they may 
seem to us at first ; nay, though, after the full- 
est investigation, we still found many things 
to pardon in them. Such of our readers as at 
all participate in this predilection will not 
blame us for bringing them acquainted with 
Novalis, a man of the most indisputable talent, 
poetical and philosophical ; whose opinions, 
extraordinary, nay, altogether wild and base- 
less as they often appear, are not without a 
strict coherence in his own mind, and will 
lead any other mind, that examines them faith- 
fully, into endless considerations ; opening 
the strangest inquiries, new truths, or new 
possibilities of truth, a whole unexpected' 
world of thought, where, whether for belief or 
denial, the deepest questions await us. 

In what is called reviewing such a book as 
this, we are aware that to the judicious crafts- 
man two methods present themselves. The 
first and most convenient is for the Reviewer 
to perch himself resolutely, as it were, on the 
shoulder of his Author, and therefrom to show 
as if he commanded him, and looked down on 
him by natural superiorit)' of stature. What- 
soever the great man says or does, the little 
man shall treat him with an air of knowing- 
ness and light condescending mockery; pro- 
fessing, with much covert sarcasm, that this 
and that other is beyond his comprehension, 
and cunningly asking his readers if they com- 
prehend it! Herein it will help him mightily, 
if besides description, he can quote a few pas- 
sages, which, in their detached state, and taken 
most probably in quite a wrong acceptation 
of the words, shall sound strange, and to cer- 
tain hearers, even absurd; all which will be 
easy enough, if he have any handiness in the 
business, and address the right audience ; 
truths, as this world goes, being true onl}' for 
those that have soinc understanding of them ; 
as, for instance, in the Yorkshire Wolds, and 
Thames Coal-ships, Christian men enough 
might be found, at this day, who, if you read 
them the Thirty-ninth of the Principia, would 
" grin intelligence from ear to ear." On the 
other hand, should our Reviewer meet with 
any passage, the wisdom of which, deep, plain, 
and palpable to the simplest, might cause mis- 
givings in the reader, as if here were a man 
of half-unk'nown endowment, whom perhaps 
it were better to wonder at than laugh at, our 
Reviewer either quietly suppresses it, or citing 
it with an air of meritorious candour, palls 
upon his Author, in a tone of command and 
encouragement, to lay aside his transcendental 
crotchets, and write always thus, and he will 
admire him. Whereby the reader again feels 



NOVALIS. 



169 



comforted ; proceeds swimmingly to the con- 
clusion of the "Article," and shuts it M'ith a 
victorious feeling, not only that he and the 
Reviewer understand this man, but also that, 
with some rays of fancy and the like, the man 
is little better than a living mass of darkness. 

In this way does the small Reviewer triumph 
over great Authors : but it is the triumph of a 
fool. In this way, too, does he recommend 
himself to certain readers, but it is the recom- 
mendation of a parasite, and of no true servant. 
The servant would have spoken truth, in this 
case; truth, that it might have profited, how- 
ever harsh: the parasite glosses his master 
with sweet speeches, that he may filch ap- 
plause, and certain "guineas per sheet," from 
him ; substituting for Ignorance, which was 
harmless. Error which is not so. And yet to 
the vulgar reader, naturally enough, that tlat- 
tering unction is full of solacement. In fact, 
to a reader of this sort few things can be mnre 
alarming than to find that his own little Parish, 
where he lived so snug and absolute, is, after 
all, »io; the whole Universe; that beyond the 
hill which screened his house from the west 
wind, and grew his kitchen vegetables so 
sweetly, there are other hills and other ham- 
lets, nay, mountains and towered cities ; with 
all which, if he would continue to pass for a 
Geographer, he must forthwith make himself 
acquainted. Now this Reviewer, often his fel- 
low Parishioner, is a safe man; leads him 
pleasantly to the hill top ; shows him that in- 
deed there are, or seem to be, other expanses, 
these, too, of boundless extent : but with only 
cloud mountains, and falamorgnna cities; the 
true character of that region being Vacuity, or 
at best a stony desert tenanted by Gryphons 
and Chimceras. 

Surely, if printing is not, like courtier speech, 
" the art of cojicealivg thought," all this must be 
blamable enough. Is it the Reviewer's real 
trade to be the pander of laziness, self-conceit, 
and all manner of contemptuous stupidity on 
the part of his reader; carefully minister- 
ing to these propensities ; carefully fencing off 
whatever might invade that fool's-paradise 
with news of disturbance 1 Is he the priest of 
Literature and Philosophy, to interpret their 
mysteries to the common man; as a faithful 
preacher, teaching him to understand what is 
adapted for his understanding, to reverence 
what is adapted for higher understandings 
than his 1 Or merely the lackey of Dullness, 
striving for certain wages, of pudding or praise, 
by the month or quarter, to perpetuate the reign 
of presumption and triviality on earth 7 If the 
latter, will he not be counselled to pause for an 
instant, and reflect seriously, \vhether starva- 
tion were worse or were better than such a 
dog's-existencel 

Our reader perceives that we are for adopt- 
ing the second method with regard to Novalis ; 
that we wish less to insult over this highly- 
gifted man, than togairi some insight into him; 
that we look upon his mode of being and 
thinking as very singular, but not, therefore, 
necessarily very contemptible; as a matter, in 
fact, worthy of examination, and difficult be- 
yond most others to examine wisely and with 
profit. Let no small man expect that, in this 
S3 



case, a Samson is to be led forth, blinded and 
manacled, to make him sport. Nay, might it 
not, in a spiritual sense, be death, as surely it 
would be damage, to the small man himself? 
For is not this habit of sneering at all great- 
ness, of forcibly bringing down all greatness to 
his own height, one chief cause which keeps 
that height so ver)'' inconsiderable'! Come of 
it what may, we have no refreshing dew for 
the small man's vanity in this place, nay, 
rather, as charitable brethren, and fellow-suf- 
ferers from that same evil, we would gladly lay 
the sickle to that reed-grove of self-conceit, 
which has grown round him, and reap it alto- 
gether away, that so the true figure of the 
world, and his own true figure, might no longer 
be utterly hidden from him. Does this our 
brother, then, refuse to accompany us, without 
such allurements'! He must even retain our 
best wishes, and abide by his own hearth. 

Farther, to the honest few that still go along 
with us on this occasion, we are bound in jus- 
tice to say that, far from looking down on 
Novalis, we cannot place either them or our- 
selves on a level with him. To explain so 
strange an individuality, to exhibit a mind of 
this depth and singularity before the minds of 
readers so foreign to him in every sense, would- 
be a vain pretension in us. With the best will, 
and after repeated trials, we have gained but a 
feeble notion of Novalis for ourselves; his 
Volumes come before us with every disad- 
vantage; they are the posthumous works of a 
man cut off in earl}' life, while his opinions, 
far from being matured for the public eye, 
were still lying crude and disjointed before his 
own : for most part written down in the shape 
of detached aphorisms, "none of them," as he 
says himself "untrue or unimportant to his 
own mind," but naturally requiring to be re- 
modelled, expanded, compressed, as the matter 
cleared up more and more into logical unity; 
at best but fragments of a great scheme which 
he did not live to realize. If his editors. Fried- 
rich Schlegel and Ludwig Tieck, declined com- 
menting on these Writings, we may well be 
excused for declining to do so. "It cannot be 
our purpose here," saj's Tieck, " to recommend 
the following Works, or to judge them; pro- 
bable as it must be that any judgment delivered 
at this stage of the matter would be a prema- 
ture and unripe one: for a spirit of such 
originality must first be comprehended, his will 
understood, and his loving intention felt and 
replied to; so that not till his ideas have takea 
root in other minds, and brought forth new 
ideas, shall we see rightly, from the historical 
sequence, what place he himself occupied, and 
what relation to his country he truly bore." 

Meanwhile, Novalis is a figure of such im- 
portance in German Literature, that no stu- 
dent of it can pass him by without attention. 
If we must not attempt interpreting this Work 
for our readers, we are bound at least to point 
out its existence, and according to our best 
knowledge, direct such of them as take an in- 
terest in the matter how to investigate it farther 
for their own benefit. For this purpose, it may 
be well that we leave our Author to speak 
chiefly for himself; subjoining only such ex- 
positions as cannot be dispensed with for even 



170 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



verbal intelligibility, and as we can offer on 
our own surety with some degree of confidence. 
By way of basis to the whole inquiry, we pre- 
fix some particulars of his short life ; a part of 
our task which Tieck's clear and graceful 
Narrative, given as " Preface to the Third Edi- 
tion," renders easy for us. 

Friedrich von Hardenberg, belter known in 
Literature by the pseudonym "Novalis," was 
born on the 2d of May, 1772, at a country resi- 
dence of his family in the Grafschaft of Mans- 
field, in Saxony. His father, who had been a 
soldier in youth, and still retained a liking for 
that profession, was at this time Director of the 
Saxon Salt-works; an office of some consider- 
able trust and dignity. Tieck says, " he was a 
vigorous, unweariedly active man, of open, 
resolute character, a true German. His reli- 
gious feelings made him a member of the 
Herrnhut Communion ; yet his disposition con- 
tinued gay, frank, rugged, and downright." 
The mother also was distinguished for her 
worth ; " a pattern of noble piety and Christian 
mildness ;" virtues which her subsequent life 
gave opportunity enough for exercising. 

On young Friedrich, whom we may con- 
tinue to call Novalis, the qualities of his parents 
must have exercised more than usual influ- 
ence ; for he was brought up in the most re- 
tired manner, with scarcely any associate but 
a sister one year older than himself, and the 
two brothers that were next to him in age. A 
decidedly religious temper seems to have dif- 
fused itself, under many benignant aspects, 
over the whole family: in Novalis especially 
it continued the ruling principle through life; 
manifested no less in his scientific specula- 
tion, than in his feelings and conduct. In 
childhood he is said to have been remarkable 
chiefly for the entire, enthusiastic affection 
with which he loved his mother; and for a 
certain still secluded disposition, such that he 
took no pleasure in boyish sports, and rather 
shunned the society of other children. Tieck 
mentions that, till his ninth year, he was 
reckoned nowise quick of apprehension ; but, 
at this period, strangely enough, some violent 
biliary disease, which had almost cut him off, 
seemed to awaken his faculties into proper 
life, and he became the readiest, eagerest 
learner in all branches of his scholarship. 

In his eighteenth year, after a few months 
of preparation in some Gymnasium, the only in- 
struction he appears to have received in any 
public school, he repaired to Jena ; and con- 
tinued there for three years; after which he 
spent one season in the lieipzig University, 
and another," to complete his studies," in that 
of Wittenberg. It seems to have been at Jena 
that he became acquainted with Friedrich 
Schlegel ; where also, we suppose, he studied 
under Fichte. For both of these men he con- 
ceived a high admiration and affection ; and 
both of them had, clearly enough, " a great and 
abiding effect on his whole life." Fichte, in 
particular, whose lofty eloquence, and clear 
calm enthusiasm are said to have made him 
irresistible as a teacher,* had quite gained 
Novalis to his doctrines ; indeed the Wissen- 



schaftslehre, which, as we are told of the latter, 
" he studied with unwearied zeal," appears to 
to have been the groundwork of all his future 
speculations in Philosoph3^ Besides these 
metaphysical inquiries, and the usual attain- 
ments in classical literature, Novalis seems 
" to have devoted himself with ardour to the 
Physical Sciences, and to Mathematics, the 
basis of them :" at an early period of his life, 
he had read much History " with extraordinary 
eagerness;" Poems had from of old been "the 
delight of his leisure;" particularly that species 
denominated Miihrchcn, (Traditionary Tale,) 
which continued a favourite with him to the 
last; as almost from infancy it had been a 
chosen amusement of his to read these composi- 
tions, and even to recite such, of his own in- 
vention. One remarkable piece of that sort he 
has himself left us, inserted in Heinrich von 
Oftei-flmgen, his chief literary performance. 

But the time had now arrived, when study 
must become subordinate to action, and what 
is called a profession be fixed upon. At the 
breaking out of the French War, Novalis had 
been seized with a strong and altogether un- 
expected taste for a military life : however, the 
arguments and pressing entreaties of his 
; friends ultimately prevailed over this whim ; 
I it seems to have been settled that he should 
j Ibllow his father's line of occupation ; and so 
j about the end of 1794, he removed to Arnstadt 
in Thuringia ; " to train himself in practical 
j affairs under the Kreis-Amlmann Just." In this 
Kreis-Aint)iiann (manager of a Circle) he found 
a wise and kind friend ; applied himself honest- 
ly to business ; and in all his serious calcula- 
tions, may have looked forward to a life as 
smooth and commonplace as his past years 
had been. One incident, and that too of no 
unusual sort, appears in Tieck's opinion to 
have altered the whole form of his existence. 

" It was not very long after his arrival at 
Arnstadt, when in a country mansion of the 
neighbourhood, he became acquainted with 

Sophie von K . The firsf glance of this 

{ fair and wonderfully lovely form was decisive 
I for his whole life; nay, we may say that the 
I feeling, which now penetrated and inspired 
him, was the substance and essence of his 
whole life. Sometimes, in the look and figure 
of a child, there will stamp itself an expres- 
sion, which, as it is too angelic and etherially 
beaiitiful, we are forced to call unearthly or 
celestial ; and commonly at sight of such 
purified and almost transparent faces there 
comes on us a fear that they are too tender 
and delicately fashioned for this life : that it is 
Death, or Immortality, which looks forth so 
expressively on us from these glancing eyes ; 
and loo often a quick decay converts our 
mournful foreboding into certainty. Still more 
aflecting are such figures, when their first 
period is happily passed over, and they come 
before us blooming on the eve of maidhood. 
All persons, that have known this wondrous 
loved one of our Friend, agree in testifying 
that no description can express in what grace 
and celestial harmony the fair being moved, 



* Schelling, we have been informed, gives account of 
Fichte and his Wissenschaflslehre, to the following 



effect: "The Philosophy of Fichte wa." like light- 
ning ; it appeared only for a moment, but it kindled a 
fire which will burn for ever." 



NOVALIS. 



171 



what beauty shone in her, what softness and 
majesty encircled her. Novalis became a poet 
every time he chanced to speak of it. She had 
concluded her thirteenth year when he first saw 
her: the spring and summer of 1795 were the 
blooming time of his life ; every hour that he 
could spare from business he spent in Griin- 
ingen ; and in the fall of that same year he ob- 
tained the wished-for promise from Sophie's 
parents." 

Unhappily, however, these halcyon days 
were of too short continuance. Soon after this, 
Sophie fell dangerously sick " of a fever, at- 
tended with pains in the side ;" and her lover 
had the worst consequences to fear. By and 
by, indeed, the fever left her ; but not the pain, 
" which by its violence still spoiled for her 
many a fair hour," and gave rise to various 
apprehensions, though the Physician asserted 
that it was of no importance. Partly satisfied 
with this favourable prognostication, Novalis 
had gone to Weissenfels, to his parents, and 
was full of business; being now appointed 
Auditor in the department of which his father 
was Director; through winter the news from 
Griiningen were of a favourable sort; in 
spring he visited the family himself, and found 
his Sophie to all appearance well. But sud- 
denly, in summer, his hopes and occupations 
were interrupted by tidings that, " she was in 
Jena, and had undergone a surgical operation." 
Her disease was an abscess in the liver : it 
had been her wish that he should not hear of 
her danger till the worst were over. The 
Jena surgeon gave hopes of a recovery though 
a slow one ; but ere long the operation had to 
be repeated, and now it was feared that his 
patient's strength was too far exhausted. The 
young maiden bore all this with inflexible 
courage, and the cheerfulest resignation : her 
Mother and Sister, Novalis, with his Parents, 
and two of his Brothers, all deeply interested 
in the event, did their utmost to comfort her. 
In December, by her own wish, she returned 
home ; but it was evident that slie grew weaker 
and weaker. Novalis went and came between 
Griiningen and Weissenfels, where also he 
found a house of mourning ; for Erasmus, one 
of these two Brothers, had long been sickly, 
and was now believed to be dying. 

"The 17th of March," says Tieck, "was the 
fifteenth birthday of his Sophie; and on the 
19th about noon she departed. No one durst 
tell Novalis these tidings: at last his Brother 
Carl undertook it. The poor youth shut him- 
self up, and after three days and three nights of 
weeping, set out for Arnstadt, that there with his 
true friend he might be near the spot, which 
now hid the remains of what was dearest to 
him. On the 14th of April, his Brother Eras- 
mus also left this world. Novalis wrote to in- 
form his Brother Carl of the event, who had 
been obliged to make a journey into Lower Sax- 
ony : ' Be of good courage,' said he, ' Erasmus 
has prevailed ; the flowers of our fair garland are 
dropping off Here, one by one, that they may 
be united Yonder, lovelier and for ever.' " 

Among the papers published in these Vo- 
lumes are three letters written about this time, 
which mournfully indicate the author's mood. 
"It has grown Evening around me," says he, 



" while I was looking into the red Morning. My 
grief is boundless as my love. For three j^ears 
she has been my hourly thought. She alone 
bound me to life, to the country, to my occu- 
pations. With her I am parted from all ; for 
now I scarcely have myself any more. But it 
has grown Evening; and I feel as if I had to 
travel early ; and so I would fain be at rest, 
and see nothing but kind faces about me ; — all 
in her spirit would I live, be soft and mild- 
hearted as she was." And again, some weeks 
later: "I live over the old, bygone life here, in 
still meditation. Yesterday I was twenty-five 
years old. I was in Griiningen, and stood be- 
.»ide her grave. It is a friendly spot; enclosed 
with a simple white railing ; lies apart, and 
high. There is still room in it. The Village, 
with its blooming gardens, leans up around the 
hill ; and at this point and that the eye loses 
itself in blue distances. I know you would 
have liked to stand by me, and stick the flowers, 
.my birthday gifts, one by one into her hillock. 
This time two years, she made me a gay pre- 
sent, with a flag and national cockade on it. To- 
day her parents gave me the little things which 
she, still joyfully, had received on her last birth- 
day. Friend, — it continues Evening, and will 
soon be Night. If you go away, think of 
me kindly, and visit, when you return, the still 
house, where your Friend rests for ever, with 
the ashes of his beloved. Fare you well !" — 
Nevertheless, a singular composure came over 
him: from the very depths of his griefs, arose 
a peace and pure joy, such as till then he had 
never known. 

"In this season," observed Tieck, "Novalis 
lived only to his sorrow : it was natural for him 
to regard the visible and the invisible world as 
one; and to distinguish Life and Death, only 
by his longing for the latter. At the same time, 
too. Life became for him a glorified Life; and 
his whole being melted away as into a bright, 
conscious vision of a higher Existence. From 
the sacredness of Sorrow, from heartfelt love, 
and the pious wish for death, his temper, and 
all his conceptions are to be explained: and it 
seems possible that this lime, with its deep 
griefs, planted in him the germ of death, if it 
was not, in any case, his appointed lot to be so 
soou snatched away from us. 

"He remained many weeks in Thuringia; 
and came back comforted and truly purified, to 
his engagements: which he pursued more zea- 
lously than ever, though he now regarded him- 
self as a stranger on the earth. In this period, 
some earlier, many later, especially in the Au- 
tumn of this year, occur most of those compo- 
sitions, which, in the way of extract and selec- 
tion, we have here given to the Public, under 
the title of FragmaUs: so likewise the Hymns 
to the Night." 

Such is ourBiographer's account of this mat- 
ter, and of the weighty inference it has led him 
to. We have detailed it the more minutely, 
and almost in the very words of the text, the 
better to put our readers in a condition for 
judging on what grounds Tieck rests his opi- 
nion, that herein lies the key to the whole spi- 
ritual history of Novalis, that " the feeling which 
now penetrated and inspired him, may be said 
to have been the substance of his Life '" It 



172 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



would ill become us to contradict one so well 
qualified to judge of all subjects, and who en- 
joyed such peculiar opportunities for forming 
a right judgment of this: meanwhile we may 
say that, to our own minds, after all considera- 
tion, the certainty of this hypothesis will nowise 
become clear. Or rather, perhaps, it is to the 
expression, to the too determinate and exclusive 
language in which the hypothesis is worded, 
that we should object; for so plain does the 
truth of the case seem to us, we cannot but be- 
lieve that Tieck himself would consent to 
modify his statement. That the whole philo- 
sophical and moral existence of such a man 
as Novalis should have been shaped and de- 
termined by the death of a young girl, almost 
a child, specially distinguished, so far as is 
shown, by nothing save her beauty, which at 
any rate must have been very short-lived, will 
doubtless seem to every one a singular conca- 
tenation. We cannot but think that some re- 
sult precisely similiar in moral effect might 
have been attained by many different means; 
nay, that by one means or another, it would not 
have failed to be attained. For spirits like 
Novalis, earthly fortune is in no instance so 
sweet and smooth, that it does not by and by 
teach the great doctrine of Entaagcn, of " Re- 
nunciation," by which alone, as a wise man 
well known to Herr Tieck has observed, " can 
the real entrance on Life be properly said to 
begin." Experience, the grand School-master, 
seems to have taught Novalis this doctrine 
very early by the wreck of his first passionate 
wish ; and herein lies the real influence of So- 
phie von K. on his character; an influence 
which, as we imagine, many other things might 
and would have equally exerted : for it is less 
the severity of the Teacher than the aptness of 
the Pupil that secures the lesson ; nor do the 
purifying effects of frustrated Hope, and Affec- 
tion that in this world will ever be homeless, de- 
pend on the worth or loveliness of its objects, 
but on that of the heart which cherished it, and 
can draw mild wisdom from so stern a disap- 
pointment. We do not say that Novalis con- 
tinued the same as if this young maiden had 
not been; causes and effects connecting every 
man and thing with ever}' other extend through 
all Time and all Space; but surely it appears un- 
just to represent him as so altogether pliant in 
the hands of Accident; a mere pipe for Fortune 
to play tunes on ; and which sounded a mystic, 
deep, almost unearthly melody, simply because 
a young woman was beautiful and mortal. 

We feel the more justified in these hard- 
hearted and so unromantic strictures on read- 
ing the very next paragraph of Tieck's Narra- 
tive. Directly on the back of this occurrence, 
Novalis goes toFrcyberg; and there in 1798, 
it may be therefore somewhat more or some- 
what less than a year after the death of his first 
love, forms an acquaintance, and engagement 

to marry, with a " Julie von Gh !" Indeed, 

ever afterwards, to the end, his life appears to 
have been more than usually cheerful and hap- 
py. Tieck knows not what well to say of this be- 
trothment, which in the eyes of most Novel- 
readers v/ill have so shocking an appearance : 
he admits that " perhaps to any but his intimate 
friends it may seem singular ;" asserts, notwith- 



standing, that "Sophie, as maybe seen also in 
his writings, continued the centre of his 
thoughts; nay, as one departed, she stood in 
higher reverence with him than when visible 
and near;" and hurrying on, almost as over an 
unsafe subject, declares that Novalis felt never- 
theless " as if loveliness of mind and person 
might in some measure replace his loss;" and 
so leaves us to our own reflections on the mat- 
ter. We consider it as throwing light on the- 
above criticism ; and greatly restricting our ac- 
ceptance of Tieck's theory. Yet perhaps, after 
all, it is only in a Minerva-Press Novel, or to 
the more tender Imagination, that such a pro- 
ceeding would seem veryblamable. Constancy, 
in its true sense, may be called the root of all 
excellence; especially excellent is constancy 
in active well-doing, in friendly helpfulness to 
those that love us, and to those that hate us : 
but constancy in passive suflering, again, iu 
spite of the high value put upon it in Circulating 
Libraries, is a distinctly inferior virtue, rather 
an accident than a virtue, and, at all events, is 
of extreme rarity in this world. To Novalis, 
his Sophie might still be as a saintly presence, 
mournful and unspeakably mild, to be -wor- 
shipped in the inmost shrine of his memory : 
but worship of this sort is not man's sole busi- 
ness; neither should we censure Novalis that 
he dries his tears, and once more looks abroad 
with hope on the earth, which is still, as it was 
before, the strangest compl-ex of mystery and 
light, of joy as well as sorrow. " Life belongs 
to the living; and he that lives must be pre- 
pared for vicissitudes." The questionable cir- 
cumstance with Novalis is his perhaps too great 
rapidity in that second courtship; a fault or 
misfortune the more to be regretted, as this 
marriage also was to remain a project, and only 
the anticipation of it to be enjoyed by him. 

It was for the purpose of studying mine- 
ralogy, under the famous Werner, that Novalis 
had gone to Freyberg. For this science he had 
great fondness, as indeed for all the physical 
sciences : which, if we may judge from his 
writings, he seems to have prosecuted on a 
great and original principle, very different both 
from that of our idle theorizers and general- 
izers, and that of the still more melancholy 
class who merely " collect facts," and for the 
torpor or total extinction of the thinking faculty, 
strive to make up by the more assiduous use 
of the blowpipe and goniometer. The com- 
mencement of a work, entitled the Disciples at 
Sais, intended, as Tieck informs us, to be a 
"Physical Romance," was written in Freyberg, 
at this time : but it lay unfinished, unprose- 
cuted ; and now comes before us as a very 
mysterious fragment, disclosing scientific 
depths, v.-hich we have not light to see into, 
much less means to fathom and accurately 
measure. The various hypothetic views of 
" Nature," that is, of the visible Creation, 
which are here given out in the words of the 
several "Pupils," differ, almost all of them, 
more or less, from any that we have ever else- 
where met with. To this work we shall have 
occasion to refer more particularly in the 
sequel. 

The acquaintance which Novalis formed, 
soon after this, with the elder Schlegel, (August 



NOVALIS. 



173 



Wilhelm,) and still more that of Tieck, whom I 
also he first met in Jena, seems to have ope- 
rated a considerable diversion in his line of ] 
study. Tieck and the Schlegels, with some 
less active associates, among whom are now 
mentioned Wackenroder and Novalis, were at 
this time engaged in their far-famed campaign 
.against Duncedom, or what called itself the 
"Old School" of Literature; which old and 
rather despicable " School" they had already, 
both by regular and guerrilla warfare, reduced 
to great straits ; as ultimately, they are reckon- 
ed to have succeeded in utterly extirpating it, 
or at least driving it back to the very confines 
of its native Cimmeria. It seems to have been 
in connection with these men, that Novalis 
first came before the world as a writer: certain 
of his Fragments, under the title of Bliithcnstaub 
(Pollen of Flowers ;) his Hymns to the JSiight, 
and various poetical compositions, were sent 
forth in F. Schlegel's Muscn-Mmanach, and 
other periodicals under the same or kindred 
management. Novalis himself seems to pro- 
fess that it M^as Tieck's influence which 
chiefly "reawakened Poetr}^ in him." As to 
what reception these pieces met with, we have 
no information: however, Novalis seems to 
have been ardent and diligent in his new pur- 
suit, as in his old ones ; and no less happy 
than diligent. 

"In the summer of 1800," says Tieck, "I 
saw him for the first time, while visiting my 
friend Wilhelm Schlegel ; and our acquaint- 
ance soon became the most confidential friend- 
ship. They were bright days those, which we 
passed with Schlegel, Schelling, and some 
other friends. On my return homewards, I 
visited him in his house, and made acquaint- 
ance with his family. Here he read me the 
Disciples nt Sais, and many of his Fragments. 
He escorted me as far as Halle ; and we en- 
joyed in Giebichenstein, in the Reichardts' 
house, some other delightful hours. About 
this time, the first thought of his Oflerdingen 
had occurred. At an earlier period, certain of 
his Spiritual Songs had been composed ; they 
were to form part of a Christian Hymn-book, 
which he meant to accompany with a collec- 
tion of Sermons. For the rest, he was very 
diligent in his professional labours; whatever 
he did was done with the heart ; the smallest 
concern was not insignificant to him." 

The professional labours here alluded to, 
seem to have left much leisure on his hands : 
room for frequent change of place, and even 
of residence. Not long afterwards, we find 
him " living for a long while in a solitary spot 
of the Giildne Aue in Thuringia, at the foot of 
the Kyff'haLiser Mountain ;" his chief society 
two military men, subsequently Generals ; "in 
which solitude great part of his Ofierdingen was 
written." The first volume of this Heinrirh 
von Oftcrdingcn, a sort of Art-Romance, intend- 
ed, as he himself said, to be an "Apothesis of 
Poetry," w'as ere long published ; under what 
circumstances, or with w'hat result, we have, 
as before, no notice. Tieck had for some time 
been resident in Jena, and at intervals saw 
much of Novalis. On preparing to quit that 
abode, he went to pay him a farewell visit at 
Weissenfels ; found him "somewhat paler," { 



but full of gladness and hope; quite inspired 
\\i\\\ plans of his future happiness ; his house 
was already fitted up ; in a few months he was 
to be wedded: no less zealously did he speak 
of the speed}' conclusion of Ofterdingen, and 
other books; his life seemed expanding in the 
richest activity and love." This was in 1800 ; 
four years ago Novalis had longed and looked 
for death, and it was not appointed him ; now 
life is again rich, and far extending in his 
eyes, and its close is at hand. Tieck parted 
with him, and it proved to be for ever. 

In the month of August, Novalis, preparing 
for his journey to Freyberg, on so joyful an 
occasion, was alarmed with an appearance of 
blood proceeding from the lungs. The Physi- 
cian treated it as a slight matter; nevertheless, 
the marriage was postponed. He went to 
Dresden with his parents, for medical advice ; 
abode there for some time in no improving 
state; on learning the accidental death of a 
young brother at home, he ruptured a blood- 
vessel ; and the Doctor then declared his 
malady incurable. This, as usual in such 
maladies, was nowise the patient's own opi- 
nion; he wished to try a warmer climate, but 
was thought too weak for the journey. In 
January (1801) he returned home, visibly to 
all, but himself, in rapid decline. His bride 
had already been to see him, in Dresden. We 
maj' give the rest in Tieck's words: 

"The nearer he approached his end, the 
more confidently did he expect a speedy reco- 
very ; for the cough diminished, and excepting 
languor, he had no feeling of sickness. With 
the hope and the longing for life, new talent 
and fresh strength seemed also to awaken in 
him; he thought, with renewed love, of all his 
projected labours ; he determined on writing 
Ofterdingen over again from the very begin- 
ning; and shortly before his death, he said on 
one occasion, ' Never till now did I know what 
Poetry was; innumerable Songs and Poems, 
and of quite diflerenl stamp from any of my 
former ones, have arisen in me.' From the 
nineteenth of March, the death-day of his 
Sophie, he became visibly weaker: many of 
his friends visited him; and he felt great joy 
when, on the twenty-first, his true and oldest 
friend, Friedrich Schlegel, came to him from 
Jena. With him he conversed at great length ; 
especially upon their several literary opera- 
tions. During these days he was very lively; his 
nights too were quiet; and he enjoyed pretty 
sound sleep. On the twenty-fifth, about six in 
the morning, he made his brother hand him 
certain books, that he might lock for some- 
thing; then he ordered breakfast and talked 
cheerfully till eight; towards nine he bade his 
brother play a little to him on the harpsichord, 
and in the course of the music fell asleep. 
Friedrich Schlegel soon afterwards came into 
the room, and found him quietly sleeping : this 
sleep lasted till near twelve, when without the 
smallest motion he passed away, and unchang- 
ed in death, retained his common friendly 
looks as if he yet lived. 

"So died," continues the afl^ectionate Bio- 
grapher," before he had completed his twenty- 
ninth year, this our Friend; in whom his ex- 
tensive acquirements, his philosophical talent, 
p 2 



174 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



and his poetic genius, must alike obtain our 
love and admiration. As he had so far outrun 
his time, our country might have expected 
extraordinary things from such gifts, had this 
early death not overtaken him: as it is, the 
unfinished writings he left behind him have 
already had a wide influence; and many of 
his great thoughts will yet, in time coming, 
lend their inspiration, and noble minds and 
deep thinkers will be enlightened and enkindled 
by the sparks of his genius. 

" Novalis was tall, slender, and of noble pro- 
portions. He wore his light-brown hair in 
long clustering locks, which at that time was 
less unusual than it would be now; his hazel eye 
was clear and glancing; and the colour of his 
face, especially of the fine brow, almost trans- 
parent. Hand and foot were somewhat too 
large, and without fine character. His look 
was at all times cheerful and kind. For those 
who distinguish a man only in so far as he 
puts himself forward, or by studious breeding, 
by fashionable bearing, endeavours to shine or 
to be singular, Novalis was lost in the crowd : 
to the more practised eye, again, he presented 
a figure which might be called beautiful. In 
outline and expression, his face strikingly re- 
sembled that of the Evangelist John, as we see 
him in the large noble painting by Albrecht 
Diirer, preserved at Niirnberg and Miinchen. 

" In speaking, he was lively and loud, his 
gestures strong. I never saw him tired: 
though we had talked till far in the night, it 
was still only on purpose that he stopped, for 
the sake of rest, and even then he used to read 
before sleeping. Tedium he never felt, even 
in oppressive company, among mediocre men ; 
for he was sure to find out one or other, who 
could give him some yet new piece of know- 
ledge, such as he could turn to use, insignifi- 
cant as it might seem. His kindliness, his 
frank bearing, made him a universal favourite : 
his skill in the art of social intercourse was so 
great, that smaller minds did not perceive how 
high he stood above them. Though in con- 
versation he delighted the most to unfold the 
deeps of the soul, and spoke as inspired of the 
regions of invisible worlds, yet was he mirth- 
ful as a child ; would jest in free artless gayety, 
and heartily give in to the jestings of his com- 
pany. Without vanity, without learned haughti- 
ness, far from every affectation and hypocrisy, 
he was a genuine, true man, the purest and 
loveliest imbodiment of a high immortal 
spirit." 

So much for the outward figure and history 
of Novalis. Respecting his inward structure 
and significance, which our readers are here 
principally interested to understand, we have 
already acknowledged that we had no com- 
plete insight to boast of. The slightest perusal 
of his writings indicates to us a mind of won- 
derful depth and originality ; but at the same 
time, of a nature or habit so abstruse, and 
altogether different from any thing we ourselves 
have notice or experience of, that to penetrate 
fairly into its essential character, much more 
to picture it forth in visual distinctness, would 
be an extremely difficult task. Nay, perhaps, 
if attempted by the means familiar to us, an 
impossible task; for Novalis belongs to that 



class of persons, who do not recognise the 
"syllogistic method," as the chief organ for 
investigating truth, or feel themselves bound 
at all times to stop short where its light fails 
them. Many of his opinions he would despair 
of proving in the most patient Court of Law ; 
and would remain well content that they 
should be disbelieved there. He much loved, 
and had assiduously studied, Jacob Bdhme 
and other mystical writers ; and was, openly 
enough, in good part a Mystic himself. Not 
indeed what we English, in common speech, 
call a Mystic; which means only a man whom 
we do not understand, and, in self-defence, 
recliOn or would fain reckon a Dunce. Nova- 
lis was a Mystic, or had an atfinity with Mys- 
ticism, in the primary and true meaning of 
that word, exemplified in some shape among 
our own Puritan Divines, and which at this 
day carries no opprobrium with it in Germany, 
or except among certain more unimportant 
classes, in any other country. Nay, in this 
sense, great honours are recorded of Mysti- 
cism : Tasso, as may be seen in several of his 
prose writings, was professedly a Mystic; 
Dante is regarded as a chief man of that class. 

Nevertheless, with all due tolerance or rever- 
ence for Novalis's Mysticism, the question still 
returns on us : How shall we understand it, 
and in any measure shadow it forth 1 How 
may that spiritual condition which by its own 
account is like pure Light, colourless, formless, 
infinite, be represented by mere Logic-Painters, 
mere Engravers we might say, who, except 
copper and burin, producing the most finite 
black-on-white, have no means of representing 
any thing? Novalis himself has a line or two, 
and no more, expressly on Mysticism ; " What 
is Mysticism?" asks he. "What is it that 
should come to be treated mystically? Reli- 
gion, Love, Nature, Polity. — All selected things 
(allcs Auferwdhl/e) have a reference to Mysti- 
cism. If all men were but one pair of lovers, 
the difference between Mysticism and Non- 
Mysticism were at an end." In which little 
sentence, unhappily, our reader obtains no 
clearness ; feels rather as if he were looking 
into darkness visible. We must entreat him, 
nevertheless, to keep up his spirits in this 
business ; and above all, to assist us with his 
friendliest, cheerfullest endeavour: perhaps 
some faint far-off view of that same mysterious 
Mysticism may at length rise upon us. 

To ourselves, it somewhat illustrates the na- 
ture of Novalis's opinions, when we consider 
the then and present state of German meta- 
physical science generally; and the fact, stated 
above, that he gained his first notions on this 
subject from Fichte's Wisscnschufi slehre. It is 
true, as Tieck remarks, "he sought to open 
for himself a new path in Philosophy ; to unite 
Philosophy with Religion ;" and so diverged in 
some degree from his first instructor; or, as it 
more probably seemed to himself, prosecuted 
Fichte's scientific inquiry into its highest prac- 
tical results. At all events, his metaphysical 
creed, so far as we can gather it from these 
writings, appears everywhere in its essential 
lineaments, synonymous with what little we 
understand of Fichte's, and might indeed, 
safely enough for our present purpose, be 



NOVALIS. 



175 



classed under the head of Kantism, or German 
metaphysics generally. 

Now, without entering into the intricacies 
of German Philosophy, we need here only ad- 
vert to the character of Idealism, on which it 
is everywhere founded, and which universally 
pervades it. In all German systems, since the 
time of Kant, it is the fundamental principle to 
deny the existence of Matter; or rather we 
should say to believe it in a radically diflerent 
sense from that in which the Scotch Philoso- 
pher strives to demonstrate it, and the English 
IJnphilosopher believes it without demonstra- 
tion. To any of our readers, who has dipped 
never so slightly into metaphysical reading, 
this Idealism will be no inconceivable thing. 
Indeed it is singular how widely diffused, and 
under what different aspects we meet with it 
among the most dissimilar classes of mankind. 
Our Bishop Berkeley seems to have adopted it 
from religious inducements : Father Boscovich 
was led to a very cognate result, in his Tlieoria 
PhilosophicB Naturalis, from merely mathematical 
considerations. Of the ancient Pyrrho or the 
modern Hume we do not speak : but in the 
opposite end of the Earth, as Sir W. Jones in- 
forms us, a similar theory, of immemorial age, 
prevails among the theologians of Hindostan. 
Nay, Professor Stuart has declared his opinion, 
that whoever at some time of his life has not 
entertained this theory, may reckon that he 
has yet shown no talent for metaphysical re- 
search. Neither is it an}' argument against 
the Idealist to say that, since he denies the 
absolute existence of Matter, he ought in con- 
science likewise to deny its relative existence ; 
and plunge over precipices, and run himself 
through with swords, by way of recreation, 
since these, like all other material things, are 
only phantasms and spectra, and therefore of 
no consequence. If a man, corporeally taken, 
is but a phantasm and spectrum himself, all 
this will, ultimately amount to much the same 
as it did before. Yet herein lies Dr. Reid's 
grand triumph over the Skeptics ; which is as 
good as no triumph whatever. For as to the 
argument which he and his followers insist on, 
under all possible variety of figures, it amounts 
only to this very plain consideration, that " men 
naturally, and without reasoning, believe in the 
existence of Matter;" and seems, Philosophi- 
cally speaking, not to have any value; nay, 
the introduction of it into Philosophy may be 
considered as an act of suicide on the part of 
that science, the life and business of which, 
that of '^interpreting Appearances," is hereby 
at an end. Curious it is, moreover, to observe 
how these Common-sense Philosophers, men 
who brag chiefly of their irrefragable logic, 
and keep watch and ward, as if this were 
their special trade, against " Mysticism," and 
"Visionary Theories," are themselves obliged 
to base their whole system on Mysticism, and 
a Theory ; on Faith, in short, and that of a 
very comprehensive kind ; the Faith, namely, 
either that man's Senses are themselves 
Divine, or that they afford not only an honest, 
but a literal representation of the workings of 
some Divinity. So true is it that for these 
men also, all knowledge of the visible rests 



on belief of the invisible, and derives its first 
meaning and certainty therefrom ! 

The Idealist again boasts that his Philoso- 
phy is Transcendental, that is, "ascending 6c- 
yond the senses ;" which, he asserts, nil Philo- 
sophy, properly so called, by its nature is and 
must be : and in this way he is led to various 
unexpected conclusions. To a Transcenden- 
talist, Matter has an existence but only as a 
Phenomenon : were fw not there, neither would 
it be there; it is a mere Relation, ur rather the 
result of a Relation between our living Souls 
and the great First Cause ; and depends for 
its apparent qualities on our bodily and mental 
organs ; having itself no intrinsic qualities, 
being, in the common sense of that word, No- 
thing. The tree is green and hard, not of its 
own natural virtue, but simply because my 
eye and my hand are fashioned so as to dis- 
cern such and such appearances under ^uch 
and such conditions. Nay, as an Idealist 
might say, even on the most popular grounds, 
must it not be so 1 Bring a sentient Being,, 
with eyes a little different, with fingers ten 
times harder than mine ; and to him that Thing 
which I call Tree shall be yellow and soft, as 
truly as to me it is green and hard. Form his 
Nervous structure in all points the reverse of 
mme, and this same Tree shall not be combus- 
tible, or heat producing, but dissoluble and 
cold-producing, not high and convex, but deep 
and concave ; shall simply have all properties 
exactly the reverse of those I attribute to it. 
There is, in fact, says Fichte, no Tree there ; 
but only a Manifestation of Power from some- 
thing which is not I. The same is true of ma- 
terial Nature at large, of the whole visible 
Universe, with all its movements, figures, ac- 
cidents, and qualities; all are Impressions 
produced on me by something different from inc. 
This, we suppose, may be the foundation of 
what Fichte means by his far-famed Ich and 
Nicht-Ich (I and Not-I) ; words which, taking 
lodging (to use theHudibrastic phrase) in cer- 
tain " heads that were to be let unfurnished," oc- 
casioned a hollow echo, as of Laughter, from 
the empty Apartments ; though the words are 
in themselves quite harmless, and may repre- 
sent the basis of a metaphysical Philosophy 
as fitly as any other words. But farther, and 
what IS still stranger than such Idealism, ac- 
cording to these Kantean systems, the organs 
of the Mind too, what is called the Under- 
standing, are of no less arbitrary, and, as it 
were, accidental character than those of the 
Body. Time and Space themselves are not 
external but internal entities : they have no 
outward existence, there is no Time and na 
Space out of the mind ; they are mere forms 
of man's spiritual being, laws under which his 
thinking nature is constituted to act. This 
seems the hardest conclusion of all ; but it is 
an important one with Kant; and is not given 
forth as a dogma; but caret^ully deduced in 
his Crilik der Rcinen Vernimft with great preci- 
sion, and the strictest form of argument. 

The reader would err widely who supposed 
that this Transcendental system of Metaphy- 
sics was a mere intellectual card-castle, or 
logical hocus-pocus, contrived from sheer idle- 



176 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ness, and for sheer idleness, being without 
any bearing on the practical interests of men. 
On the contrary, however false, or however 
true, it is the most serious in its purport of all 
Philosophies propounded in these latter cen- 
turies ; has been taught chiefly by men of the 
loftiest and most earnest character; and does 
bear, with a direct and highly comprehensive 
influence, on the most vital interests of men. 
To say nothing of the views it opens in regard 
to the course and management of what is 
called Natural Science, we cannot but per- 
ceive that its efl'ects, for such as adopt it, on 
Morals and Religion, must in these days be of 
almost boundless importance. To take only 
that last and seemingly strangest doctrine, for 
example, concerning Time and Space, we shall 
find that to the Kantist it yields, almost imme- 
diately, a remarkable result of this sort. If 
Time and Space have no absolute existence 
out of our minds, it removes a stumbling- 
block from the very threshold of our Theology. 
For on this ground, when we say that the 
Deity is omnipresent and eternal, that with 
Him it is a universal Here and Now, we say 
nothing wonderful : nothing but that He also 
created Time and Space, that Time and Space 
are not laws of His being, but only of ours. 
Nay to the Transcendentalist, clearly enough, 
the whole question of the origin and existence 
of Nature must be greatly simplified : the old 
hostility of Matter is at an end, for Matter is 
itself annihilated, and the black Spectre, 
Atheism, "with all its sickly dews," melts into 
nothingness for ever. But farther, if it be, as 
Kant maintains, that the logical mechanism 
of the mind is arbitrary, so to speak, and 
might have been made diflerent, it will follow 
that all inductive conclusions, all conclusions 
of the Understanding, have only a relative 
truth, are true only for u.<, and if some other 
thing be true. Thus far Hume and Kant go 
together, in this branch of the inquiry : but 
here occurs the most total, diametrical diverg- 
ence between them. We allude to the recog- 
nition, by these Transcendental ists, of a 
higher faculty in man than Understanding; 
of Reason, (Vernunf!.,) the pure, ultimate light 
of our nature; wherein, as they assert, lies the 
foundation of all Poetry, Virtue, Jteligion ; 
things which are properly beyond the province 
of the Understanding, of which the Under- 
standing can take no cognisance exce])t a false 
one. The elder Jacobi, who indeed is no 
Kantist, says once, ^ve remember — "It is the 
instinct of Understanding to co?j«>a^/trf Reason." 
Admitting this last distinction and subordina- 
tion, supposing it scientifically demonstrated, 
what numberless and weightiest consequences 
would follow from it alone ! These we must 
leave the considerate reader to deduce for 
himself; observing only farther, that the Tco- 
logia Mislicit, so much venerated by Tasso in his 
philosophical writings; the " Mysticism " al- 
luded to above byNovalis; and generally all 
true Chri'jtian Faith and Devotion, appear, so 
far as we can see, more or less included in 
this doctrine of the Transcendentalists ; under 
their several shapes, the essence of them all 
being what is here designated by the name 



Reason, and set forth as the true sovereign of 
man's mind. 

How deep these and the like principles had 
impressed themselves on Novalis, we see more 
and more, the further we study his Writings. 
Naturally a deep, religious, contemplative 
spirit ; purified also, as we have seen, by harsh 
Affliction, and familiar in the " Sanctuary of 
Sorrow," he comes before us as the most ideal 
of all Idealists. For him the material Crea- 
tion is but an Appearance, a typical shadow 
in which the Deity manifests himself to Man. 
Not only has the unseen world a reality, but 
the only reality: the rest being not metaphori- 
cally, but literally and in scientific strictness, 
" a show ;" in the words of the Poet, Schall und 
R(uich unntcbcliid IJimmrls Gluth, " Sound and 
Smoke overclouding the Splendour of Heaven." 
The Invisible World is near us : or rather it 
is here, in us and about us; were the fleshly 
coil removed from our Soul, the glories of the 
Unseen were even now around us ; as the 
Ancients fabled of the Spheral Music. Thus 
not in word only, but in truth and sober belief, 
he feels himself encompassed by the Godhead; 
feels in every thought, that "in Him he lives, 
moves, and has his being." 

On his Philosophic and Poetic Procedure, 
all this has its natural influence. The aim of 
Novalis's whole Philosophy, we might say, is 
to preach and establish the Majesty of Reason, 
in that stricter sense ; to conquer for it all 
provinces of human thought, and everywhere 
reduce its vassal, Understanding, into fealty, 
the right and only useful relation for it. 
Mighty tasks in this sort lay before himself; 
of which, in these Writings of his, we trace 
only scattered indications. In f;ict, all that he 
has left is in the shape of fragment; detached 
expositions and combinations, deep, brief 
glimpses: but such seems to be their general 
tendency. One character to be noted in many 
of these, often too obscure, speculations, is his 
peculiar manner of viewing Nature ; his habit, 
as it were, of considering Nature rather in the 
concrete, not analytically and as a divisible 
Aggregate, but as a self-subsistent universally 
connected Whole. This also is perhaps partly 
the fruit of his Idealism. " Pie had formed the 
Plan," we are informed, "of a peculiar Ency- 
clopedical Work, in which experiences and 
ideas from all the different Sciences were mu- 
tually to elucidate, confirm, and enforce each 
other." In this work he had even made some 
progress. Many of the "Thoughts," and short 
Aphoristic observations, here published, were 
intended for it; of such, apparently, it was, 
for the most part, to have consisted. 

As a Poet, Novalis is no less Idealistic than 
as a Philosopher. His poems are breathings 
of a high devout soul, feeling always that here 
he has no home, but looking, as in clear vision, 
to a "city that hath foundations." He loves 
external Nature with a singular depth; nay, 
we might say, he reverences her, and holds' 
unspeakable communings with her: for Na- 
ture is no longer dead, hostile Matter, but the 
veil and mysterious Garment of the Unseen; 
as it were, the Voice with which the Deity 
proclaims himself to man. These two quali- 



NOVALIS. 



177 



ties, — his pure religious temper, and heart-felt 
love of Nature, — bring him into true poetic 
relations both with the spiritual and the mate- 
rial World, and perhaps constitute his chief 
worth as a Poet ; for which art he seems to 
have originally a genuine, but no exclusive or 
even very decided endowment. 

His moral persuasions, as evinced in his 
Writings and Life, derive themselves naturally 
enough from the same source. It is the mo- 
rality of a man, to whom the Earth and all its 
glories arc in truth a vapour and a Dream, and 
the Beauty of Goodness theonlij real possession. 
Poetry, Virtue, Religion, which for other men 
have but, as it were, a traditionary and ima- 
gined existence, are for him the everlasting 
basis of the Universe; and all earthly acquire- 
ments, all with which ambition, Hope, Fear, 
can tempt us, to toil and sin, are in very deed 
but a picture of the brain, some rcliex sha- 
dowed on the mirror of the Infinite, but in 
themselves air and nothingness. Thus, to 
live in that Light of Reason, to have, even 
while here, and encircled with this vision of 
Existence, our abode In that Eternal City, is 
the highest and sole duty of man. These 
things Novalis figures to himself under va- 
rious images: sometimes he seems to repre- 
sent the Primeval essence of Being as Love; 
at other times, he speaks in emblems, of which 
it would be still more difficult to give a just 
account; which, therefore, at present, we shall 
not further notice. 

For now, with these far-off sketches of an 
exposition, the reader must hold himself ready 
to look into Novalis, for a little, with his own 
eyes. Whoever has honestly, and with atten- 
tive outlook, accompanied us along these won- 
drous outskirts of Idealism, may find himself 
as able to interpret Novalis as the majority of 
German readers would be; which, we think, 
is fair measure on our part. We shall not 
attempt any further commentary; fearing that 
it might be too difficult, and too unthankful a 
business. Our first extract is from the Lehr- 
linge zu Sais, (Pupil at Sais,) adverted to above. 
That " Physical Romance," which for the rest 
contains no story or indication of a story, but 
only poeti/ed philosophical speeches, and the 
strangest shadowy allegorical allusions, and 
indeed is only carried the length of two Chap- 
ters, commences, without note of preparation, 
in this singular wise : 

"L The Pupil.— Men travel in manifold 
paths: whoso traces and compares these, will 
find strange Figures come to light; Figures 
which seem as if they belonged to that great 
Cipher-writing which one meets with every- 
where, on wings of birds, shells of eggs, in 
clouds, in the snow, in crystals, in forms of 
rocks, in freezing waters, in the interior and 
exterior of mountains, of plants, animals, men, 
in the lights of the sky, in plates of glass and 
pitch when touched and struck on, in the filings 
round the magnet, and the singular conjunc- 
tures of Chance, la such Figures one antici- 
pates the key to that wondrous Writing, the 
grammar of it; but this Anticipation will not 
fix itself into shape, and appears as if, after 
all, it would not become such a key for us. 
An Alcahcst seems poured out over the senses 
23 



of men. Only for a moment will their wishes, 
their thoughts thicken into form. Thus do 
their Anticipations arise; but after short whiles, 
all is again swimming vaguely before them, 
even as it did. 

"From afar I heard say, that Uninlelligibi- 
lity was but the result of unintelligencc ; that 
this sought what itself had, and so could find 
nowhere else ; also that we did not understand 
Speech, because Speech did not, would not, 
understand itself; that the genuine Sanscrit 
spoke for the sake of speaking, because speak- 
ing was its pleasure and its nature. 

"Not long thcrenfter, said one : no explana- 
tion is required fur Holy Writing. Whoso 
speaks truly is full of eternal life, and won- 
derfully related to genuine mysteries docs his 
Writing appear to us, fin- it is a concord from 
the Symphony of the Universe. 

"Surely this voice meant our Teacher; for 
it is he that can collect the indications which 
lie scattered on all sides. A singular light 
kindles in his looks, when at length the high 
Rune lies brfi)re us, and he watches in our 
eyes whether the star has yet risen upon us, 
which is to make the Figure visible and intel- 
ligible. Does he see us sad, that the darkness 
will not withdraw 1 he consoles us, and pro- 
mises the faithful assiduous seer better for- 
tune in time. Often has he told us how, when 
he was a child, the impulse to employ his 
senses, to busy, to fill them, left him no rest. 
He looked at the stars, and imitated their 
courses and positions in the sand. Into the 
ocean of air he gazed incessantly; and never 
wearied contemplating its clearness, its move- 
ments, its clouds, its lights. He gathered 
stones, fliowers, insects, of all sorts, and spread 
them out in manifold wise, in rows, before 
him. To men and animals he paid heed; on 
the shore of the sea he sat, collected mussels. 
Over his own heart and his own thoughts he 
watched attentively. He knew not whither his 
longing was carrying him. As he grew''up, he 
wandered far and wide; viewed other lands, 
other seas, new atmospheres, new rocks, un- 
known plants, animals, men; descended into 
caverns, saw how in courses and varying strata 
the edifice of the Earth was completed, and 
fashioned clay into strange figures of rocks. 
By and by, he came to find everywhere ob- 
jects already known, but wonderfully mingled, 
united; and thus often extraordinarv things 
came to shape in him. He soon oecame 
aware of combinations in all, of conjunctures, 
concurrences. Ere long, he no more saw any 
thing alone. — In great, variegated images, the 
perceptions of his senses crowded round him; 
he heard, saw, touched, and thought at once. 
He rejoiced to bring strangers together. Now 
the stars were men, noM' men were stars, the 
stones animals, the clouds plants; he sported 
with powers and appearances ; he knew where 
and how this and that was to be found, to be 
brought into action; and so himself struck 
over the strings, for tones and touches of his 
own. 

"What has passed with him since then he 
does not disclose to us. He tells us that we 
ourselves, led on by him and our own desire, 
will discover what has passed with him. 



178 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Many of us have withdrawn from him. They 
returned to their parents, and learned trades. 
Some have been sent out by him, we know not 
■whither; he selected them. Of these, some 
had been but a short time there, others longer. 
One was still a child; scarcely was he come, 
when our Teacher was for passing him any 
more instruction. This Child had large dark 
eyes with azure ground, ,his skin shone like 
lilies, and his locks like light little clouds when 
it is growing evening. His voice pierced 
through all our hearts ; willingly would we 
have given him our flowers, stones, pens, all 
we had. He smiled with an infinite earnest- 
ness ; and we had a strange delight beside him. 
One day he will come again, said our Teacher, 
and then our lessons end. — Along with him he 
sent one, for whom we bad often been sorry. 
Always sad he looked ; he had been long years 
here; nothing would succeed with him ; when 
we sought crystals or flowers, he seldom found. 
He saw dimly at a distance ; to lay down varie- 
gated rows skilfully he had no power. He was 
so apt to break every thing. Yet none had such 
eagerness, such pleasure in hearing and listen- 
ing. At last, — it was before that Child came 
into our circle, — he all at once grew cheerful 
and expert. One day he had gone out sad; he 
did not return, and the night came on. We 
were very anxious for him; suddenly as the 
morning dawned, we heard his voice in a 
neighbouring grove. He was singing a high, 
joyful song; we were all surpri; ed ; the Teacher 
looked to the East, such a l^i-! as I shall never 
see in him again. The singer soon came forth 
to us, and brought, with unspeakable blessed- 
ness on his face, a simple-looking little stone, 
of singular shape. The Teacher took it in his 
hand, and kissed him long; then looked at us 
vith wet eyes, and laid this little stone on an 
empty space, which lay in the midst of other 
stones, just where, like radii, many rows of 
them met together. 

" I shay in no time forget that moment. We 
felt as if we had had in our souls a clear pass- 
ing glimpse into this wondrous World." 

In these strange Oriental delineations, the 
judicious reader will suspect that more may 
be meant than meets the ear. But who this 
Teacher at Sais is, whether the personified 
Intellect of Mankind; and who this bright-faced 
golden-locked Child, (Reason, Religious Faith?) 
that was "to come again," to conclude these 
lessons; and that awkward unwearied Man, 
(Understanding?) that "was so apt to break 
every thing," we have no data for determining, 
and would not undertake to conjecture with 
any certainty. We subjoin a passage from 
the second chapter, or section, entitled " iV<(- 
iuTc," which, if possible, is of a still more sur- 
prising character than the first. After speak- 
ing at some length on the primeval views Man 
seems to have formed with regard to the ex- 
ternal Universe, " the manifold objects of his 
Senses ;" and how in those times his mind had 
a peculiar unity, and only by Practice divided 
itself into separate faculties, as by Practice it 
may yet further do, "our Pupil" proceeds to 
describe the conditions requisite in an inquirer 
into Nature, observing, in conclusion, with 
regard to this, — 



"No one, of a surety, wanders further from 
the mark, than he who fancies to himself that 
he already understands this marvellous King- 
dom, and can, in few words, fathom its consti- 
tution, and everywhere find the right path. To 
no one, who has broken off, and made himself 
an Island, will insight rise of itself, nor even 
without toilsome effort. Only to children, or 
child-like men, who know not what they do, 
can this happen. Long, unwearied intercourse, 
free and wise Contemplation, attention to faint 
tokens and indications; an inward poet-life, 
practised senses, a simple and devout spirit; 
these are the essential requisites of a true 
Friend of Nature; without these no one can 
attain his wish. Not wise does it seem to 
attempt comprehending and understanding a 
Human World without full perfected Humanity. 
No talent must sleep; and if all are not alike 
active, all must be alert, and not oppressed and 
enervated. As Ave see a future Painter in the 
boy who fills every wall with sketches and 
variedly adds colour to figure; so we see a 
future Philosopher in him who restlessly traces 
and questions all natural things, pays heed to 
all, brings together whatever is remarkable, 
and rejoices when he has become master and 
possessor of a new phenomenon, of a new 
power and piece of knowledge. 

"Now to Some it appears not at all worth 
while to follow out the endless divisions of 
Nature; and moreover a dangerous undertak- 
ing, without fruit and issue. As we can never 
reach, say they, the absolutely smallest grain 
of material bodies, never find their simplest 
compartments, since all magnitude loses itself, ^ 
forwards and backwards, in infinitude, so like- 
wise is it with the species of bodies and pow- 
ers ; here too one comes on new species, new 
combinations, new appearances, even to infini- 
tude. These seem only to stop, continue they, 
when our diligence tires; and so it is spending 
precious time with idle contemplations and 
tedious enumerations; and this becomes at 
last a (rue delirium, a real vertigo over the 
horrid Deep. For Nature loo remains, so far 
as we have yet come, ever a frightful Machine 
of Death: everywhere monstrous revolution, 
inexplicable vortices of movement; a kingdom 
of Devouring, of the maddest tyranny; a bale- 
ful Immense: the few light points disclose but 
a so much the more appalling Night, and ter- 
rors, of all sorts, must palsy every observer. 
Like a Saviour does Death stand by the hapless 
race of Mankind; for without Death, the mad- 
dest were the happiest. And precisely this 
striving to fathom that gigantic Mechanism is 
already a draught towards the Deep, a com- 
mencing giddiness ; for every excitement is an 
increasing whirl, which soon gains full mastery 
over its victim, and hurls him forward with it 
into the fearful Night. Here, say those lament- 
ers, lies the crafty snare for Man's understand- 
ing, which Nature everywhere seeks to anni- 
hilate as her greatest foe. Hail to that child- 
like ignorance and innocence of men, which 
kept them blind to the horrible perils, that 
everywhere, like grim thunder-clouds, lay 
round their penceful dwelling, and each mo- 
ment were ready to rush down on them. Only 
inward disunion among the powers of Nature 



NOVALIS. 



vr^ 



has preserved men hitherto ; nevertheless, that 
great epoch cannot fail to arrive, when the 
■whole family of mankind, by a grand universal 
Resolve, will snatch themselves from this sor- 
rowful condition, from this frightful imprison- 
ment; and by a voluntary Abdication of their 
terrestrial abode, redeem their race from this 
anguish, and seek refuge in a happier world, 
with their ancient Father. Thus might they 
end worthily; and prevent a necessary, violent 
destruction ; or a still more horrible degenerat- 
ing into Beasts, by gradual dissolution of their 
thinking organs, through Insanity. Intercourse 
with the powers of Nature, with animals, 
plants, rocks, storms, and waves, must neces- 
sarily assimilate men to these objects ; and this 
Assimilation, this Metamorphosis, and dissolu- 
tion of the Divine and the Human, into ungo- 
vernable Forces, is even the Spirit of Nature, 
that frightfully voracious Power: and is not all 
that we see even now a prey from Heaven, a 
great Ruin of former Glories, the Remains of a 
terrific Repast T 

" Be it so, cry a more courageous Class ; let 
our species maintain a stubborn, well-planned 
war of destruction with this same Nature. By 
slow poisons must we endeavour to subdue 
her. The Inquirer into Nature is a noble hero, 
who rushes into the open abyss for the deliv- 
erance of his fellow Citizens. Artists have 
already played her many a trick ; do but con- 
tinue in this course; get hold of the secret 
threads, and bring them to act against each 
other. Profit by these discords, that so in the 
end you may lead her, like that fire-breathing 
Bull, according to your pleasure. To you she 
must become obedient. Patience and Faith 
beseem the children of men. Distant Brothers 
are united with us for one object; the wheel 
of the Stars must become the cistern-wheel of 
our life, and then, by our slaves, we can build 
us a new Fairyland. With hfeart-felt triumph 
let us look at her devastations, her tumults ; 
she is selling herself to us, and every violence 
she will pay by a heavy penalty. In the in- 
spiring feeling of our Freedom, let us live and 
die; here gushes forth the stream, which will 
one day overflow and subdue her; in it let us 
bathe, and refresh ourselves for new exploits. 
Hither the rage of the Monster does not reach; 
one drop of Freedom is sufficient to cripple her 
for ever, and for ever set limits to her havoc. 

"They are right, say Several; here, or no- 
where, lies the talisman. By the well of Free- 
dom we sit and look ; it is the grand magic 
Mirror, where the whole creation images itself, 
pure and clear; in it do the tender Spirits and 
Forms of all Natures bathe ; all chambers we 
here behold unlocked. What need have we 
toilsomely to wander over the troublous World 
of visible things 1 The purer World lies even 
in us, in this Well. Here discloses itself the 
true meaning of the great, many-coloured, 
complected Scene; and if full of these sights 
we return into Nature, all is well known to 
us, with certainty we distinguish ever}' shape. 
We need not to inquire long; a light Compa- 
rison, a few strokes in the sand, are enough 
to inform us. Thus, for us, is the whole a 
great Writing, to which we have the key ; and 
nothing comes to us nneipected, for the course 



of the great Horologe is known to us before-^ 
hand. It is only we that enjoy Nature with 
full senses, because she does not frighten us 
from our senses; because no fever-dreams 
oppress us, and serene consciousness makes 
us calm and confiding. 

"They are not right, says an earnest Man to 
these latter. Can they not recognise in Na- 
ture the true impress of their own Selves T 
It is even they that consume themselves in 
wild hostility to Thought. They know not 
that this so-called Nature of theirs is a Sport 
of the Mind, a waste Fantasy of their Dream. 
Of a suret)', it is for them a horrible Monster, 
a strange grotesque Shadow of their own Pas- 
sions. The waking man looks without fear 
at this offspring of his lawless Imagination ; 
for he knows that they are but vain Spectres 
of his weakness. He feels himself lord of 
the world: his Mc hovers victorious over the 
Abyss; and will through Eternities hover 
aloft above that endless Vicissitude. Har- 
mony is what his spirit strives to promulgate, 
to extend. He will, even to infinitude, grow 
more and more harmonious with himself and 
with his Creation ; and, at every step, behold 
the all-efficiency of a high moral order in the 
Universe, and what is purest of his Mc, come 
forth into brighter and brighter clearness. 
The significance of the World is Reason ; for 
her sake is the World here ; and when it is 
grown to be the arena of a child-like, expand- 
ing Reason, it will one day become the divine 
Image of her Activity, the scene of a genuine 
Church. Till then let men honour Nature as 
the Emblem of his own Spirit; the Emblem 
ennobling itself, along with him, to unlimited 
degrees. Let him, therefore, who would arrive 
at knowledge of Nature, train his moral sense/ 
let him act and conceive in accordance with? 
the noble Essence of his Soul; and as if of 
herself. Nature will become open to him. 
Moral Action is that great and only Experi- 
ment, in which all riddles of the most mani- 
fold appearances explain themselves. Whoso 
understands it, and in rigid sequence of 
Thought can lay it open, is for ever Master 
of Nature."— /f/. ii. s. 4.3—57. 

"The Pupil," it is added, " listens with alarav 
to these conflicting voices." If such was the 
case in half-supernatural Sais, it may well be 
much more so in mere sublunary London. 
Here again, however, in regard to these vapor- 
ous lucubrations, we can only imitate Jean 
Paul's Quintus Fixlein, who, it is said, in his 
elaborate Catalogue of German Errors of the 
Prcsa, " states that important inferences are to 
be drawn from it, and advises the reader to 
draw them." Perhaps these wonderful para- 
graphs, which look, at this distance, so like 
chasms filled with mere sluggish mist, might' 
prove valleys, with a clear stream, and soft 
pastures, were we near at hand. For one 
thing, either Novalis, with Tieck and Schlegel 
at his back, are men in a state of derange- 
ment; or there is more in Heaven and Earth 
than has been dreamt of in our Philosophy 
We may add that, in our view, this last 
Speaker, the " earnest Man," seems evidently 
to be Fichte ; the first two Classes look like 
some skeptical or atheistic brood, unacquaintccl 



180 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



"with Bacon's Novum Organum, or having, the 
First class at least, almost no faith in it. 
That theory of the human species ending by a 
universal simultaneous act of Suicide, will, to 
the more simple sort of readers, be new. 

As further and more directly illustrating 
Novalis's scientific views, we may here sub- 
join two short sketches, taken from another 
department of this volume. To all who pro- 
secute Philosophy, and take interest in its his- 
tory and present aspects, they will not be 
without interest. The obscure parts of Ihem 
are not perhaps unintelligible, but only ob- 
scure ; which unluckily cannot, at all times, 
be helped in such cases : 

" Common Logic is the Grammar of the 
higher Speech, that is, of Thought ; it ex- 
amines merely the relations of ideas to one 
another, the Mcchar.ics of Thought, the pure 
Physiology of ideas. Now logical ideas stand 
related to one another, like words without 
thoughts. Logic occupies itself with the mere 
dead Body of the science of Thinking. — Meta- 
physics, again, is the Dynnniirs of Thought ; 
treats of the primary Pomrs of Thought: oc- 
cupies itself with the mere Soul of the Science 
of Thinking. Metaphysical ideas stand re- 
lated to one another, like thoughts without 
words. Men often wondered at the stubborn 
Incompletibility of these two Sciences ; each 
followed its own business by itself: there was 
a want everywhere, nothing would suit rightly 
with either. From the very First, attempts 
were made to unite them, as every thing about 
them indicated relationship; but every attempt 
failed ; the one or the other Science still suf- 
fered in these attempts, and lost its essential 
character. We had to abide by metaphysical 
Logic, and Logical metaphysic, but neither of 
them was as it should be. With Physiology 
and Psychology, with Mechanics and Chemis- 
try, it fared no better. In the latter half of 
this Century there arose, with us Germans, a 
more violent commotion than ever ; the hos- 
tile masses towered themselves up against 
each other more fiercely than heretofore; the 
fermentation was extreme; there followed 
powerful explosions. And now some assert 
that a real Compenetration has somewhere or 
other taken place ; that the germ of a union 
has arisen, which will grow by degrees, and 
assimilate all to one indivisible form : that 
this principle of Peace is pressing out irresist- 
ibly, on all sides, and that ere long there will 
be but one Science and one Spirit, as one Pro- 
phet and one God." — 

"The rude, discursive Thinker is the Scho- 
lastic [Schoolman Logician]. The true Scho- 
lastic is a mystical Subtilist; out of logical 
Atoms he builds his Universe ; he annihilates 
all livingNature, toput an Artifice of Thoughts 
[Gcdankenhmststuck, literally, Conjuror's-trick 
of Thoughts] in its room. His aim is an infi- 
nite Automaton. Opposite to him is the rude, 
intuitive Poet: this is a mystical Macrologist; 
he hates rules, and fixed form ; a wild, violent 
life reigns instead of it in Nature; all is an- 
imate, no law; wilfulness and v/onder every- 
where. He is mere dynamical. Thus does 
he Philosophic Spirit arise at first, in altoge- 
ther separate masses. In the secotid stage of 



culture these masses begin to come in contact, 
multifariously enough ; and, as in the union 
of infinite Extremes, the Finite, the Limited 
arises, so here also arise 'Eclectic Philoso- 
phers' without number ; the time of misun- 
derstandings begins. The most limited is, in 
this stage, the most important, the purest Phi- 
losopher of The second stage. This class oc- 
cupies itself wholly with the actual, present 
world, in the strictest sense. The Philoso- 
phers of the first class look down with con- 
tempt on those of the second ; say, they are a 
little of every thing, and so nothing; hold their 
views as results of weakness, as Inconse- 
quentism. On the contrary, the second class, 
in their turn, pity the first; lay the blame on 
their visionary enthusiasm, which the}^ say is 
absurd, even to insanity. If, on the one hand, 
the Scholastics and Alchemists seem to be ut- 
terly at variance, and the Eclectics on the 
other hand quite at one, yet, strictly examined, 
it is altogether the reverse. The former, in 
essentials, are indirectly of one opinion ; 
namely, as regards the non-dependence, and 
infinite character of Meditation, the both set 
out from the absolute: whilst the Eclectic and 
limited sort are essentially at variance; and 
agree only in what is deduced. The former 
are infinite but uniform, the latter bounded 
but multiform; the former have genius, the 
latter talent : those have Ideas, these have 
knacks, (Hamlgriffe ;) those are heads with- 
out hands, these are hands without heads. 
The third stage is for the Artist, who can be at 
once implement and genius. He finds that 
that primitive Separation in the absolute Phi- 
losophical Activities [between the Scholastic, 
and the 'rude intuitive Poet'] is a deeper- 
lying Separation in his own Nature; which 
Separation indicates, by its existence as such, 
the possibility of being adjusted, of being 
joined : he finds that, heterogeneous as these 
Activities are, there is yet a faculty in him of 
passing from the one to the other, of chang- 
ing his polarity at will. He discovers in them, 
therefore, necessary members of his spirit; 
he observes that both must be united in some 
common Principle. He infers that Eclectic- 
ism is nothing but the imperfect defective em- 
ployment of this Principle. It becomes " 

But we need not struggle farther, wringing 
a significance out of these mysterious words: 
in delineating the genuine Transcendentalist, 
or "Philosopher of the third stage," properly 
speaking, the Philosopher, Novalis ascends into 
regions, whither few readers would follow 
him. It may be observed here, that British 
Philosophy, tracing it from Duns Scotus to 
Dugald Stewart, has now gone through the 
first and second of these " stages," the Scho- 
lastic and the Eclectic, and in considerable 
honour. With our amiable Professor Stewart, 
than whom no man, not Cicero himself, was 
ever more entirely Eclectic, that second or 
Eclectic class may be considered as having 
terminated; and now Philosophy is at a stand 
among us, or rather there is now no Philosophy 
visible in these Islands. It remains to be 
seen, whether we also are to have our "third 
staee;" and how that new and highest "class" 
will demean itself here. The French Philosn. 



NOVALIS. 



181 



phers seem busy studying Kant, and writing 
of him: but we rather imagine Novalis would 
pronounce them still only in the Eclectic stage. 
He says afterwards, that " all Eclectics are 
essentially and at bottom skeptics; the more 
comprehensive, the more skeptical." 

These two passages have been extracted 
from a large series of i^ragw(e?!/s, which, under 
the three divisions of Philosophical, Critical, 
Moral, occupy the greatest part of Volume 
second. They are fractions, as we hinted 
above, of that grand " encyclopedical work" 
which Novalis had planned. Friedrich Schle- 
gel is said to be the selector of those published 
here. They come before us, without note or 
comment; worded for the most part in ver}- 
unusual phraseology, and without repeated 
and most patient investigation, seldom yield 
any significance, or rather we should say, often 
yield a false one. A few of the clearest we 
have selected for insertion : whether the reader 
will think them " Pollen of Flowers," or a 
baser kind of dust, we shall not predict. We 
give them in a miscellaneous shape ; over- 
looking those classifications which, even in 
the text, are not and could not be very rigidly 
adhered to. 

" Philosophy can bake no bread ; but she 
can procure for us God, Freedom, Immortality. 
Which then is more practical. Philosophy or 
Economy? — 

" Philosophy is properly Home-sickness ; 
the wish to be everywhere at home. — 

" We are near awakening when we dream 
'that we dream. — 

"The true philosophical Act is annihilation 
of self, (Selbstiodtting :) this is the real beginning 
of all Philosophy; all requisites for being a 
Disciple of Philosophy point hither. This 
Act alone corresponds to all the conditions and 
characteristics of transcendental conduct. — 

" To become properly acquainted with a 
truth, we must first have disbelieved it, and 
disputed against it. — 

"Man is the higher Sense of our Planet; 
the star which connects it with the upper 
world; the eye which it turns towards Hea- 
ven. — 

"Life is a disease of the spirit; a working 
incited by Passion. Rest is peculiar to the 
spirit. — 

" Our Life is no Dream, but it may and will 
perhaps become one. — 

"What is Nature? An encyclopedical, sys- 
tematic Index, or Plan of our Spirit. Why 
will we content us with the mere Catalogue of 
our Treasures? Let us contemplate them 
ourselves, and in all ways elaborate and use 
them. — 

"If our Bodily Life is a burning, our spi- 
ritual Life is a being-burnt, a Combustion (or, 
is precisely the inverse the case?); Death, 
therefore, perhaps a Change of Capacity. — 

" Sleep is for the inhabitants of Planets only. 
In another time, Man will sleep and wake 
continually at once. The greater part of our 
Body, of our Humanity itself, yet sleeps a deep 
sleep. — 

"There is but one Temple in the World; 
and that is the Body of Man. Nothing is 
holier than this high form. Bending before 



men is a reverence done to this Revelation in 
the Flesh. — We touch Heaven, when we lay 
our hand on a human body. — 

" Man is a Sun ; his Senses are the Planets. — 

"Man has ever expressed some symbolical 
Philosophy of his Being in his Works and 
Conduct; he announces himself and his Gos- 
pel of Nature ; he is ihe Messiah of Nature. — 

" Plants are Children of the Earth ; we are 
Children of the ^ther. Our Lungs are pro- 
perly our Root; we live, when we breathe; 
we begin our life with breathing. — 

"Nature is an Eolian Harp, a musical in- 
strument ; whose tones again are keys to 
higher strings in us. — 

"Every beloved object is the centre of a 
Paradise. — 

"The first Man is the first Spiritseer; all 
appears to him as Spirit. What are children, 
but first men? The fresh gaze of the Child 
is richer in significance than the forecasting 
of the most indubitable Seer. — 

"It depends only on the weakness of our 
organs and of our self-excitement (Sclbsiberiih- 
rung) that we do not see ourselves in a Fairy- 
world. All Fabulous Tales, (Mahrchen,) are 
merel}' dreams of that home-world, which is 
everywhere and nowhere. The higher powers 
in us, which one day, as Genies, shall fulfil our 
will,* are, for the present, Muses, which re- 
fresh us on our toilsome course with sweet 
remembrances. — 

"Man consists in Truth. If he exposes 
Truth, he exposes himself. If he betrays 
Truth, he betrays himself. We speak not here 
of Lies, but of acting against Conviction. 

" A character is a completely fashioned will 
(^vollkomnicn gcbilddcr IVille.') — 

"There is, properly speaking, no Misfortune 
in the world. Happiness and Misfortune stand 
in continual balance. Every Misfortune is, as 
it were, the obstructioii of a stream, which, 
after over-coming this obstruction, but bursts 
through M"ith the greater force. — 

"The ideal of Morality has no more dan- 
gerous rival than the ideal of highest Strength, 
of most powerful life ; which also has been 
named (very falsely as it was there meant) the 
ideal of poetic greatness. It is the maximum 
of the savage ; and has, in these times, gained, 
precisely among the greatest weaklings, very 
many proselytes. By this ideal, man becomes 
a Beast-Spirit, a Mixture ; whose brutal wit 
has, for M'eaklings, a brutal power of attrac- 
tion. — 

" The spirit of Poesy is the morning light, 
which makes the statue of Memnon sound. — 

"The division of Philosopher and Poet is 
only apparent, and to the disadvantage of both. 
It is a sign of disease, and of a sickly con- 
stitution. — 

"The true Poet is all-knowing; he is an 
actual world in miniature. — 



* Novalis's ideas, on what has tieeii called tlie "per- 
fectibility of man," ground themselves on his peculiar 
views of the constitution of material and spiritual Na- 
ture, and are of the most original and extraordinary 
character. With our utmost effort, we should despair 
of communicatinjr other than a quite false notion of 
them. He asks, for instance, with srientitic sravity: 
Whether any one, that recollects the first kind glance 
of her he loved, can doubt the possibility of Magic? 

Q 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



"Klopstock's works appear, for the most 
part, free Translations of an unknown Poet, 
by a very talented but unpoetical Philologist. — 
"Goethe is an altogether practical poet. He 
is in his works what the English are in their 
wares: highly simple, neat, convenient, and 
durable. He has done in German Literature 
what Wedgewood did in English Manufacture. 
He has, like the English, a natural turn for 
Economy, and a noble Taste acquired by Uii- 
iJerstanding. Both these are very compatible, 
and have a near afiinity in the chemical 
sense. * * — Wilhelm MeislersJ}ppreiiticcshipm&y 
be called throughout prosaic and modern. The 
Romantic sinks to ruin, the Poesy of Nature, 
the Wonderful. The Book treats merely of 
common Worldly things : Nature and Mysti- 
cism arc altogether forgotten. It is a poetized, 
civic, and household History; the Marvellous 
is expressly treated therein as imagination and 
£nthusiasm. Artistic Atheism is the spirit of 
the Book. * * * It is properly a CiunVuh', di- 
rected against Poetry; the Book is highly un- 
poetical in respect of spirit, poetical as the 
dress and body of it is. * * * The introduction 
of Shakspeare has almost a tragic eft'cct. The 
hero retards the triumph of the Gospel of 
Economy; and economical Nature is finally 
the true and only remaining one. — 

" When we speak of the aim and Art observa- 
ble in Shakspeare's works, we must not forget 
that Art belongs to Nature; that it is, so to 
fpeak, self-viewing, self-imitating, self-fashion- 
ing Nature. The Art of a well-developed genius 
js far different from the Artfulness of the Under- 
standing, of the merely reasoning mind. Shak- 
speare was no calculator, no learned thinker; 
he was a mighty many-gifted soul, whose feel- 
ings and works, like products of Nature, bear 
the stamp of the same spirit; and in which the 
last and deepest of observers will still find new 
harmonies with the infinite structure of the 
Universe ; concurrences with later ideas, athni- 
ties with the higher powers and senses of man. 
They are emblematic, have many meanings, 
are simple, and inexhaustible, like products of 
Nature; and nothing more unsuitable could be 
said of them than that they are works of Art, 
in that narrow mechanical acceptation of the 
word." 

The reader understands that we oft'er these 
specimens not as the best to be found in 
Novalis'si'V«g»i(';iYs, but simply as the most in- 
telligible. Far stranger and deeper things there 
are, could wc hope to make them in the smallest 
degree understood. But in examining and re- 
examining many of his Fragments, we find 
ourselves carried into more complex, more 
subtle regions of thought than any we are else- 
where acquainted with : here we cannot always 
find our own latitude and longitude, some- 
linies not even approximate to finding them ; 
much less teach others such a secret. 

What has been already quoted may afford 
some knowledge of Novalis, in the characters 
of Philosopher and Critic: there is one other 
aspect under which it would be still more 
curious to view and exhibit him, but still more 
difficult, — we mean that of his Religion. No- 
valis nowhere specially records his creed, in 
^bcse Writings : he many times expresses, or 



implies, a zealous, heartfelt belief in the Chris- 
tian system; yet with such adjuncts, and co- 
existing persuasions, as to us might seem 
rather surprising. One or two more of these 
his Aphorisms, relative to this subject, we 
shall cite, as likely to be better than any 
description of ours. The whole essay at the 
end of volume first, entitled Die Chns.tnheU oder 
Knropa (Christianity or Europe), is also well 
worthy of study, in this as in many other points 
of view. 

"Religion contains infinite sadness. If we 
are to love God, he must be in distress {bulf- 
bedurflig, help-needing). In how far is this 
condition answered in Christianity? — 

"Spinoza is a God-intoxicated-man {Gott- 
trunkcncr Mcnu-h.^ — 

" Is the Devil, as Father of Lies, himself but 
a necessary illusion 1 — 

"The Catholic Religion is to a certain ex- 
tent applied Clii istianity. Fichte's Philosophy 
too is perhaps applied Christianity. — 

"Can Miracles work Conviction 1 Or is 
not real Conviction, this highest function of 
our soul and personality, the only true God- 
announcing Miracle? 

"The Christian Religion is especially re- 
markable, moreover, as it so decidedly lays 
claim to mere good will in Man, to his essen- 
tial Temper, and values this independently of 
all Culture and Manifestation. It stands in 
opposition to Science and to Art, and ^^-qpcr^y 
/() Enjoyment* 

" Its origin is with the common people. It 
inspires the great majority of the limitedin this 
Earth. 

" It is the Light that begins to shine in the 
Darkness. 

" It is the root of all Democracy, the highest 
Fact in the Rights of Man (die hochste Thatsache 
dcr ropulariliit.') 

" Its unpoetical exterior, its resemblance to 
a modern family-picture, seems only to be lent 
it* — 

" Martyrs are spiritual heroes. Christ was 
the greatest martyr of our species; through 
him has martyrdom become infinitely signifi- 
cant and holy. — 

"The Bible begins nobly, with Paradise, the 
symbol of youth ; and concludes with the 
Eternal Kingdom, the Holy City. Its two main 
divisions, also, are genuine grand-historical 
divisions (aclit ^rosslnsloriscli.) For in every 
grand-historical compartment, (r;/((v/,) the grand 
history must lie, as it were, symbolically re- 
created, (vcrjungt, made young again.) The 
beginning of the New Testament is the second 
higher Fall, (the Atonement of the Fall,) and 
the commencement of the new Period. The 
history of every individual man should be a 
Bible. Christ is the new Adam. A Bible is 
the highest problem of Authorship. — 

" As yet there is no Religion. You must 
first make a Seminary (Bildungs-^chiile) of 
genuine Religion. Think ye that there is Re- 
ligion 1 Religion has to be made and produced 
(gentacht mid hervorgehracltl) by the union of a 
number of persons." 
Hitherto our readers have seen nothing of 



♦ Italics also in the text. 



NOVALIS. 



183 



Novalis in his character of Poet, properly so 
called; the Pupils at Sais being; fully more of 
a scientific than poetic nature. As hinted 
above, we do not account his gifts in this 
latter province as of the first, or even of a 
high order; unless, indeed, it be true, as he 
himself maintains, that "the distinction of 
Poet and Philosopher is apparent only, and to 
the injury of both." In his professedly poetical 
compositions, there is an indubitable prolixity, 
a degree of languor, not weakness but slug- 
gishness ; the meaning is too much diluted; 
and diluted, we might say, not in a rich, lively, 
varying music, as we find in Tieck, for ex- 
ample ; but rather in a low-voiced, not un- 
melodious monotony, the deep hum of which 
is broken only at rare intervals, though some- 
times by tones of purest, and almost spiritual 
softness. We here allude chiefly to his un- 
metrical pieces, his prose fictions : indeed the 
metrical are few in number ; for the most part 
on religious subjects ; and in spite of a decided 
truthfulness both in feeling and word, seem to 
hespeak no great skill or practice in that form 
of composition. In his prose style he may be 
accounted happier; he aims in general at 
simplicity, and a certain familiar expressive- 
ness ; here and there, in his more elaborate 
passages, especially in his Hymns to the Night, 
he has reminded us of Herder. 

These Hymns to the Night, it will be remem- 
bered, were written shortly after the death of 
his mistress: in that period of deep sorrow, 
or rather of holy deliverance from sorrow. 
Novalis himself regarded them as his most 
finished productions. They are of a strange 
veiled, almost enigmatical character; never- 
theless, more deeply examined, they appear 
nowise without true poetic worth; there is a 
vastness, an immensity of idea; a still solem- 
nity reigns in them, a solitude almost as of 
extinct worlds. Here and there, too, some 
lightbeam visits us in the void deep; and we 
cast a glance, clear and wondrous, into the 
secrets of that mysterious soul. A full com- 
mentary on the Hymns to the Nigid would be an 
exposition of Novalis's whole theological and 
moral creed; for it lies recorded there, though 
symbolically, and in lyric, not in didactic lan- 
guage. We have translated the third, as the 
i, shortest and simplest; imitating its light, half- 
measured style; above all, decyphering its 
vague deep-laid sense, as accurately as we 
could. By the word "Night." it will be seen, 
Novalis means much more than the common 
opposite of Day. "Light" seems, in these 
poems, to shadow forth our terrestrial life; 
Night the primeval and celestial life : 

"Once when I was shedding bitter tears, 
■when dissolved in pain my Hope had melted 
away, and I stood solitary by the grave that in 
its dark narrow space concealed the Form of 
my life ; solitary as no other had been ; chased 
by unutterable anguish; powei'less; one thought 
and that of misery ; — here now as I looked 
round for help ; forward could not go, nor back- 
■ward, but clung to a transient extinguished 
Life with unutterable longing; — lo, from the 
azure distance, down from the heights of my 
old Blessedness, came a chill Breath of Dusk, 
and suddenly the band of Birth, the fetter of 



Light was snapped asunder. Vanishes the 
Glory of Earth, and with it my Lamenting 
rushes together the infinite Sadness into a new 
unfathomable World : thou Nighi's-inspiration, 
Slumber of Heaven, earnest over me; the scene 
rose gently aluft ; over the scene hovered my 
enfranchised new-born spirit; to a cloud of dust 
that grave changed itself; through the cloud I be- 
held the transfigured features of my Beloved. In 
her eyes lay Eternity; I clasped her hands, and 
my tears became a glittering indissoluble chain. 
Centuries of Ages moved away into the distance, 
like thunder-clouds. On her neck I wept, for 
this new life, enrapturing tears. — It was my 
first only Dream ; and ever since then do I feel 
this changeless everlasting faith in the Heaven 
of Night, and its Sun my Beloved." 

What degree of critical satisfaction, what 
insight into the grand crisis of Novalis's spi- 
ritual history, which seems to be here sha- 
dowed forth, our readers may derive from this 
Third Hymn to the Night, we shall not pretend 
to conjecture. Meanwhile, it were giving them 
a false impression of the Poet, did we leave him 
here ; exhibited only under his more mystic 
aspects : as if his Poetry were exclusively a 
thing of Allegory, dwelling amid Darkness and 
Vacuity, far from all paths of ordinary mortals 
and their thoughts. Novalis can write in the 
most common style, as well as in this most un- 
common one ; and there too not without ori- 
ginality. By far the greater part of his First 
volume is occupied with a Romance, Heinrich 
von Oficrdingen, written, so far as it goes, much 
in the every-day manner; we have adverted 
the less to it, because we nowise reckon it 
among his most remarkable compositions. 
Like many of the others, it has been left 
as a Fragment; nay, from the account Tieck 
gives of its ulterior plan, and how from the 
solid prose world of the first part, this "Apo- 
theosis of Poetry" was to pass, in the Second, 
into a mythical, fairy, and quite fantastic world, 
critics have doubted, whether, strictly speak- 
ing, it could have been completed. From this 
work, we select two passages, as specimens of 
Novalis's manner in th^more common style of 
composition; premising, which in this one in- 
stance we are entitled to do, that whatever ex- 
cellence they may have will be universally 
appreciable. The first is the introduction to 
the whole Narrative, as it were, the text of the 
whole; the "Blue Flower" there spoken of being 
Poetry, the real object, passion and vocation 
of young Heinrich, which, through manifold 
adventures, exertions, and sufferings, he is to 
scelf and find. His history commences thus : 
"The old people were already asleep; the 
clock was beating its monotonous tick on the 
wall ; the wind blustered over the rattling win- 
dows: by turns, the chamber was lighted by 
the sheen of the moon. The young man lay 
restless in his bed ; and thought of the stranger 
land his stories. 'Not the treasures, is it,' 
said he to himself, ' that have awakened in me 
so unspeakable a desire ; far from me is all co- 
vetousness ; but the Blue Flower is what I long 
to behold. It lies incessantly in my heart, and 
I can think and fancy of nothing else. Never 
did I feel so before: it is as if, till now, I had 
been dreaming, or as if sleep had carried me 



184 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



into another world ; for in the world I lased 
to live in, who troubled himself about flowers 1 
Such wild passion for a Flower was never 
heard of there. But whence could that stran- 
ger have come? None of us ever saw such 
a man ; yet I know not how I alone was so 
caught with his discourse ; the rest heard the 
very same, yet none seems to mind it. And 
then that I cannot even speak of my strange 
condition ! I feel such rapturous contentment ; 
and only then when I have not the Flower 
rightly before my eyes, does so deep heartfelt 
an eagerness come over me, these things no one 
will or can believe. I could fancy I were mad, 
if I did not see, did not think with such perfect 
clearness ; since that day, all is far better known 
tome. I have heard tell of ancient times ; how 
animals and trees and rocks used to speak with 
men. This is even my feeling; as if they were 
on the point of breaking out, and I could see 
in them, what they wished to say to me. There 
must be many a word which I know not : did I 
know more, I could belter comprehend these 
matters. Once I liked dancing ; now I had 
rather think to the music' — The young man lost 
himself, by degrees, in sweet fancies, and fell 
asleep. He dreamed first of immeasurable 
distances, and wild unknown regions. He 
wandered over seas with incredible speed; 
strange animals he saw ; he lived with many 
varieties of men, now in war, in wild tumult, 
now in peaceful huts. He was taken captive, 
and fell into the lowest wretchedness. All 
emotions rose to a height as yet unknown to 
him. He lived through an infinitely variegated 
life ; died, and came back; loved to the highest 
passion, and then again was for ever parted 
from his loved one. At length towards morn- 
ing, as the dawn broke up without, his spirit 
also grew stiller, the images grew clearer and 
more permanent. It seemed to him he mms 
walking alone in a dark wood. Only here and 
there did day glimmer through the green net. 
Ere long he came to a rocky chasm, which 
mounted upwards. He had to climb over many 
crags, which some former stream had rolled 
down. The higher he came, the lighter grew 
the wood. At last he arrived at a little mea- 
dow, which lay on the declivityof the mountain. 
Beyond the meadow rose a high cliff, at the 
foot of which he observed an opening, that 
seemed to be the entrance of a passage hewn 
in the rock. The passage led him easily on, 
for some time, to a great subterranean expanse, 
out of which from afar a bright gleam was vi- 
siole. On entering, he perceived a strong beam 
of light, which sprang as if from a fountain to 
the roof of the cave, and sprayed itself into in- 
numerable sparks, which collected below in a 
great basin : the beam glanced like kindled 
gold : not the faintest noise was to be heard, a 
sacred silence encircled the glorious sight. He 
approached the basin, which waved and qui- 
vered with infinite hues. The walls of the 
cave were coated with this fluid, which was not 
hot but cool, and on the walls, threw out a faint 
bluish light. He dipt his hand in the basin, 
and welted his lips. It was as if the breath of 
a spirit went through him ; and he felt himself 
in his inmost heart strengthened and refreshed. 
An irresistible desire seized him to bathe ; he 



undressed himself and slept into the basin. He 
felt as if a sunset cloud were floating round him; 
a heavenly emotion streamed over his soul ; in 
deep pleasure innumerable thoughts strove to 
blend within him ; new, unseen images arose, 
which also melted together, and became visi- 
ble beings around him ; and every wave of that 
lovely element pressed itself on him like a soft 
bosom. The flood seemed a Spirit of Beauty, 
which from moment to moment Avas taking 
form round the youth. 

"Intoxicated with rapture, and yet conscious 
of every impression, he floated softly down that 
glittering stream, which flowed out from the 
basin into the rocks. A sort of sweet slumber 
fell upon him, in which he dreamed indescriba- 
ble adventures, and out of which a new light 
awoke him. He found himself on a soft sward 
at the margin of a spring, Avhich welled out 
into the air, and seemed to dissipate itself there. 
Dark-blue rocks, with many-coloured veins, 
rose at some distance ; the daylight which en- 
circled him was clearer and milder than the 
common; the sky was black-blue, and alto- 
gether pure. But what attracted him infinitely 
most was a high, light-blue Flower, which stood 
close by the spring, touching it with its broad 
glittering leaves. Round it stood innumerable 
flowers of all colours, and the sweetest perfume 
filled the air. He saw nothing but the Blue 
Flower; and gazed on it long with nameless 
tenderness. At last he was for approaching, 
when all at once it began to move and change ; 
the leaves grew more resplendent, and clasped 
themselves round the waxing stem ; the Flower 
bent itself towards him ; and the petals showed 
like a blue spreading ruff, in which hovered a 
lovely face. His sweet astonishment at this 
transformation was increasing, — when sudden- 
ly his mother's voice awoke him, and he found 
himself in the house of his parents, which the 
morning sun was already gilding." 

Our next and last extract is likewise of a 
dream. Young Heinrich with his mother 
travels a long journey to see his grandfather 
at Augsburg; converses, on the way, with 
merchants, miners, and red-cross warriors, 
(for it is in the lime of the crusades ;) and soon 
after his arrival, falls immeasurably in love 
with Matilda, the PoelKlingsohr's daughter, in 
whose face was that fairest one he had seen in 
his old vision of the Blue Flower. Matilda, it 
would appear, is to be taken from him by death, 
(as Sophie was from Novalis:) meanwhile, 
dreading no such event, Heinrich abandons 
himself with full heart to his new emotions : 

" He Avent to the window. The choir of the 
Stars stood in the deep heaven; and in the 
east, a white gleam announced the coming 
day. 

"Full of rapture, Heinrich exclaimed: ' You, 
j^e everlasting Stars, ye silent wanderers, I call 
you to witness my sacred oath. For Matilda 
will I live, and eternal faith shall unite my 
heart and hers. For me, too, the morn of an 
everlasting day is dawning. The night is by: 
to the rising Sun, I kindle myself, as a sacrifice 
that will never be extinguished.' 

"Heinrich was heated; and not till late, 
towards morning, did he fall asleep. In strange 
dreams the thoughts of his soul imbodied 



NOVALIS. 



185 



themselves. A deep blue river gleamed from 
the plain. On its smooth surface floated a 
bark ; Matilda was sitting there, and steering. 
She was adorned with garlands : was singing 
a simple Song, and looking over to him with 
fond sadness. His bosom was full of anxiety. 
He knew not why. The sky was clear, the 
stream calm. Her heavenly countenance was 
mirrored in the waves. All at once the bark 
began to whirl. He called earnestly to her. 
She smiled, and laid down her helm in the 
boat, which continued whirling. An unspeak- 
able terror took hold of him. He dashed into 
the stream; but he could not get forward; the 
water carried him. She beckoned, she seemed 
as if she wished to say something to him ; the 
bark was filling with water; yet she smiled 
with unspeakable affection, and looked cheer- 
fully into the vortex. All at once it drew her 
in. A faint breath rijipled over the stream, 
which flowed on as calm and glittering as be- 
fore. His horrid agony robbed him of con- 
sciousness. His heart ceased beating. On 
returning to himself, he was again on dry land. 
It seemed as if he had floated far. It was a 
strange region. He knew not what had passed 
with him. His heart was gone. Unthinking 
he walked deeper into the country. He felt 
inexpressibly weary. A little well gushed 
from a hill ; it sounded like perfect bells. 
With his hands he lifted some drops, and 
wetted his parched lips. Like a sick dream, 
lay the frightful event behind him. Farther 
and farther he walked ; flowers and trees 
spoke to him. He felt so well, so at home 
in the scene. Then he heard that simple 
Song again. He ran after the sounds. Sud- 
denly some one held him by the clothes. ' Dear 
Henry,' cried a well-known voice. He looked 
round, and Maltilda clasped him in her arms 
'Why didst thou run from me, dear heart "!'• 
said she, breathing deep: 'I could scarcely 
overtake thee.' Heinrich wept. He pressed 
her to him. 'Where is the river 1' cried he 
in tears. — ' Seest thou not its blue waves 
above us V He looked up, and the blue river 
was flowing softl}^ over their heads. ' Where 
are we, dear Matilda!' — 'With our Fathers.' 
— 'Shall we stay together]' — 'For ever,' an- 
swered she, pressing her lips to his, and so 
clasping him that she could not again quit 
hold. She put a wondrous, secret Word in his 
mouth, and it pierced through all his being. 
He was about to repeat it, when his Grand- 
father called, and he awoke. He would have 
given his life to remember that Word." 

This image of Death, and of the River being 
the Sky in that other and eternal country, 
seems to us a fine and touching one; there is 
in it a trace of that simple sublimity, that soft 
still pathos, which are characteristics of Nova- 
lis, and doubtless the highest of his specially 
poetic gifts. 

But on these, and what other gifts and de- 
ficiencies pertain to him, we can no farther 
insist: for now, after such multifarious quota- 
tions, and more or less stinted commentaries, 
we must consider our little enterprise in respect 
of Novalis to have reached its limits, to be, if not 
completed, concluded. Our reader has heard 
him largely; on a great variety of topics, 
24 



selected and exhibited here in such manner as- 
seemed the fittest for our object, and with a 
true wish on our part, that what little judg- 
ment was in the meanwhile to be formed of 
such a man, might be a fair and honest one. 
Some of the passages we have translated will 
appear obscure; others, we hope, are not with- 
out symptoms of a wise and deep meaning ; the 
rest may excite wonder, which wonder again 
it will depend on each reader for himself, 
whether he turn to right account or to wrong 
account, whether he entertain as the parent of 
Knowledge, or as the daughter of Ignorance^ 
For the great body of readers, we are aware,, 
there can be little profit in Novalis, who rather 
employs our time than helps us to kill it ; for 
such any farther study of him would be unad- 
visable. To others again, who prize Truth as 
the end of all reading, especially to that class 
who cultivate moral science as the develop- 
ment of purest and highest Truth, we can re- 
commend the perusal and re-perusal of Nova- 
lis with almost perfect confidence. If they 
feel, with us, that the most profitable employ- 
ment any book can give them, is to study 
honestly some earnest, deep-minded, truth- 
loving Man, to work their way into his manner 
of thought, till they see the world with his 
eyes, feel as he felt, and judge as he judged, 
neither believing nor denying, till they can in 
some measure so feel and judge, — then we may 
assert, that few books known to us are more 
worthy of their attention than this. They will 
find it, if we mistake not, an unfathomed mine 
of philosophical ideas, where the keenest intel- 
lect may have occupation enough ; and in 
such occupation, without looking farther, re- 
ward enough. All this, if the reader proceed 
on candid principles ; if not, it will be all 
otherwise. To no man, so much as to Nova-liS;,. 
is that famous motto applicable: 

Leser, vie gefalV ich Vir ? 
Leser, wie gefdllst Du mir ? 

Reader, how likest thou me ? 
Reader, how like 1 thee 7 

For the rest, it were but a false proceeding 
did we attempt any formal character of Novalis 
in this place; did we pretend with such means 
as ours to reduce that extraordinary nature 
under common formularies ; and in few words 
sum up the net total of his worth and worth- 
lessness. We have repeatedly expressed our 
own imperfect knowledge of the matter, and 
our entire despair of bringing even an approxi- 
mate picture of it before readers so foreign 
to him. The kind words, " amiable enthusiast," 
" poetic dreamer;" or the unkind ones, "Ger- 
man mystic," "crackbrained rhapsodist," are 
easily spoken and written ; but would avail 
liUle in this instance. If we are not altogether 
mistaken, Novalis cannot be ranged under 
any of these noted categories; but, belongs to 
a higher and much less known one, the signifi- 
cance of which is perhaps also -worth studying, 
at all events, will not till after long study be- 
came clear to us. 

Meanwhile, let the reader accept some vague 

impressions of ours on this subject, since we 

have no fixed judgment to offer him. We 

might say that the chief excellence, we have 

a2 



186 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



remarked in Novalis, is his to us truly wonder- 
ful subtlety of intellect ; his power of intense 
abstraction, of pursuing the deepest and most 
evanescent ideas, through their thousand com- 
plexities, as it were, with lynx vision, and to 
the very limits of human Thought. He was well 
skilled in mathematics, and, as we can easily 
believe, fond of that science; but his is a far 
finer species of endowment than any required 
in mathematics, where the mind, from the 
very beginning of Euclid to the end of Laplace, 
is assisted with visible symbols, with safe hn- 
plements for thinking; nay, at least in what is 
called the higher mathematics, has often little 
more than a mechanical superintendence to 
-exercise over these. This power of abstract 
meditation, when it is so sure and clear as we 
sometimes find it with Novalis, is a much 
higher and rarer one; its element is not mathe- 
matics, but that Mathen^, of which it has been 
said many a Great Calculist has not even a 
notion. In this power truly, so far as logical 
and not moral power is concerned, lies the 
summary of all Philosophic talent: which talent 
accordingly we imagine Novalis to have pos- 
sessed in a very high degree ; in a higher de- 
gree than almost any other modern writer we 
have met with. 

His chief fault again figures itself to us as 
a certain undue softness, want of rapid energy; 
something which we might term passivencss ex- 
tending both over his mind and his character. 
There is a tenderness in Novalis, a purity, a 
clearness, almost as of a woman ; but he has 
not, at least not at all in that degree, the em- 
phasis and resolute force of a man. Thus, in 
his poetical delineations, as we complained 
above, he is too diluted and difl^use ; not verbose 
properly; not so much abounding in superflu- 
ous words, as in superfluous circumstances, 
which indeed is but a degree better. In his 
philosophical speculations, we feel as if, under 
a diff'erent form, the same fault were now and 
then manifested. Here again, he seems to us, 
in one sense, too languid, too passive. He sits, 
we might say, among the rich, fine, thousand- 
fold combinations, which his mind almost of 
itself presents him; but, perhaps, he shows too 
little activity in the process, is too lax in sepa- 
rating the true from the doubtful, is not even 
at the trouble to express his truth with any la- 
borious accuracy. With his stillness, with 
his deep love of Nature, his mild, lofty, spiritual 
tone of contemplation, he comes before us in 
a sort of Asiatic character, almost like our 
ideal of some antique Gymnosophist, and with 
the weakness as well as the strength of an 
Oriental. However, it should be remembered 
that his works both poetical and philosophical, 
as we now see them, appear under many dis- 
advantages ; altogether immature, and not as 
doctrines and delineations, but as the rude 
draught of such ; in which, had they been com- 
pleted, much was to have changed its shape, 
and this fault with many others might have 
disappeared. It may be, therefore, that this 
is only a superficial fault, or even only the ap- 
pearance of a fault, and has its origin in these 
circumstances, and in our imperfect under- 
standing of him. In personal and bodily ha- 
bits, at least, Novalis appears to have been the 



opposite of inert; we hear expressly of his 
quickness and vehemence of movement. 

In regard to the character of his genius, or 
rather perhaps of his literary significance, and 
the form under which he displayed his genius, 
Tieck thinks he may be likened to Dante. "For 
him," says he, "it had become the most natu- 
ral disposition to regard the commonest and 
nearest as a wonder, and the strange, the super- 
natural as something common ; men's every- 
day life itself lay round him like a won- 
drous fable, and those regions which the most 
dream of or doubt of as of a thing distant, in- 
comprehensible, were for him a beloved home. 
Thus did he, uncorrupted by examples, find 
out for himself a new method of delineation; 
and in his multiplicity of meaning ; in his view 
of Love, and his belief in Love, as at once his 
Instructor, his Wisdom, his Religion; in this 
too that a single grand incident of life, and one 
deep sorrow and bereavement grew to be the 
essence of his Poetry and Contemplation, — he 
alone among the moderns resembles the lofty 
Dante; and sings us, like him, an unfathom- 
able, mystic song, far different from that of 
many imitators, who think to put on mysticism 
and put it off", like a piece of dress." Con- 
sidering the tendency of his poetic endeavours, 
as well as the general spirit of his philosophy, 
this flattering comparison may turn out to be 
better founded than at first sight it seems to be. 
Nevertheless, were we required to illustrate 
Novalis in this way, M^hich at all times must 
be a very loose one, we should incline rather 
to call him the German Pascal than the Ger- 
man Dante. Between Pascal and Novalis, a 
lover of such analogies might trace not a few 
points of resemblance. Both are of the purest, 
most affectionate moral nature; both of a high, 
fine, discursive intellect; both are mathemati- 
cians and naturalists, yet occupy themselves 
chiefly with Religion : nay, the best waitings 
of both are left in the shape of " Thoughts," 
materials of a grand scheme, which each of 
them, with the views peculiar to his age, had 
planned, we may say, for the furtherance of 
Religion, and which neither of them lived to 
execute. Nor in all this would it fail to be 
carefully remarked, that Novalis was not the 
French but the German Pascal; and from the 
intellectual habits of the one and the other, 
many national contrasts and conclusions might 
be drawn ; which we leave to those that have 
a taste for such parallels. 

We have thus endeavoured to communicate 
some views, not of what is vulgarly called, but 
of what is -German Mystic; to aff"ord English 
readers a few glimpses into his actual house- 
hold establishment, and show them by their 
own inspection how he lives and works. We 
have done it, moreover, not in the style of de- 
rision, which would have been so easy, but in 
that of serious inquiry, which seemed so much 
more profitable. For this we anticipate not 
censure, but thanks, from our readers. Mys- 
ticism, whatever it may be, should, like other 
actually existing things, be understood in well- 
informed minds. We have observed, indeed, 
that the old-established laugh on this subject 
has been getting rather hollow of late; and 
seems as if, ere long, it would in a great mea- 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



187 



sure die away. It appears to us that, in Eng- 
land, tiiere is a distinct spirit of tolerant and 
sober investigation abroad, in regard to this 
and other kindred matters; a persuasion, fast 
spreading wider and wider, that the plummet 
of French or Scotch Logic, excellent, nay, in- 
dispensable as it is for surveying all coasts 
and harbours, will absolutely not sound the 
deep-seas of human Inquiry; and that many a 
Voltaire and Hume, well-gifted and highly me- 
ritorious men, were far wrong iu reckoning 
that when their six hundred fathoms were out, 
they had reached the bottom, which, as in the 
Atlantic, may lie unknown miles lower. Six 
hundred fathoms is the longest, and a most 
"valuable nautical line: but many men sound 
with six and fewer fathoms, and arrive at pre- 
cisely the same conclusion. 

"The day will come," said Lichtenberg, in 
bitter irony, " when the belief in God will be 



like that in nursery Spectres ;" or, as Jean Paul 
has it, " Of the World will be made a World- 
Machine, of the JEiiher a Gas, of God a Force, 
and of the Second World — a Coffin." M'e ra- 
ther think, such a day will not come. At all 
events, while the battle is still waging, and 
that Coffin-and-Gas Philosophy has not yet se- 
cured itself with Tithes and penal Statutes, let 
there be free scope for Mysticism, or whatever 
else honestly opposes it. A fair field, and no 
favour, and the right will prosper ! " Our pre- 
sent time," says Jean Paul elsewhere, " is in- 
deed a criticising and critical time, hovering 
betwixt the wish and the inability to believe; 
a chaos of conflicting times ; but even a cha- 
otic world must have its centre, and revolution 
round that centre; there is no pure entire Con- 
fusion, but all such presupposes its opposite, 
before it can begin." 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



[EniNBUReH Review, 1829.] 



It is no very good symptom either of nations 
or individuals, that they deal much in vatici- 
nation. Happy men are full of the present, 
for its bounty suffices them ; and wise men 
also, for its duties engage them. Our grand 
business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies 
dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly 
at hand. 

Know'st thou Yesterday, its aim and reason •? 

Work'st thou well To-day, for worthy things? 

Then calmly wait the Jilorrow's hidden season, 

And fear not thou, what hap soe'er it brings ! 

But man's " large discourse of reason" will 
look " before and after ;" and, impatient of " the 
ignorant present time," will indulge in antici- 
pation far more than profits him. Seldom can 
the unhappy be persuaded that the evil of the 
day is sufficient for it; and the ambitious will 
not be content with present splendour, but 
paints yet more glorious triumphs, on the 
cloud-curtain of the future. 

The case, however, is still worse with na- 
tions. For here the prophets are not one, but 
many ; and each incites and confirms the 
other ; so that the fatidical fury spreads wider 
and wider, till at last even Saul must join in it. 
For there is still a real magic in the action 
and reaction of minds on one another. The 
•casual deliration of a few becomes, by this 
mysterious reverberation, the frenzy of many ; 
men lose the use, not only of their understand- 
ings, but of their bodily senses ; while the 
most obdurate, unbelieving hearts melt, like 
the rest, in the furnace where all are cast as 
victims and as fuel. It is grievous to think, 
that this noble omnipotence of Sympathy has 
been so rarely the Aaron's-rod of Truth and 
Virtue, and so often the Enchanter's-rod of 
Wickedness and Folly ! No solitary miscre- 
ant, scarcely any solitary maniac, would ven- 



ture on such actions and imaginations, as 
large communities of sane men have, in such 
circumstances, entertained as sound wisdom. 
Witness long scenes of the French Revolution ! 
a whole people drunk with blood and arrogance, 
and then with terror and cruelty, and with des- 
peration, and blood again ! Levity is no pro- 
tection against such visitations, nor the utmost 
earnestness of character. The New England 
Puritan burns witches, wrestles for months 
with the horrors of Satan's invisible world, 
and all ghastly phantasms, the daily and 
hourly precursors of the Last Day; then sud- 
denly bethinks him that he is frantic, weeps 
bitterly, prays contritely, and the history of 
that gloomy season lies behind him like a 
frightful dream. 

And Old England has had her share of such 
frenzies and panics ; though happily, like 
other old maladies, they have grown milder of 
late : and since the days of Titus Oates, have 
mostly passed without loss of men's lives, or 
indeed without much other loss than that of 
reason, for the time, in the sufl^erers. In this 
mitigated form, however, the distemper is of 
pretty regular recurrence ; and may be reck- 
oned on at intervals, like other natural visita- 
tions ; so that reasonable men deal with it, as 
the Londoners do with their fogs, — go cauti- 
ously out into the groping crowd, and patiently 
carry lanterns at noon ; knowing, by a well- 
grounded faith, that the sun is still in existence, 
and will one day reappear. How often have 
we heard, for the last fifty years, that the 
country was wrecked, and fast sinking; where- 
as, up to this date, the country is entire and 
afloat! The " State in Danger" is a condition 
of things, which we have witnessed a hundred 
times ; and as for the church, it has seldom been 
out of " danger" since we can remember it. 



188 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



All men are aware, that the present is a 
crisis of this sort; and why it has become so. 
The repeal of the Test Acts, and then of the 
Catholic disabilities, has struck many of their 
admirers with an indescribable astonishment. 
Those things seemed fixed and immovable ; 
deep as the foundations of the world ; and lo ! 
in a moment they have vanished, and their 
place knows them no more ! Our worthy 
friends mistook the slumbering Leviathan for 
an island ; often as they had been assured, 
that intolerance was, and could be nothing but 
a Monster ; and so, mooring under the lee, they 
had anchored comfortably in his scaly rind, 
thinking to take good cheer ; as for some space 
they did. But now their Leviathan has sud- 
denly dived under; and they can no longer 
be fastened in the stream of time ; but must 
drift forward on it, even like the rest of the 
world; no very appalling fate, we think, could 
they but understand it: which, however, they 
will not yet, for a season. Their little island 
is gone, and sunk deep amid confused eddies; 
and what is left worth carmg for in the uni- 
verse 1 What is it to them, that the great con- 
tinents of the earth are still standing; and the 
polestar and all our loadstars, in the heavens, 
still shining and eternal 1 Their cherished 
little haven is gone, and they will not be com- 
forted ! And therefore, day after day, in all 
manner of periodical or perennial publica- 
tions, the most lugubrious predictions are sent 
forth. The king has virtually abdicated ; the 
church is a widow, without jointure ; public 
principle is gone; private honesty is going; 
society, in short, is fast falling in pieces ; and 
a time of unmixed evil is come on us. At 
such a period, it was to be expected that the 
rage of prophecy should be more than usually 
excited. Accordingly, the Millenarians have 
come forth on the right hand, and the Millites 
on the left. The Fifth-monarchy men pro- 
phesy from the Bible, and the Utilitarians from 
Bentham. The one announces that the last of 
the seals is to be opened, positively, in the 
year 1860 ; and the other assures us, that " the 
greatest happiness principle" is to make a 
heaven of earth, in a still shorter time. We 
know these symptoms too well, to think it ne- 
cessary or safe to interfere with them. Time 
and the hours will bring relief to all parties. 
The grand encourager of Delphic or other 
noises is — the Echo. Left lo themselves, they 
will soon dissipate, and die away in space. 

Meanwhile, we too admit that the present is 
an important time ; as all present time neces- 
sarily is. The poorest day that passes over 
us is the conflux of two Eternities ! and is 
made up of currents that issue from the remot- 
est Past, and flow onwards into the remotest 
Future. We were wise indeed, could we dis- 
cern truly the signs of our own time; and by 
knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely 
adjust our own position in it. Let us then, 
instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, 
look calmly around us for a little, on the per- 
plexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on 
a more serious inspection, something of its 
perplexity will disappear, some of its distinc- 
tive characters, and deeper tendencies, more 
clearly reveal themselves ; whereby our own 



relations to it, our own true aims and endea- 
vours in it, may also become clearer. 

Were we required to characterize this age 
of ours by any single epithet, we should be 
tempted to call it, not an Heroical, Devotional, 
Philosophical, or Moral Age, but, above all 
others, the Mechanical Age. It is the Age of 
Machinerj', in every outward and inward sense 
of that word ; the age which, with its whole 
undivided might, forwards, teaches, and prac- 
tises the great art of adopting means to ends. 
Nothing is now done directly, or by hand; all 
is by rule and calculated contrivance. For 
the simplest operation, some helps and accom- 
paniments, some cunning, abbreviating pro- 
cess is in readiness. Our old modes of exertion 
are all discredited, and thrown aside. On 
every hand, the living artisan is driven from 
his workshop, to make room for a speedier, 
inanimate one. The shuttle drops from the 
fingers of the weaver, and falls into iron fin- 
gers that ply it faster. The sailor furls his 
sail, and lays down his oar, and bids a strong,, 
unwearied servant, on vapourous wings, bear 
him through the waters. Men have crossed 
oceans by steam ; the Birmingham Fire-king- 
has visited the fabulous East; and the genius 
of the Cape, v.'ere there any Camoens now to 
sing it, has again been alarmed, and with far 
stranger thunders than Gama's. There is no 
end to machinery. Even the horse is stripped 
of his harness, and finds a fleet fire-horse 
yoked in his stead. Nay, we have an artist 
that hatches chickens by steam ; the very 
brood-hen is to be superseded ! For all 
earthly, and for some unearthly purposes, we 
have machines and mechanic furtherances; 
for mincing our cabbages ; for casting us into 
magnetic sleep. We remove mountains, and 
make seas our smooth highway; nothing can 
resist us. We war with rude nature; and, by 
our resistless engines, come ofl" always vic- 
torious, and loaded with spoils. 

What wonderful accessions have thus been 
made, and are still making, to the physical 
power of mankind; how much better fed, 
clothed, lodged, and, in all outward respects, 
accommodated, men now are, or might be, by 
a given quantity of labour, is a grateful reflec- 
tion which forces itself on every one. What 
changes, too, this addition of power is intro- 
ducing into the social system ; how wealth 
has more and more increased, and at the same 
time gathered itself more and more into masses, 
strangely altering the old relations, and in- 
creasing the distance between the rich and the 
poor, will be a question for Political Econo- 
mists, and a much more complex and import- 
ant one than any they have yet engaged with. 
But leaving these matters for the present, let 
us observe how the mechanical genius of our 
time has ditfused itself into quite other pro- 
vinces. Not the external and physical alone 
is now managed by machinery, but the inter- 
nal and spiritual also. Here, too, nothing fol- 
lows its spontaneous course, nothing is left to 
be accomplished by old, natural methods. 
Every thing has its cunningly devised imple- 
ments, its pre-established apparatus; it is not 
done by hand, but by machinery. Thus we 
have machines for Education : Lancastrian 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



189 



machines; Hamiltonian machines; Monitors, 
maps, and emblems. Instruction, that myste- 
rious communing of Wisdom with Ignorance, 
is DO longer an indefinable tentative process, 
requiring a study of individual aptitudes, and 
a perpetual variation of means and methods, 
to attain the same end; but a secure, univer- 
sal, straight-forward business, to be conducted 
in the gross, by proper mechanism, with such 
intellect as comes to hand. Then, we have 
Religious machines, of all imaginable varie- 
ties ; the Bible Society, professing a far higher 
and heavenly structure, is found, on inquiry, 
to be altogether an earthly contrivance, sup- 
ported by collection of moneys, by fomenting 
of vanities, by puffing, intrigue, and chicane; 
and yet, in effect, a ver}' excellent machine for 
converting the heathen. It is the same in all 
other departments. Has any man, or any 
society of men, a truth to speak, a piece of 
spiritual work to do, they can nowise proceed 
at once, and with the mere natural organs, but 
must first call a public meeting, appoint com- 
mittees, issue prospectuses, eat a public din- 
ner; in a word, constructor borrow machinery, 
wherewith to spea"k it and do it. Without 
machinery they were hopeless, helpless ; a 
colony of Hindoo weavers squatting in the 
heart of Lancashire. Then every machine 
must have its moving power, in some of the 
great currents of society : Every little sect 
among us, Unitarians, Utilitarians, Anabap- 
tists, Phrenologists, must each have its periodi- 
cal, its monthly or quarterly magazine, — 
hanging out, like its windmill, into the popularis 
aura, to grind meal for the society. 

With individuals, in like manner, natural 
strength avails little. No individual now 
hopes to accomplish the poorest enterprise 
single-handed, and without mechanical aids ; 
he must make interest with some existing 
corporation, and till his field with their oxen. 
In these days, more emphatically than ever, 
"to live, signifies to unite with a party, or to 
make one." Philosophy, Science, Art, Litera- 
ture, all depend on machinery. No Newton, 
by silent meditation, now discovers the system 
of the world from the falling of an apple; but 
some quite other than Newton stands in his 
Museum, his Scientific Institution, and behind 
whole batteries of retorts, digesters, and gal- 
vanic piles imperatively "interrogates Nature," 
— who, however, shows no haste to answer. In 
defect of Raphaels, and Angelos, and Mozarts, 
we have Royal Academies of Painting, Sculp- 
ture, Music; whereby the languishing spirit 
of art may be strengthened by ithe more gene- 
rous diet of a Public Kitchen.' Literature, too, 
has its Paternoster-row mechanism, its Trade 
dinners, its Editorial conclaves, and huge sub- 
terranean puffing bellows; so that books are 
not only printed, but, in a great measure, 
written and sold, by machinery. National 
culture, spiritual benefit of all sorts, is under 
the same management. No Queen Christina, 
in these times, needs to send for her Descartes ; 
no King Frederic for his Voltaire, and pain- 
fully nourish him with pensions and flattery: 
but any sovereign of taste, who wishes to en- 
lighten his people, has only to impose a new 
tax, and with the proceeds establish Philoso- 



phic Institutes. Hence the Royal and Imperial 
Societies, the Bibliotheques, Glyptotheques, 
Technotheques, which front us in all capital 
cities, like so many well-finished hives, to 
which it is expected the stray agencies of 
Wisdom will swarm of their own accord, and 
hive and make honey. In like manner, among 
ourselves, when it is thought that religion is 
declining, we have only to vote half a million's 
worth of bricks and mortar, and build new 
churches. In Ireland, it seems they have gone 
still farther ; having actually established a 
" Penny-a,-week Purgatory Society !" Thus 
does the Genius of Mechanism stand by to 
help us in all difficulties and emergencies ; 
and, with his iron back, bears all our burdens. 

These things, which we state lightly enough 
here, are yet of deep import, and indicate a 
mighty change in our whole manner of exist- 
ence. For the same habit regulates not our 
modes of action alone, but our modes of 
thought and feeling. Men are grown mechani- 
cal in head and in heart, as well as in hand. 
They have lost faith in individual endeavour, 
and in natural force, of any kind. Not for 
internal perfection, but for external combina- 
tions and arrangements, for institutions, con- 
stitutions, — for Mechanism of one sort or other, 
do they hope and struggle. Their whole efforts, 
attachments, opinions, turn on mechanism, and 
are of a mechanical character. 

We may trace this tendency, we think, very 
distinctly, in all the great manifestations of 
our time; in its intellectual aspect, the studies 
it most favours, and its manner of conducting 
them ; in its practical aspects, its politics, arts, 
religion, morals; in the whole sources, and 
throughout the whole currents, of its spiritual, 
no less than its material activity. 

Consider, for example, the state of Science 
generally, in Europe, at this period. It is ad- 
mitted, on all sidgs, that the Metaphysical and 
Moral Sciences are falling into decay, while 
the Physical are engrossing, every day, more 
respect and attention. In most of the European 
nations, there is now no such thing as a Sci- 
ence of Mind; only more or less advancement 
in the general science, or the special sciences, 
of matter. The French were the first to desert 
this school of Metaphysics; and though they 
have lately affected to revive it, it has yet no 
signs of vitality. The land of Malebranche, 
Pascal, Descartes, and Fenelon, has now only 
its Cousins and Villemains; while, in the 
department of Physics, it reckons far other 
names. Among ourselves, the Philosophy of 
Mind, after a rickety infancy, which never 
reached the vigour of manhood, fell suddenly 
into decay, languished, and finally died out, 
with its last amiable cultivator. Professor 
Stewart. In no nation but Germany has any 
decisive effort been made in psychological 
science; not to speak of any decisive result. 
The science of the age, in short, is physical, 
chemical, physiological, and, in all shapes, 
mechanical. Our favourite Mathematics, the 
highly prized exponent of all these other 
sciences, has also become more and more 
mechanical. Excellence, in what is called its 
higher departments, depends less on natural 
genius, than on acquired cxpertness in wield- 



190 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ing its machinery. Without undervaluing the 
wonderful results which a Lagrange, or La- 
place, educes by means of it, we may remark, 
that its calculus, differential and integral, is 
little else than a more cunningly-constructed 
arithmetical mill, where the factors being put 
in, are, as it were, ground into the true pro- 
duct, under cover, and without other effort, on 
our part, than steady turning of the handle. 
We have more Mathematics certainly than 
ever ; but less Mathesis. Archimedes and 
Plato could not have read the Blecanique Celeste; 
but neither would the whole French Institute 
see aught in that saying, "God geometrizes !" 
but a sentimental rodomontade. 

From Locke's time downwards, our whole 
Metaphysics have been physical; not a spi- 
ritual Philosophy, but a material one. The 
singular estimation in which his Essay was 
so long held as a scientific work, (for the 
character of the man entitled all he said to 
veneration,) will one day be thought a curious 
indication of the spirit of these times. His 
whole doctrine is mechanical, in its aim and 
origin, in its method and its results. It is a 
mere discussion concerning the origin of our 
consciousness, or ideas, or whatever else they 
are called; a genetic history of what we see 
in the mind. But the grand secrets of Neces- 
sity and Free-will, of the mind's vital or non- 
vital dependence on matter, of our mysterious 
relations to Time and Space, to God, to the 
universe, are not, in the faintest degree, touch- 
ed on 'n these inquiries ; and seem not to have 
the smallest connection with them. 

The last class of our Scotch Metaphysicians 
had a dim notion that much of this was wrong ; 
but they knew not how to right it. The school 
of Reid had also from the first taken a me- 
chanical course, not seeing any other. The 
singular conclusions at which Hume, setting 
out from their admitted premises, was arriv- 
ing, brought this school into "being ; they let 
loose Instinct, as anundiscriminatingbati-dog, 
to guard them against these conclusions; — 
they tugged lustily at the logical chain by 
which Hume was so coldly towing them and 
the world into bottomless abysses of Atheism 
and Fatalism. But the chain somehow snap- 
ped between them; and the issue has been 
that nobody now cares about either, — any 
more than about Hartley's, Darwin's, or Priest- 
ley's contemporaneous doings in England. 
Hartley's vibrations and vibratiuncles one 
would think were material and mechanical 
enough; but our continental neighbours have 
gone still farther. One of their philosophers 
has lately discovered, that " as the liver se- 
cretes bile, so does the brain secrete thought ;" 
which astonishing discovery Dr. Cabanis, 
more lately still, in his Rapports du Physique el 
du Morale de V Homme, has pushed into its mi- 
nutest developments. The metaphysical philo- 
sophy of this last inquirer is certainly no sha- 
dowy or unsubstantial one. He fairly lays open 
our moral structure with his dissecting-knives 
and real metal probes ; and exhibits it to the in- 
spection of mankind, by Leuwenhoek micro- 
scopes and inflation with the anatomical blow- 
pipe. Thought, he is inclined to hold, is still 
secreted by the brain ; but then Poetry and 



Religion (and it is really worth knowing) are 
"a product of the smaller intestines!" We 
have the greatest admiration for this learned 
doctor: with what scientific stoicism he walks 
through the land of wonders, un wondering; 
like a wise man through some huge, gaudy, 
imposing Vauxhall, whose fire-works, cas- 
cades, and symphonies, the vulgar may enjoy 
and believe in, — but where he finds nothing 
real but the saltpetre, pasteboard, and catgut. 
His book may be regarded as the ultimatum 
of mechanical metaphysics in our time ; a re- 
markable realization of what in Martinus 
Scriblerus was still only an idea, that "as the 
jack had a meat-roasting qualit}", so had the 
body a thinking quality" — upon the strength 
of which the Nurembergers were to build a 
wood and leather man, " who should reason as 
well as miost country parsons." Vaucanson, 
did indeed make a wooden duck, that seemed 
to eat and digest; but that bold scheme of the 
Nurembergers remained for a more modern, 
virtuoso. 

This condition of the two great departments 
of knowledge — the outward, cultivated exclu- 
sively on mechanical principles ; the inward 
finall}^ abandoned, because, cultivated on such 
principles, it is found to yield no result — suf- 
ficiently indicates the intellectual bias of our 
time, its all-pervading disposition towards that 
line of inquiry. In fact, an inward persua- 
sion has long been diffusing itself, and now 
and then even comes to utterance, that, except 
the external, there are no true sciences ; that 
to the inward world (if there be any) our only 
conceivable road is through the outward ; that, 
in short, what cannot be investigated and un- 
derstood mechanically, cannot be investigated 
and understood at all. We advert the more 
particularly to these intellectual propensities, 
as to prominent symptoms of our age ; because 
Opinion is at all times doubly related to Ac- 
tion, first as cause, then as effect; and the 
speculative tendency of any age will there- 
fore give us, on the whole, the best indications 
of its practical tendency. 

Nowhere, for example, is the deep, almost 
exclusive faith, we have in Mechanism, more 
visible than in the Politics of this time. Civil 
government does, by its nature, include much 
that is mechanical, and must be treated ac- 
cordingly. We term it, indeed, in ordinary 
language, the Machine of Society, and talk of 
it as the grand working wheel from which all 
private machines must derive, or to which 
they must adapt, their movements. Consider- 
ed merely as a metaphor, all this is well 
enough ; but here, as in so many other cases, 
the " foam hardens itself into a shell," and the 
shadow we have wantonly evoked stands ter- 
ribly before us, and will not depart al^our bid- 
ding. Government includes much also that is 
not mechanical, and cannot be treated me- 
chanically; of which latter truth, as appears 
to us, the political speculations and exertions 
of our time are taking less and less cogni- 
sance. 

Nay, in the very outset, we might note the 
mighty interest taken in mere political arrange- 
ments, as itself the sign of a mechanical age. 
The whole discontent of Europe takes this di- 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



19L 



rection. The deep, strong cry of all civilized 
nations — a cry which every one now sees, 
must and will be answered — is, Give us a re- 
form of Government! A good structure of 
legislation, — a proper check upon the execu- 
tive, — a wise arrangement of the judiciary, is 
all that is wanting for human happiness. The 
Philosopher of this age is not a Socrates, a 
Plato, a Hooker, or Taylor, who inculcates on 
men the necessity and infinite worth of moral 
goodness, the great truth that our happiness 
depends on the mind which is within us, and 
not on the circumstances which are without 
us ; but a Smith, a De Lolme, a Bentham, who 
chiefly inculcates the reverse of this, — that our 
happiness depends entirely on external circum- 
stances ; nay, that the strength and dignity of 
the mind within us is itself the creature and 
consequence of these. Were the laws, the 
government, in good order, all were well with 
us; the rest would care for itself! Dissen- 
tients from this opinion, expressed or implied, 
are now rarely to be met with; widely and 
angrily as men differ in its application, the 
principle is admitted by all. 

Equally mechanical, and of equal simpli- 
city, are the methods proposed by both parties 
for completing or securing this all-sufficient 
perfection of arrangement. It is no longer 
the moral, religious, spiritual condition of the 
people that is our concern, but their physical, 
practical, economical condition, as regulated 
by public laws. Thus is the Body-politic 
more than ever worshipped and tended : but 
the Soul-politic less than ever. Love of coun- 
try, in any high or generous sense, in any 
other than an almost animal sense, or mere 
habit, has little importance attached to it in 
such reforms, or in the opposition shown 
them. Men are to be guided only by their 
self-interests. Good government is a good 
balancing of these ; and, except a keen eye 
and appetite for self-interest, requires no vir- 
tue in any quarter. To both parties it is em- 
phatically a machine : to the discontented, a 
"taxing machine;" to the contented, a " ma- 
chine for securing property." Its duties and 
its faults are not those of a father, but of an 
active parish constable. 

Thus it is by the mere condition of the ma- 
chine ; by preserving it untouched, or else by 
re-constructing it, and oiling it anew, that 
man's salvation as a social being is to be in- 
sured and indefinitely promoted. Contrive the 
fabric of law aright, and without farther effort 
on your part, that divine spirit of freedom, 
which all hearts venerate and long for, will of 
herself come to inhabit it; and under her 
healing wings every noxious influence will 
wither, every good and salutary one more 
and more expand. Nay, so devoted are we to 
this principle, and at the same time so curi- 
ously mechanical, that a new trade, specially 
grounded in it, has arisen among us, under the 
name of " Codification," or code-making in 
the abstract; whereby any people, for a rea- 
sonable consideration, may be accommodated 
with a patent code. — more easily than curious 
individuals with patent breeches, for the peo- 
ple does not need to be measured first. 

To us who live in the midst of all this, and 



see continually the faith, hope, and practice 
of every one founded on Mechanism of one 
kind or other, it is apt to seem quite natural, 
and as if it could never have been otherwise. 
Nevertheless, if we recollect or reflect a little, 
we shall find both that it has been, and might 
again be, otherwise. The domain of Mechan- 
ism, — meaning thereby political, ecclesiastical, 
or other outward establishments, — was once 
considered as embracing, and we are per- 
suaded' can at any time embrace but a limited 
portion of man's interests, and by no means 
the highest portion. 

To speak a little pedantically, there is a 
science of Dynamics in man's fortunes and na- 
ture, as well as of irierliunirs. There is a sci- 
ence which treats of, and practically addresses, 
the primary, unmodified forces and energies 
of man, the mysterious springs of Love, and 
Fear, and Wonder, of Enthusiasm, Poetry, 
Religion," all which have a truly vital and ivf,- 
nile character ; as well as a science which 
practically addresses the finite, modified deve- 
lopments of these, when they take the shape 
of immediate "motives," as hope of reward, 
or as fear of punishment. 

Now it is certain, that in former times the 
wise men, the enlightened lovers of their kind, 
who appeared generally as Moralists, Poets, 
or Priests, did, without neglecting the Mecha- 
nical province, deal chiefly with the Dynami- 
cal ; applying themselves chiefly to regulate, 
increase, and purify the inward primary pow- 
ers of man ; and fancying that herein lay the 
main difficulty, and the best service they could 
undertake. But a wide diflerence is manifest 
in our age. For the wise men, who now ap- 
pear as Political Philosophers, deal exclu- 
sively with the Mechanical province ; and 
occupying themselves in counting up and es- 
timating men's motives, strive by curious 
checking and balancing, and other adjust- 
ments of Profit and Loss, to guide them to 
their true advantage: while, unfortunately, 
those same "motives" are so innumerable, 
and so variable in every individual, that no 
really useful conclusion can ever be drawn 
from their enumeration. But though Mecha- 
nism, wisely contrived, has done much for 
man, in a social and moral point of view, we 
cannot be persuaded that it has ever been the 
chief source of his worth or happiness. Con- 
sider the great elements of human enjoyment, 
the attainments and possessions that exalt 
man's life to its present height, and see what 
part of these lie owes to institutions, to Me- 
chanism of any kind ; and what to the in- 
stinctive, unbounded force, which Nature 
herself lent him, and still continues to him. 
Shall we say, for example, that Science and 
Art are indebted principally to the found- 
ers of Schools and universities ? Did not 
Science originate rather, and gain advance- 
ment, in the obscure closets of the Roger Ba- 
cons, Keplers, Newtons ; in the workshops of 
the Fausts and the Watts; wherever, and in 
what guise soever Nature, from the first times 
downwards, had sent a gifted spirit upon the 
earth ? Again, were Homer and Shakspeare 
members of any beneficial guild, or made Poets 
by means of itl Were Painting and Sculp- 



192 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ture created by forethought, brought into the 
world by institutions for that endl No; Sci- 
ence and Art have, from first to last, been tlie 
free gift of Nature ; an unsolicited, unexpected 
gift : often even a fatal one. These things 
pjse up, as it were by spontaneous growth, in 
the free soil and sunshine of Nature. They 
■were not planted or grafted, nor even greatly 
multiplied or improved by the cultureormanur- 
ing of institutions. Generally speaking, they 
have derived only partial help from these : 
often have suffered damage. They made con- 
stitutions for themselves. They originated in 
the Dynamical nature of man, and not in his 
Mechanical nature. 

Or, to take an infinitely higher instance, that 
of the Christian Religion, which, under every 
-theory of it, in the believing or the unbelieving 
mind, must be ever regarded as the crowning 
glory, or rather the life and soul, of our whole 
modern culture : How did Christianity arise 
and spread abroad among men ] Was it by 
institutions, and establishments, and well-ar- 
ranged systems of mechanism? Not so; on 
the contrary, in all past and existing institu- 
tions for those ends, its divine spirit has inva- 
riably been found to languish and decay. It 
arose in the mystic deeps of man's soul; and 
was spread abroad by the "preaching of the 
word," by simple, altogether natural and indi- 
vidual efforts ; and flew, like hallowed fire, 
from heart to heart, till all were purified and 
illuminated by it; and its heavenly light shone, 
as it still shines, and as sun or star will ever 
shine, through the whole dark destinies of 
man. Here again was no Mechanism; man's 
highest attainment was accomplished, Dyna- 
mically, not Mechanically. Nay, we will ven- 
ture to say, that no high attainment, not even 
any far-extending movement among men, was 
ever accomplished otherwise. Strange as it 
may seem, if we read History with anydegreeof 
thoughtfulness, we shall find, that the checks 
and balances of Profit and Loss have never 
been the grand agents with man; that they have 
never been roused into deep, thorough, all-per- 
vading efforts by any computable prospect of 
Profit and Loss, for any visible, finite object; 
but always for some invisible and infinite one. 
The Crusades took their rise in Religion; 
their visible object was, commercially speak- 
ing, worth nothing. It was the boundless. In- 
visible world that was laid bare in the imagi- 
nations of those men ; and in its burning 
light, the visible shrunk as a scroll. Not me- 
chanical, nor produced by mechanical means, 
was this vast movement. No dining at Free- 
masons' Tavern, with the other long train of 
■modern machinery; no cunning reconcilia- 
tion of " vested interests," was required here : 
only the passionate voice of one man, the 
rapt soul looking through the eyes of one 
"man; and rugged, steel-clad Europe trembled 
beneath his words, and followed him whither 
he listed. In later ages, it was still the same. 
The Reformation had an invisible, mystic, and 
ideal aim ; the result was indeed to be embo- 
died in external things ; but its spirit, its 
worth, was internal, invisible, infinite. Our 
English Revolution, too, originated in Reli- 
gion. Men did battle, in those days, not for 



Purse sake, but for Conscience sake. Nay, 
in our own days, it is no way different. The 
French Revolution itself had something higher 
in it than cheap bread and a Habeas-corpus 
act. Here, too, was an Idea ; a Dynamic, not 
a Mechanic force. It was a struggle, though 
ablind and at last an insane one, for the infinite, 
divine nature of Right, of Freedom, of Country. 

Thus does man, in every age, vindicate, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, his celestial birth- 
right. Thus docs nature hold on her wondrous, 
unquestionable course; and all our systems 
and theories are but so many froth-eddies or 
sand-banks, which from time to time she casts 
up and washes away. When we can drain 
the Ocean into our mill-ponds, and bottle up 
the Force of Gi-avity, to be sold by retail, in 
our gas-jars; then may we hope to compre- 
hend the infinitudes of man's soul under for- 
mulas of Profit and Loss ; and rule over this 
too, as over a patent engine, by checks, and 
valves, and balances. 

Nay, even with regard to Government itself, 
can it be necessary to remind any one that 
Freedom, without which indeed all spiritual 
life is impossible, depends on infinitely more 
complex influences than either the extension 
or the curtailment of the " democratic interesti" 
Who is there that, " taking the high priori 
road," shall point out what these influences 
are; what deep, subtle, inextricably entangled 
influences they have been, and may be? For 
man is not the creature and product of Me- 
chanism; but, in a far truer sense, its creator 
and producer: it is the noble people that makes 
the noble Government; rather than conversely. 
On the whole, Institutions are much ; but they 
are not all. The freest and highest spirits of 
the world have often been found under strange 
outward circumstances: Saint Paul and his 
brother Apostles were politically slaves ; Epic- 
tetus was personally one. Again, forget the 
influences of Chivalry and Religion, and ask, 
— what countries produced Columbus and Las 
Casas? Or, descending from virtue and hero- 
ism, to mere energv and spiritual talent: Cor- 
tes, Pizarro, Alba, Ximenes 1 The Spaniards 
of the sixteenth century were indisputably the 
noblest nation of Europe; yet they had the In- 
quisition, and Philip II. They have the same 
government at this day; and are the lowest 
nation. The Dutch, too, have retained their 
old constitution ; but no Siege of Leyden, no 
William the Silent, not even an Egmont or 
De Witt, any longer appears amons them. 
With ourselves, also, where much has changed, 
effect has nowise followed cause, as it should 
have done: two centuries ago, the Commons' 
Speaker addressed t^neen Elizabeth on bended 
knees, happy that the virago's foot did not even 
smite him ; yet tlie people were then governed, 
not by a Castlereagh, but by a Burghley; they 
had their Shakspeare and Philip Sidney, where 
we have our Sheridan Knowles and Beau 
Brummel. 

These and the like facts are so familiar, the 
truths which they preach so obvious, and have 
in all past times bem so universally believed 
and acted on, that we should almost feel 
ashamed for repeating them; were it not that, 
oa every hand, the memory of them seems to 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES, 



193 



have passed away, or at best died into a faint 
tradition, of no value as a practical principle. 
To judge by the loud clamour of our Constitu- 
tion builders, Statists, Economists, directors, 
creators, reformers of Public Societies; in a 
■word, all manner of Mechanists, from the Cart- 
wright up to the Code-maker; and by the 
nearly total silence of all Preachers and Teach- 
ers who should give a voice to Poetry, Reli- 
gion, and Morality, we might fancy either that 
man.'s Dynamical nature was, to all spiritual 
intents, extinct, or else so perfected, that no- 
thing more was to be made of it by the old 
means ; and henceforth only in his Mechanical 
contrivances did any hope exist for him. 

To define the limits of these two departments 
of man's activity, which work into one another, 
and by means of one another, so intricately 
and inseparably, were by its nature an impos- 
sible attempt. Their relative importance, even 
to the wisest mind, will vary in different times, 
according to the special wants and dispositions 
of these times. Meanwhile, it seems clear 
enough that only in the right co-ordination of 
the two, and the vigorous forwarding of both, 
does our true line of action lie. Undue culti- 
vation of the inward or Dynamical province 
leads to idle, visionary, impracticable courses, 
and, especially in rude eras, to Superstition 
and Fanaticism, with their long train of baleful 
and well-known evils. Undue cultivation of 
the outward, again, though less immediately 
prejudicial, and even for the time productive 
of many palpable benefits, must, in the long 
run, by destroying Moral Force, which is the 
parent of all other Force, prove not less cer- 
tainly, and perhaps still more hopelessly, per- 
nicious. This, we take it, is the grand charac- 
teristic of our age. By our skill in Mechanism, 
it has come to pass that, in the management 
of external things, we excel all other ages; 
while in whatever respects the pure moral na- 
ture, in true dignity of soul and character, we 
are perhaps inferior to most civilized ages. 

In fact, if we look deeper, we shall find that 
this faith in Mechanism has now struck its 
roots deep into men's most intimate, primary 
sources of conviction ; and is thence sending 
up, over his whole life and activity, innume- 
rable stems, — fruit-bearing and poison-bearing. 
The truth is, men have lost their belief in the 
Invisible, and believe, and hope, and work only 
in the Visible; or, to speak it in other words, 
This is not a Religious age. Only the material, 
the immediately practical, not the divine and 
spiritual, is important to us. The infinite, ab- 
solute character of Virtue has passed into a 
finite, conditional one ; it is no longer a wor- 
ship of the Beautiful and Good ; but a calcula- 
tion of the Profitable. V\^orship, indeed, in any 
sense, is not recognised among us, or is me- 
chanically explained into Fear of pain, or 
Hope of pleasure. Our true Deity is Mecha- 
nism. It has subdued external Nature for us, 
and, we think, it will do all other things. We 
are Giants in physical power: in a deeper than 
a metaphorical sense, we are Titans, that 
strive, by heaping mountain on mountain, to 
conquer Heaven also. 

The strong mechanical character, so visible 
in the spiritual pursuits and methods of this 
25 



age, may be traced much farther into the con- 
dition and prevailingdispositionofourspiritual 
nature itself. Consider, for example, the gene- 
ral fashion of Intellect in this era. Intellect, 
the power man has of knowing and believing, 
is now nearly synonymous with Logic, or the 
mere power of arranging and communicating. 
Its implement is not Meditation, but Argument. 
" Cause and effect" is almost the only category 
under which we look at, and work with, all 
Nature. Our first question with regard to any 
object is not, What is it! but, How is if? We 
are no longer instinctively driven to appre- 
hend, and lay to heart, what is Good and Love- 
ly, but rather to inquire, as onlookers, how it 
is produced, whence it comes, whither it goes. 
Our favourite Philosophers have no love and 
no hatred ; they stand among us not to do, nor 
to create any thing, but as a sort of Logic-mills 
to grind out the true causes and efiects of all 
that is done and created. To the eye of a 
Smith, a Hume, or a Constant, all is well that 
works quietly. An Order of Ignatius Loyola, 
a Presbyterianism of John Knox, a Wicklifte, 
or a Henry the Eighth, are simply so many 
mechanical phenomena, caused or causing. 

The Eiiphvist of our day diflers much from 
his pleasant predecessors. An intellectual 
dapperling of these times boasts chiefly of his 
irresistible perspicacity, his " dwelling in the 
daylight of truth," and so forth ; which, on ex- 
amination, turns out to be a dwelling in the 
r»s/(-light of "closet-logic," and a deep uncon- 
sciousness that there is any other light to 
dwell in ; or any other objects to survey with 
it. Wonder indeed, is, on all hands, dying 
out : it is the sign of uncultivation to wonder. 
Speak to any small man of a high, majestic 
Reformation, of a high, majestic Luther to lead 
it, and forthwith he sets about "accounting" 
for it! how the "circumstances of the time" 
called for such a character, and found him, we 
suppose, standing girt and road-ready, to do 
its errand; how the "circumstances of the 
time" created, fashioned, floated him quietly 
along into the result; how, in short, this small 
man, had he been there, could have performed 
the like himself! For it is the "force of cir- 
cumstances" that does every thing; the force 
of one man can do nothing. Now all this is 
grounded on little more than a metaphor. We 
figure Society as a "Machine," and that mind 
is opposed to mind, as body is to bod}' ; where- 
by two, or at most ten, little minds must be 
stronger than one great mind. Notable ab- 
surdity! For the plain truth, very plain, we 
think, is, that minds are opposed to minds in 
quite a different way; and one man that has a 
higher Wisdom, a hitherto unknown spiritual 
Truth in him, is stronger, not than ten men 
that have it not, or than ten thousand, but than 
((// men, that have it not; and stands among 
them with a quite ethereal, angelic power, as 
with a sword out of Heaven's own armory, 
sky-tempered, which no buckler, and no tower 
of brass, will finally withstand. 

But to us, in these limes, such considera- 
tions rarely occur. We enjoy, we see nothing 
by direct vision ; but only by reflection, and 
in anatomical dismemberment. Like Sir Hu- 
dibras, for every Why, we must have a Where- 
R 



194 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fore. We have our little theory on all human 
and divine things. Poetry, the workings of 
genius itself, which in all times, with one or 
another meaning, has been called Inspiration, 
and held to be mysterious and inscrniable, is 
no longer without its scientific exposition. The 
building of the lofty ihyme is like any other 
masonry or bricklaying: we have theories of 
its rise, height, decline, and fall, — which latter, 
it would seem, is now near, among all people. 
Of our "Theories of Taste," as they are call- 
ed, wherein the deep, infinite, unspeakable 
Love of Wisdom and Beauty, which dwells 
in all men, is " explained," made mechanically 
visible, from "Association," and the like, why 
should we say any thing 1 Hume has written 
us a "Natural History of Religion ;" in which 
one Natural History, all the rest are included. 
Strangely, too, does the general feeling coin- 
cide wiih Hume's in this wonderful problem ; 
for whether his "Natural History" be the right 
one or not, that Religion must have a Natural 
History, all of us, cleric and laic, seem to be 
agreed. He indeed regards it as a Disease, we 
again as Health ; so far there is a difference ; 
but in our first principle we are at one. 

To what extent theological Unbelief, we 
mean intellectual dissent from the Church, in 
its view of Holy Writ, prevails at this day, 
would be a highly important, were it not, un- 
der any circumstances, an almost impossible 
inquiry. But the Unbelief, which is of a still 
more fundamental character, every man may 
see prevailing, with scarcely any but the faint- 
est contradiction, all around him ; even in the 
Pulpit itself. Religion in most countries, more 
or less in every country, is no longer what it 
was, and should be, — a thousand-voiced psalm 
from the heart of Man to his invisible Father, 
the fountain of all Goodness, Beauty, Truth, and 
revealed in every revelation of these ; but for 
the most part, a wise, prudential feeling 
grounded on a mere calculation ; a matter, as 
all others now are, of Expediency and Utility : 
whereby some smaller quantum of earthly en- 
joyment may be exchanged for a far larger 
quantum of celestial enjoyment. Thus Reli- 
gion, too, is Profit ; a working for wages ; not 
Reverence, but vulgar Hope or Fear. Many, 
we know, very many, we hope, are still reli- 
gious in a far different sense; were it not so, 
our case were too desperate : But to witness 
that such is the temper of the times, we take 
any calm observant man, who agrees or disa- 
grees in our feeling on the matter, and ask him 
whether our view of it is not in general well- 
founded. 

Literature, too, if we consider it, gives simi- 
lar testimony. At no former era has Litera- 
ture, the printed communication of Thought, 
been of such importance as it is now. We 
often hear that the Church is in danger; and 
truly so it is, — in a danger it seems not to 
know of: For, with its tithes in the most per- 
fect safety, its functions are becoming more 
and more superseded. The true Church of 
England, at this moment, lies in the Editors 
of its Newspapers. These preach to the peo- 
ple daily, weekly; admonishing kings them- 
selves; advising peace or war, with an au- 
thority which only the first Reformers and a 



long-past class of Popes were possessed of; 
inflicting moral censure; imparting moral en- 
couragement, consolation, edification; in all 
ways, diligently " administering the Discipline 
of the Church." It may be said, too, that in. 
private disposition, the new Preachers some- 
what resemble the Mendicant Friars of old 
times: outwardly full of holy zeal; inwardly 
not without stratagem, and hunger for terres- 
trial things. But omitting this class, and the 
boundless host of watery personages who .pipe, 
as they are able, on so many scrannel straws, 
let us look at the higher regions of Literature, 
where, if anywhere, the pure melodies of Poe- 
sy and Wisdom should be heard. Of natural 
talent there is no deficiency ; one or two richly- 
endowed individuals even give us a superiority 
in this respect. But what is the song they 
sing? Is it a tone of the Memnon Sta tue, 
breathing music as the light first touches iti 
a "liquid wisdom," disclosing to our sense the 
deep, infinite harmonies of Nature and man's 
soul ] Alas, no ! It is not a matin or vesper 
hymn to the Spirit of all Beauty, but a fierce 
clashing of cymbals, and shouting of multi- 
tudes, as children pass through the fire to Mo- 
lech ! Poetry itself has no eye for the Invisi- 
ble. Beauty is no longer the god it worships, 
but some brute image of Strength; which we 
may well call an idol, for true Strength is one 
and the same with Beauty, and its worship also 
is a hymn. The meek, silent Light can mould, 
create, and purify all Nature; but the loud 
Whirlwind, the sign and product of Disunion, 
of Weakness, passes on, and is forgotten. 
How widely this veneration for the physically 
Strongest has spread itself through Literature, 
any one may judge, who reads either criticism 
or poem. We praise a work, not as " true," 
but as " strong;" our highest praise is that it 
has " affected " us, has " terrified " us. All this, 
it has been well observed, is the "maximum 
of the Barbarous," the symptom, not of vigor- 
ous refinement, but of luxurious corruption. 
It speaks much, too, for men's indestructible 
love of truth, that nothing of this kind will 
abide with them ; that even the talent of a 
Byron cannot permanently seduce us into 
idol-worship; but that he, too, with all his wild 
syren charming, already begins to be disre- 
garded and forgotten. 

Again,'with respect to our Moral condition : 
here also, he who runs may read that the same 
physical, mechanical influences are everywhere 
busy. For the "superior morality," of which 
we hear so much, we too, would desire to be 
thankful: at the same time, it were but blind- 
ness to deny that this "superior morality" is 
properly rather an "inferior criminality," pro- 
duced not by greater love of Virtue, but by 
greater perfection of Police; and of that far 
subtler and stronger Police, called Public 
Opinion. This last watches over us with its 
Argus eyes more keenly than ever; but the 
"inward eye" seems heavy with sleep. Of any 
belief in invisible, divine things, we find as ^cvr 
traces in our Morality as elsewhere. It is by 
tangible, material considerations that we are 
guided, not by inward and spiritual. Self-denial, 
the parent of all virtue, in any true sense of 
that word, has perhaps seldom been rarer: so 



SIGNS OF THE TIMES. 



195? 



rai*e is it, that the most, even in their abstract 
speculations, regard ils existence as a chimera. 
Virtue is Pleasure, is Profit; no celestial, but 
an earthly thing. Virtuous men, Phiianihro- 
pists, Martyrs, are happy accidents ; their 
" taste" lies the right way ! In all senses, we 
worship and follow after Power; which may 
be called a physical pursuit. No man now 
loves Truth, as Truth must be loved, with an 
infinite love ; but only with a finite love, and as 
it were par amours. Nay, properly speaking, 
he does not believe and know it, but only "thinks" 
it, and that " there is every probability !" He 
preaches it aloud, and rushes courageously 
forth with it, — if there is a multitude huzzaing 
at his back ! yet ever keeps looking over his 
shoulder, and the instant the huzzaing lan- 
guishes, he too stops short. In fact, what mo- 
rality we have lakes the shape of Ambition, of 
Honour; beyond money and money's worth, our 
only rational blessedness is popularity. It were 
but a fool's trick to die for conscience. Only for 
"character," by duel, or in case of extremity, 
by suicide, is the wise man bound to die. By 
arguing on the "force of circumstances," we 
have argued away all force from ourselves ; 
and stand leashed together, uniform in dress 
and movement, like the rowers of some bound- 
less galley. This and that may be right and 
true; 6m< we must not do it. Wonderful "Force 
of Public Opinion!" We must act and walk 
in all points as it prescribes ; follow the traffic 
it bids us, realize the sum of money, the degree 
of " influence" it expects of us, or v, e shall be 
lightly esteemed ; certain mouthfuls of articu- 
late wind will be blown at us, and this, what 
mortal courage can front] Thus, while civil 
Liberty is more and more secured to us, our 
moral Liberty is all but lost. Practically con- 
sidered, our creed is Fatalism: and, free in 
hand and foot, we are shackled in heart and 
soul, with far straiter than Feudal chains. 
Truly may we say with the Philosopher, " the 
deep meaning of the laws of Mechanism lies 
heavy on us ;" and in the closet, in the market- 
place, in the temple, by the social hearth, en- 
cumbers the whole movements of our mind, 
and over our noblest faculties is spreading a 
night-mare sleep. 

These dark features, we are aware, belong 
more or less to other ages, as well as ^o ours. 
This faith in Mechanism, in the all-importance 
of physical things, is in every age the common 
refuge of Weakness and blind Discontent; of 
all who believe, as many will ever do, that 
man's true good lies without him, not within. 
We are aware also, that, as applied to our- 
selves in all their aggravation, they form but 
half a picture; that in the whole picture there 
are bright lights as well as gloomy shadows. 
If we here dwell chiefly on the latter, let us not 
be blamed : it is in general more profitable to 
reckon up our defects, than to boast of our at- 
tainments. 

Neither, with all these evils more or less 
clearly before us, have we at any time despaired 
of the fortunes of society. Despair, or even 
despondency, in that respect, appears to us, in 
all cases,' a groundless feeling. We have a 
faith in the imperishable dignity of man ; in 



the high vocation ta which, throughout this las' 
earthly history, he has been appointed. How- 
ever it may be with individual nations, wha*-- 
ever melancholic speculators may assert, it- 
seems a well-ascertained fact that, in all times, 
reckoning even from those of the Heracleids- 
and Pelasgi, the happiness and greatness oF 
mankind at large have been continually pre*- 
gressive. Doubtless this age also is advancing^. 
Its very unrest, its ceaseless activity, its dis~ 
content, contains matter of promise. Know- 
ledge, education, are opening the eyes of the~ 
humblest, — are increasing the number of think-- 
ing minds without limit. This is as it should 
be; for, not in turning back, not in resisting,: 
but only in resolutely struggling forward, does 
our life consist. Nay, after all, our spiritual 
maladies are but of Opinion ; we are but fet- 
tered by chains of our own forging, and wbie-fe 
ourselves also can rend asunder. This deep, 
paralyzed subjection to physical objects come* 
not from Nature, but from our own unwise mode 
of vicicing Nature. Neither can we understand 
that man wants, at this hour, any faculty of 
heart, soul, or body, that ever belonged to hini^- 
" He, who has been born, has been a First- 
Man ;" has had lying before his young eyes, 
and as yetunhardened into scientific shapes, a. 
world as plastic, infinite, divine, as lay before 
the eyes of Adam himself. If Mechanism, like 
some glass bell, encircles and imprisons us, Mf 
the soul looks forth on a fair heavenly country 
which it cannot reach, and pines, and in its 
scanty atmosphere is ready to perish, — yet the 
bell is but of glass ; " one bold stroke to break 
the bell in pieces, and thou art delivere^l" 
Not the invisible world is wanting, for itdwei?* 
in man's soul, and this last is still here. Are 
the solemn temples in which the Divinity was 
once visibly revealed among us, crumbling: 
away] We can repair them, we can rebuild 
them. The wisdom, the heroic worth of otjr 
forefathers, which we have lost, we can rccorer.. 
That admiration of old nobleness, which n&w 
so often shows itself as a faint dilettantism, wpII 
one day become a generous emulation,, an^f 
man may again be all that he has been, and 
more than he has been. Nor are these the 
mere daydreams of fancy; they areclear pos- 
sibilities ; nay, in this time, they are even as- 
suming the character of hopes. Indicatioo'S 
we do see, in other countries and in our owa., 
signs infinitely cheering to us, that Mechanisiai 
is not always to be our hard taskmaster, baS 
one day to be our pliant, all-ministering ser- 
vant; that a new and brighter spiritual era is 
slowly evolving itself for all men. But on 
these things our present course forbids us-ta 
enter. 

Meanwhile, that great outward changes are 
in progress can be doubtful to no one. The 
time is sick and out of joint. Many things 
have reached their height; and it is a wise 
adage that tells us, " the darkest hour is nearest 
the dawn." Whenever we can gather any in- 
dication of the public thought, whether from ■ 
printed books, as in France or Germany, or 
from Carbonari rebellions and other political 
tumults, as in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and 
Greece, the voice it utters is the same. The 
thinking minds of all nations call for change^ 



196 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



There is a deep-lying struggle in the whole 
fabric of society; a boundless, grinding colli- 
sion of the New with the Old. The French 
Revolution, as is now visible enough, was not 
the parent of this mighty movement, but its 
oiTspring. Those two hostile influences, which 
always exist in human things, and on the con- 
stant intercommunion of which depends their 
health and safety, had lain in separate masses, 
accumulating through generations, and France 
w^as the scene of their fiercest explosion ; but 
the final issue was not unfolded in that coun- 
try : nay, it is not yet anywhere unfolded. 
Political freedom is hitherto the object of these 
efforts; but they will not and cannot stop there. 
It is towards a higher freedom than mere free- 
dom from oppression by his fellow-mortal that 
man dimly aims. Of this higher, heavenly 
freedom, which is "man's reasonable service," 



all his noble institutions, his faithful endea- 
vours, and loftiest attainments, are but the 
body, and more and more approximated em- 
blem. 

On the whole, as this wondrous planet, Earth, 
is journeying with its fellows through infinite 
space, so are the wondrous destinies embarked 
on it journeying through infinite time, under a 
higher guidance than ours. For ihe present, 
as our astronomy informs us, its path lies to- 
wards Hercules, the constellation of Physical 
Power: But that is not our most pressing con- 
cern. Go where it will, the deep Heaven will 
be around it. Therein let us have hope and 
sure faith. To reform a world, to reform a 
nation, no wise man will undertake; and all 
but foolish men know that the only solid, 
though a far slower reformation, is what each 
begins and perfects on himself. 



JEAN PAUL ERIEDRICH RICHTEH AGAIN.* 



[Foreign Review, 1830.] 



It is some six years since the name "Jean 
Paul Friedrich Richter" was first printed with 
English types; and some six-and-forty since it 
has stood emblazoned and illuminated on all 
true literary Indicators among the Germans ; 
a, fact, which, if we consider the history of 
many a Kotzebue and Chateaubriand, within 
that period, may confirm the old doctrine, that 
the best celebrity does not always spread the 
fastest; but rather, quite contrariwise, that as 
blown bladders are far more easily carried 
than metallic masses, though gold ones, of 
equal bulk, so the Playwright, Poetaster, Philo- 
sophe, will often pass triumphantly beyond 
seas, while the Poet and Philosopher abide 
quietly at home. Such is the order of nature : 
a Spurzheim flies from Vienna to Paris and 
London, within the year; a Kant, slowly ad- 
vancing, may, perhaps, reach us from Konigs- 
berg within the century : Newton, merely to 
cross the narrow Channel, required fifty years ; 
Shakspeare, again, three times as many. It is 
true there are examples of an opposite sort; 
now and then, by some rare chance, a Goethe, 
a Cervantes, will occur in literature, and 
Kings may laugh over I)o7i Quixote while it is 
yet unfinished, and scenes from Werter be 
painted on Chinese tea-cups, while the author 
is still a stripling. These, however, are not 
the rule, but the exceptions; nay, rightly in- 
terpreted, the exceptions which confirm it. In 
general, that sudden tumultuous popularity 
comes more from partial delirium on both sides, 
than from clear insight; and is of evil omen 
to all concerned with it. How many loud 
Bacchus-festivals of this sort have we seen 
prove to be Pseudo-Bacchanalia, and end in 
directly the inverse of Orgies ! Drawn by his 
team of lions, the jolly god advances as a real 



* Wahrheit aus Jean Paul's Leben. (Biography of Jean 
faul.) Istes, 2tes, 3tes Bdndchen. Breslau, 1826, '27, '28. 



god, with all his thyrsi, cymbals, Phallophori, 
and Moenadic women : the air, the earth is 
giddy with their clangor, their Evohes ; but, 
alas! in a little while, the lion-team shows 
long ears, and becomes too clearly an ass- 
team in lion-skins ; the Maenads wheel round 
in amazement; and then the jolly god, dragged 
from his chariot, is trodden into the kennels as 
a drunk mortal. 

That no such apotheosis was appointed for 
Richter in his own country, or is now to be 
anticipated in any other, we cannot but regard 
as a natural, and nowise unfortunate circum- 
stance. What divinity lies in him requires a 
calmer worship, and from quite another class 
of worshippers. Neither, in spite of that forty 
years' abeyance, shall we accuse England of 
any uncommon blindness towards him: nay, 
taking all things into account, we should rather 
consider his actual footing among us, as evinc- 
ing not only an increased rapidity in literary 
intercourse, but an intrinsic improvement in 
the manner and objects of it. Our feeling of 
foreign excellence, we hope, must be becoming 
truer: our Insular taste must be opening more 
and more into a European one. For Richter is 
by no means a man whose merits, like his 
singularities, force themselves on the general 
eye; indeed, without great patience, and some 
considerable Catholicism of disposition, no 
reader is likely to prosper much with him. 
He has a fine, high, altogether unusual talent; 
and a manner of expressing it perhaps still 
more unusual. He is a Humorist heartily and 
throughout; not only in low provinces of 
thought, wliere this is more common, but ia 
the loftiest provinces, where it is well nigh un- 
exampled; and thus, in wild sport, " playing 
bowls wiih the sun and moon," he fashions 
the strangest ideal world, which at first glance 
looks no better than a chaos. The Germans 
themselves find much to bear with in him; 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



197 



and for readers of any other nation, he is in- 
volved in almost boundless complexity; a 
might)' maze, indeed, but in which the plan, or 
traces of a plan, are nowhere visible. Far 
from appreciating and appropriating the spirit 
of his writings, foreigners find it in the highest 
difficult to seize their grammatical meaning. 
Probably there is not, in any modern language, 
so intricate a writer; abounding, without 
measure, in obscure allusions, in the most 
twisted phraseology; perplexed into endless 
entanglements and dislocations, parenthesis 
within parenthesis; not forgetting elisions, 
sudden whirls, quibs, conceits, and all manner 
of inexplicable crotchets: the whole moving 
on in the gayest manner, yet nowise in what 
seem military lines, but rather in huge party- 
coloured mob-masses. How foreigners must 
find themselves bested in this case, our readers 
may best judge from the fact, that a work with 
the following title was undertaken some twenty 
years ago, for the benefit of Richter's own 
countrymen : " K. Reinlwld's Lexicon for Jean 
Paul's works, or explanation of all the foreign words 
and unusual modes of speech ivhicli occur in las 
writings ; with short notices of the historical persons 
and facts therein alluded to ; and plain German 
versions of the more difficult passages in the context: 
— a necessary assistance for nil who u-ould read 
those uwrks with profit.''" So much for the 
dress or vehicle of Richter's thoughts ; now let 
it only be remembered farther, that the thoughts 
themselves are often of the most abstruse 
description ; so that not till after laborious 
meditation, can much, either of truth or of 
falsehood, be discerned in them; and we have 
a man, from whom readers with weak nerves, 
and a taste in any degree sickly, will not fail 
to recoil, perhaps with a sentiment approach- 
ing to horror. And yet, as we said, notwith- 
standing all these drawbacks, Richter already 
meets with a certain recognition in England ; 
he has his readers and admirers ; various 
translations from his works have been pub- 
lished among us ; criticisms, also, not without 
clear discernment, and nowise wanting in ap- 
plause ; and to all this, so far as we can see, 
even the un-German part of the public has 
listened with some cunositj' and hopeful an- 
ticipation. From Avhich symptoms we should 
infer two things, both very comfortable to us 
in our present capacity: First, that the old 
strait-laced, microscopic sect of Ecllcs-lettrcs- 
men, whose divinity was "Elegance," a creed 
of French growth, and more admirable for 
men-milliners than for critics and philosophers, 
must be rapidly declining in these Islands; 
and, secondly, which is a much more personal 
consideration, that, in still farther investigating 
and exhibiting this wonderful .lean Paul, we 
have attempted what will be, for many of our 
readers, no unwelcome service. 

Our inquiry naturally divides itself into two 
departments. the Biographical and the Critical; 
concerning both of which, in their order, we 
have some observations to make; and what, in 
regard to the latter department at least, we 
reckon more profitable, some rather curious 
documents to piese.it. 

It does not appear that Richter's life, exter- 
nally considered, difiered much in general 



character from other literary lives, which, fof 
most part, are so barren of incident : the earlier 
portion of it was straitened enough, but not 
otherwise distinguished ; the latter and busiest 
portion of it was, in like manner, altogether 
private ; spent chiefly in provincial tov/ns, and 
apart from high scenes or persons; its princi- 
pal occurrences the new books he wrote, its 
whole course a spiritual and silent one. He 
became an author in his nineteenth year; and 
with a conscientious assiduitv, adhered to that 
employment; not seeking, indeed carefully 
avoiding, any interruption or disturbance 
therein, were it only for a day or an hour. 
Nevertheless, in looking over those sixty vo- 
lumes of his, we feel as if Richter's histoiy 
must have another, much deeper interest and 
worth, than outward incidents could impart to 
it. For the spirit M'hich shines more or less 
completely through his writings, is one of pe- 
rennial excellence ; rare in all times and situa- 
tions, and perhaps nowhere and in no time 
more rare than in literary Europe, at this era. 
We see in this man a high, self-subsistentj 
original, and, in many respects, even great 
character. He shows himself a man of won- 
derful gifts, and with, perhaps, a still happier* 
combination andadjustment of these : in whom 
Philosophy and Poetry are not only reconciled; 
but blended together into a purer essence, into 
Religion; who, with the softest, most universal 
sympathy for outward things, is inwardly calm, 
impregnable ; holds on his way through ail 
temptations and afflictions, so quietly, yet so 
inflexibly ; the true literary man, among a thou- 
sand false ones, the Apollo among neatherds; 
in one word, a man understanding the nine- 
teenth century, and living in the midst of it; 
yet whose life is, in some measure, an heroic 
and devout one. No character of this kindj 
we are aware, is to be formed without mani-^ 
fold and victorious struggling with the world; 
and the narrative of such struggling, what lit- 
tle of it can be narrated and interpreted, will 
belong to the highest species of history. The 
acted life of such a man, it has been said, " is 
itself a Bible;" it is a "Gospel of Freedom," 
preached abroad to all men ; whereby, among 
mean unbelieving souls, we may know that 
nobleness has not yet become impossible; and, 
languishing amid boundless triviality and des-' 
picability, still understand that man's nature 
is indefeasibly divine, and so hold fast what is 
the most important of all faith, the faith in 
ourselves. 

But if the acted life of a pins Vatcs is so high 
a matter, the written life, which, if properly 
written, would be a translation and interpreta- 
tion thereof, must also have great value. Il 
has been said that no Poet is equal to his 
Poem, which saying is partially true; but, in 
a deeper sense, it may also be asserted, and 
with still greater truth, that no Poem is equal 
to its Poet. Now, it is Biography that first 
gives us both Poet and Poem ; by the signifi- 
cance of the one, elucidating and completing 
that of the other. That ideal outline of him- 
self, which a man unconsciously shadows forth 
in his writings, and which, rightly deciphered, 
will be truer than any other representation of 
him, it is the task of the Biographer to fill up 
p. 2 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



iiste an actual coherent figure, and bring home 
'to our experience, or at least clear, undoubting 
aidmiration, thereby to instruct and edify us in 
Kiasiy ways. Conducted on such principles, 
■the Biography of great men, especially of great 
Poeis, that is, of men in the highest degree 
viable minded and wise, might become one of 
iJie most dignified and valuable species of 
v^oaiposition. As matters stand, indeed, there 
^re few Biographies that accomplish any thing 
ijf this kind; the most are mere Indexes of a 
Biography, which each reader is to write out 
ifor himself, as he peruses them ; not the living 
feody, but the dry bones of a body, which should 
3»ave been alive. To expect any such Prome- 
thean virtue in a common Life-writer Avere 
vnnreasonable enough. How shall ihatunhap- 
-fiy Biographic brotherhood, instead of writing 
;Itke Index-makers and Government-clerks, 
■suddenly become enkindled with some sparks 
r«f intellect, or even of genial fire; and not only 
.■.«oJlec(ing dates and facts, but making use of 
•them, look beyond the surface and economical 
ibrm of a man's life, into its substance and 
;-SpiTit ? The truth is. Biographies are in a 
.similar case with Sermons and Songs : they 
J»ave their scientific rules, their ideal of perfec- 
tion and of imperfection, as all things have ; 
,5)«t hitherto their rules are only, as it were, 
^inseen Laws of Nature, not critical Acts of 
Parliament, and threaten us with no immedi- 
ate penalty : besides, unlike Tragedies and 
lEpics, such works may be something without 
;fceittg all : their simplicity of form, moreover, 
is apt to seem easiness of execution; and thus, 
■for one artist in those departments, we have a 
cifeousand bunglers. 

With regard to RicKter, in particular, to say 
•4.bat kis biographic treatment has been worse 
ahan usual, were saying much ; yet worse than 
■we expected it has certainly been. Various 
"Lives of Jean Paul," anxiously endeavouring 
•io profit by the public excitement, while it lasted, 
aind communicating, in a given space, almost a 
sninimum of information, have been read by 
■ffl'S, within the last four years, with no great 
■disappointment. We strove to take thankfully 
Twhat little they had to give ; and looked for- 
;ward, in hope, to that promised " Autobiogra- 
phy," wherein all deficiencies were to be sup- 
«pHed. Several years before his death, it would 
ssesiH, Richter had determined on writing some 
atcco^nt of his own life ; and with his cus- 
SUsonary honesty, had set about a thorough pre- 
paration for this task. After revolving many 
•plasis, some of them singular enough, he at 
last determined on the form of composition ; 
-jB.nd with a half-sportful allusion to Goethe's 
.Dichtun^^ und Wahrheit aus meinem Lcben, had 
■prefixed to his work the title Wahrheit aus 
Mumem Lchcn (Truth from my Life) ; having re- 
3iEqwished, as impracticable, the strange idea 
•jof writing, parallel to it, a i)/c/i/?««g (Fiction) 
-^Sso, under cover of " Nicolaus Margraf," — a 
^certain Apothecary, existing only as hero of 
ione of his last Novels ! In this work, which 
■«7eightier avocations had indeed retarded or 
(Suspended, considerable progress was said to 
■%ave been made ; and on Richter's decease, 
Serr Otto, a man of talents, who had been his 
vJRtiiaate friend for half a life-time, undertook 



the editing and completing of it; not without 
sufficient proclamation and assertion, which in 
the meanwhile was credible enough, that to 
him only could the post of Richter's biographer 
behmg 

Three little Volumes of that Wahrheit aus 
Jean PuuVs Lcben, published in the course of 
as many years, are at length before us. The 
First volume, which came out in 1S26, oc- 
casioned some surprise, if not disappointment; 
yet still left room for hope. It was the com- 
mencement of a real Autobiography, and writ- 
ten with much heartiness and even dignity of 
manner, though taken up under a quite unex- 
pected point of view, in that spirit of genial 
humour, of gay earnestness, which, with all its 
strange fantastic accompaniments, often sat on 
Jean Paul so gracefully, and to which, at any 
rate, no reader of his works could be a stranger. 
By virtue of an autocratic ukase, Paul had 
appointed himself" Professor of his own His- 
tory," and delivered to the Universe three 
beautiful "Lectures" on that subject; boasting, 
justly enough, that, in his special department, 
he was better informed than any other man 
whatever. He was not without his oratorical 
secrets and professorial habits: thus, as Mr. 
Wortley, in writing his parliamentary speech 
to be read within his hat, had marked, in va- 
rious passages, " Here cough," so Paul with 
greater brevity, had an arbitrary hieroglyph 
introduced here and there, among his papers, 
and purporting, as he tells us, Meine Herren, 
nicmand scharrc, nicmand gdhnc ! — "Gentlemen, 
no scraping, no yawning!" — a hieroglyph, we 
must say, which many public speakers might 
stand more in need of than he. 

Unfortunately, in the Second volume, no 
other Lectures came to light, but only a string 
of disconnected, indeed quite heterogeneous 
Notes, intended to have been fashioned into 
such; the full free stream of oratory dissipated 
itself into unsatisfactory drops. With the 
Third volume, which is by much the longest, 
Herr Otto appears more decidedly in his own 
person, though still rather with the scissors 
than with the pen ; and, behind a multitude of 
circumvallations and outposts, endeavours to 
advance his history a little; the Lectures 
having left it still almost at the very com- 
mencement. His peculiar plan, and the loo 
manifest purpose to continue speaking in Jean 
Paul's manner, greatly obstruct his progress; 
which, indeed, is so inconsiderable, that at the 
end of this third volume, that is, after some 
seven hundred small octavo pages, we find 
the hero, as yet, scarcely beyond his twentieth 
year, and the history proper still only, as it 
were, beginning. We cannot but regret that 
Herr Otto, whose talent and good purpose, to 
say nothing of his relation to Richter, demand 
regard from us, had not adopted some straight- 
forward method, and spoken out in plain prose, 
which seems a more natural dialect for him, 
what he had to say on this matter. Instead of 
a multifarious combination, tending so slowly, 
if at all, towards unity, he might, without 
omitting those "Lectures," or any "Note" that 
had value, have given us a direct Narrative, 
which, if it had wanted the line of Beauty, 
might have had the still more indispensable 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



195 



line of Regularity, and been, at all events, far 
shorter.' Till Herr Otto's work is completed, 
■we cannot speak positively; but, in the mean- 
while, we Ciust say that it wears an unpros- 
perous aspect, and leaves room to fear that, 
afier all, Richter's Biography may still long 
continue a problem. As for ourselves, in this 
state of matters, what help, towards character- 
izing Jean Paul's practical Life, we can affiird, 
is but a few slight facts gleaned from Herr 
Otto's and other meaner works; and which, 
even in our own eyes, are extremely insuf- 
ficient. 

Richler was born at Wonsiedel in Baireuth, 
in the year 1763; and as his birth-day fell on 
the 2lst of March, it was sometimes wittily 
said that he and the Spring were born together. 
He himself mentions this, and with a laudable 
intention: "this epigrammatic fact," says he, 
"that I the Professor and the Spring came into 
the world together, I have indeed brought out 
a hundred times in conversation, before now; 
but I fire it off here purposely, like a cannon- 
salute, lor the hundred and first time, that so 
by printing I may ever henceforth be unabl^ 
to offer it again as bomiwi -bonbon, when, through 
the Printer's Devil, it has already been pre-^ 
sented to all the world." Destiny, he seems 
to think; made another witticism on him; the 
word Richler being appellative as well as pro- 
per, in the German tongue, where it signifies 
Judge. His Christian name, Jean Paul, M'hich 
long passed for some freak of his own, and a 
pseudonym, lie seems to have derived honest- 
ly enough, from his maternal grandfather, 
Johann Paul Kuhn, a substantial cloth-maker, 
in Hof; only translating the German Johann 
into the French Jean. The Richiers, for at 
least two generations, had been schoolmasters, 
or very subaltern churchmen, distinguished 
for their poverty and their piety ; the grand- 
father, it appears, is still remembered in his 
little circle, as a man of quite remarkable in- 
nocence and holiness ; " in Neustadt," says 
his descendant, " they will show you a bench 
behind the organ, where he knelt on Sundays, 
and a cave he had made for himself in what 
is called the Jjitlle Culm, where he was wont 
to pray." Holding, and laboriously discharg- 
ing, three school or church offices, his yearly 
income scarcely amounted to fifteen pounds: 
"and at this Hunger-fountain, common enough 
for Baireuth school-people, the man stood 
thirty-five years long, and cheerfully drew." 
Preferment had been slow in visiting him : but 
at length, "it came to pass," says Paul, "just 
in my birth-year, that, on the 6th of August, 
probably through special connections with the 
Higher Powen;, he did obtain one of the most 
important places; in comparison with which, 
trul>. Kectorate, and Town, and cave in the 
Culmuerg, were well worth exchanging; a 
place, namely, in the Neustadt Churchyard.* — 
— His good wife had been promoted thither 
twenty years before him. My parents had taken 

* Oottcsacker (iiod's-tield.) not Kirchhof, the more 
common term, and exactly corresponding to ours, is 
the word Richter uses here, — and almost always else- 
where, which in his writings he has often occasion 
to do. 



me, an infant, along with them to his death- 
bed. He was in the act of departing, when a 
clergyman (as my father has often told me) 
said to them: Now, let the old Jacob lay his 
hand on the child, and bless him. I was held 
into the bed of death, and he laid his hand on 
my head.— Thou good old grandfather! Often 
have I thought of thy hand, blessing as it grew 
cold, — when Fate led me out of dark hours 
into clearer, — and already I can believe in thy 
blessing, in this material world, whose life, 
foundation, and essence is Spirit !" 

The father, who at this time occupied the 
humble post of Tertim, (under schoolmaster) 
and Organist at Wonsiedel, was shortly after- 
wards appointed clergyman in the hamlet of 
Jodiz; and thence, in the course of years, 
transferred to Schwarzenbach on the Saale. 
He too was of a truly devout disposition, though 
combining with it more energy of character, 
and, apparently, more general talent; being 
noted in his neighbourhood as a bold, zealous 
preacher; and still partially known to the 
world, we believe, for some meritorious com- 
positions in Church-music. In poverty he 
cannot be said to have altogether equalled his 
predecessor, who through life ate nothing but 
bread and beer ; yet poor enough he was ; 
no less cheerful than poor. The thriving 
burgher's daughter, whom he took to wife, had, 
as we guess, brought no money with her, but 
only habits little advantageous for a school- 
master, or parson ; at all events, the worthy 
man, frugal as his household was, had con- 
tinual difficulties, and even died in debt. Paul, 
who in those days was called Fritz, narrates 
gaily, how his mother used to despatch him to 
Hof, her native town, with a provender bag 
strapped over his shoulders, under pretext of 
purchasing at a cheaper rate there ; but in 
reality to get his groceries and dainties fur- 
nished gratis by his grandmother. He was 
wont to kiss his grandfather's hand behind the 
loom, and speak with him ; while the good old 
lady, parsimonious to all the world, but lavish 
to her own, privily filled his bag with the 
good things of this life, and even gave him 
almonds for himself, which, however, he kept 
for a friend. One other little trait, quite new 
in ecclesiastical annals, we must here com- 
municate. Paul, in summing up the joys of 
existence at Jodiz, mentions this among the 
number: 

" In Autumn evenings (and though the 
weather were bad) the Father used to go in his 
night-gown, with Paul and Adam, into a pota- 
toe-field lying over the Saale. The one younker 
carried a mattock, the other a hand-basket. 
Arrived on the ground, the Father set to dig- 
ging new potatoes, so many as were wanted 
for supper; Paul gathered them from the bed 
into the basket, whilst Adam, clambering in 
the hazel thickets, looked out for the best nuts. 
At'ter a time, Adam had to come down from 
his boughs into the bed, and Paul in his turn as- 
cended. And thus, with potatoes and nuts, 
they returned contentedly home ; and the plea- 
sure of having run abroad, some mile in space, 
some hour in time, and then of celebrating the 
harvest-home, by candle light, when they came 



200 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■back, — let every one paint to himself as bril- 
liantly as the receiver thereof." 

To such persons as argue that the respecta- 
bility of the cloth depends on its price at ihe 
clothier's, it must appear surprising that a 
Protestant clergyman, who not only was in no 
case to keep fox-hounds, but even saw it con- 
venient to dig his own potatoes, should not 
have fallen under universal odium, and felt his 
usefulness very considerably diminished. No- 
thing of this kind, however, becomes visible 
in the history of the Jodiz Parson : we find him 
a man powerful in his vocation; loved and 
venerated by his flock ; nay, associating at 
will, and ever as an honoured guest, with the 
gentry of Voiglland, not indeed in the cha- 
racter of gentleman, yet in that of priest, 
which he reckoned far higher. Like an oid 
Lutheran, says his son, he believed in the 
great, as he did in ghosts ; but without any 
shade of fear. The truth is, the man had a 
cheerful, pure, religious heart; was diligent 
in business, and fervent in spirit: and, in all 
the relations of his life, found this well-nigh 
sufficient for him. 

To our Professor, as to Poets in general, the 
recollections of childhood had alwaj's some- 
thing of an ideal, almost celestial character. 
Often, in his fictions, he describes such scenes, 
with a fond minuteness ; nor is poverty any 
deadly, or even unwelcome ingredient in them. 
On the whole, it is' not by money, or money's 
worth, that man lives and has his being. "Is 
not God's Universe ivithin our head, whether 
there be a torn scull-cap or a king's diadem 
without ? " Let no one imagine that Paul's 
young years were unhappy ; still less that he 
looks back on them in a lachrymose, sentimen- 
tal manner, with the smallest symptom either 
of boasting or whining. Poverty of a far 
sterner sort than this would have been a light 
matter to him ; for a kind mother. Nature her- 
self, had already provided against it; and, like 
the mother of Achilles, rendered him invul- 
nerable to outward things. There was a bold, 
deep, joyful spirit looking through those young 
eyes ; and to such a spirit the world has no- 
thing poor, but all is rich, and full of loveli- 
ness and wonder. That our readers may glance 
with us into this foreign Parsonage, we shall 
translate some paragraphs from Paul's second 
Lecture, and thereby furnish, at the same lime, a 
specimen of his professorial style and temper. 

"To represent the Jodiz life of our Hans 
Paul, — for by this name we shall for a time 
distinguish him, yet ever changing it with 
others, — our best course, I believe, will be to 
conduct him through a whole Idyl-year ; divid- 
ing the normal year into four seasons, as so 
many quarterly Idyls ; four Idyls exhaust his 
happiness. 

" For the rest, let no one marvel at finding 
an Idyl-kingdom and pastoral-world in a little 
hamlet and parsonage. In the smallest bed 
you can raise a tulip-tree, which shall extend 
its flowery boughs over all the garden ; and the 
life-breath of joy can be inhaled as well through 
a window, as in the open wood and sky. Nay, 
is not Man's Spirit (with all its infinite celes- 
tial-spaces) walled in within a six-feet Body, 
"with integuments, and Malpighian mucuses, 



and capillary tubes; and has only fiive strait 
world-windows, of Senses, to open for the 
boundless, round-eyed, round-sunned All; — 
and yet it discerns and reproduces an All ! 

" Scarcely do I know with which of the four 
quarterly Idyls to begin ; for each is a little 
heavenly forecourt to the next: however, the 
climax of joys, if we start with Winter and 
January, will perhaps be most apparent. In the 
cold, our Father had commonly, like an Alpine 
herdsman, come down from the upper altitude 
of his study ; and, to the joy of the children, 
was dwelling on the plain of the general fami- 
ly-room. In the morning, he sat by a window, 
committing his Sunday's sermon to memory; 
and the three sons, Fritz, (who I myself am,) 
and Adam, and Gottlieb, carried, by turns, the 
full coffee-cup to him, and still more gladly 
carried back the empty one, because the car- 
rier was then entitled to pick the unmelted re- 
mains of the sugar-candy (taken against 
cough) from the bottom thereof, iput of doors, 
truly, the sky covered all things with silence; 
the brook with ice, the village with snow : but 
in our room, there was life : under the stove a 
pigeon-establishment ; on the windows, finch 
cages; on the floor the invincible bull brach, 
our Bonne, the night-guardian of the court- 
yard ; and a poodle, and the pretty Scharmantel, 
(Poll,) a present from the Lady von Plotho ; — 
and close b}', the kitchen, with two maids ; and 
farther off, against the other end of the house, 
our stable, with all sorts of bovine, swinish, 
and feathered cattle, and their noises : the 
threshers, with their flails, also at work within 
the court-yard, I might reckon as another item. 
In this way, with nothing but society on all 
hands, the whole male portion of the house- 
hold easily spent their fore-noon in tasks of 
memory, not far from the female portion, as 
busily employed in cooking. 

" Holidays occur in every occupation ; thus 
I too had my airing holidays, — analogous to wa- 
tering holidays, — so that I could travel out in the 
snow of the court-3'ard,and to the barn with its 
threshing. Nay, was there a delicate embassy to 
be transacted in the village, — for example, to the 
schoolmaster, to the tailor, — I was sure to be de- 
spatched thitherinthe middleofmy lessons : and 
thus I still got forth into the open air and the cold, 
and measured myself with the new snow. At 
noon, before our own dinner, we children might 
also, in the kitchen, have the hungry satisfaction 
to see the threshers fall to and consume their 
victuals. 

"The afternoon, again, was still more im- 
portant, and richer in joys. Winter shortened 
and sweetened our lessons. In the long dusk, 
our Father walked to and fro; and the chil- 
dren, according to ability, trotted under his 
night-gown, holding by his hands. At sound 
of the Vesper bell, we placed ourselves in a 
circle, and in concert devotionally chanted the 
hymn. Die fm^lre Nacht bricht sta7-k herein, (The 
gloomy Night is gathering round.) Only in 
villages, not in towns, where properly there is 
more night than day labour, have the evening 
chimes a meaning and beauty, and are the 
swan-song of the day : the. evening-bell is as 
it were the muffle of the over loud heart, and 
like a ranre des vaches of the plains, calls meij 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



201 



from their running and toiling, into the land 
of silence and dreams. After a pleasant watch- 
ing about the kitchen door, for the moonrise 
of candle-light, we saw our wide room at once 
illuminated and barricaded; to wit, the window 
shutters were closed and bolted ; and behind 
these window bastions and breast-works, the 
child felt himself snugly nestled, and well se- 
cured against Knecht Ruprecht,* who on the 
outside could not get in, but only in vain keep 
growling and humming. 

" About this period too it was that we chil- 
dren might undress, and in long train-shirts 
skip up and down. Idyllic joys of various 
sorts alternated: our Father either had his 
quarto Bible, interleaved with blank folio 
sheets, before him, and was marking, at each 
verse, the book wherein he had read any thing 
concerning it; — or more commonly he had his 
ruled music-paper ; and, undisturbed by this 
rackelting of children, was composing whole 
concerts of church-music, with all their divi- 
sions; constructing his internal melody with- 
out any help of external tones, (as Reichard 
too advises,) or rather, in spite of all external 
mistones. In both cases, in the last with the 
more pleasure, I looked on as he wrote ; and 
rejoiced specially, when, by pauses of various 
instruments, whole pages were at once filled 
up. The children all sat sporting on that long 
writing and eating table, or even vndcr it. *** 

"Then, at length, how did the winter even- 
ing, once a week, mount in worth, when the 
old errand-woman, coated in snow, with her 
fruit, flesh, and general ware basket, entered 
the kitchen from Hof; and we all, in this case, 
had the distant town in miniature before our 
eyes, nay, before our noses, for there were 
pastry cakes in it !" 

Thus in dull winter imprisonment, among 
all manner of bovine, swinish, and feathered 
cattle, with their noises, may Idyllic joys be 
found, if there is an eye to see them, and a 
heart to taste them. Truly happiness is cheap, 
did we apply to the right merchant for it. Paul 
warns us elsewhere not to believe, for these 
Idyls, that there were no sour days, no chidings, 
and the like, at Jodiz : yet, on the whole, he 
had good reason to rejoice in his parents. They 
loved him well; his Father, he says, would 
"shed tears" over any mark of quickness or 
talent in little Fritz: they were virtuous also, 
and devout, which, after all, is better than being 
rich. " Ever and anon," says he, " I was 
hearing some narrative from my Father, how 
he and other clergymen had taken parts of 
their dress and given them to the poor; he re- 
lated these things with joy, not as an admoni- 
tion, but merely as a necessary occurrence: 
O God ! I thanli Thee for my Father !" 

Richter's education was not of a more sump- 
tuous sort than his board and lodging. Some 
disagreement with the Schoolmaster at Jodiz 
had induced the Parson to take his sons from 
school, and determine to teach them himself. 
This determination he executed faithfully in- 
deed, yet in the most limited style; his method 
being no Pestalozzian one, but simply the old 
scheme of task-work and force-work, operating 

* The Rawhead (with bloody bones) of Germany. 
26 



on a Latin grammar and a Latin vocabulary : 
and the two boys sat all day, and all year, at 
home, without other preceptorial nourishment 
than getting by heart long lists of words. Fritz 
learned honestly nevertheless, and in spite of 
his brother Adam's bad example. For the 
rest, he was totally destitute of books, except 
such of his Father's theological ones as he 
could come at by stealth: these, for want of 
better, he eagerly devoured ; understanding, as 
he says, nothing whatever of their contents. 
With no less impetuosity, and no less profit, 
he perused the antiquated sets of Newspapers, 
which a kind patroness, the Lady von Plotho, 
already mentioned, was in the habit of furnish- 
ing to his Father, not in separate sheets, but in 
sheaves monthly. This was the extent of his 
reading. Jodiz too was the most sequestered 
of all hamlets ; had neither natural nor artifi- 
cial beauty; no memorable thing could be seen 
there, in a lifetime. Nevertheless, under an 
immeasurable Sk)^ and in a quite Vv^ondrous- 
World it did stand ; and glimpses into the in- 
finite spaces of the Universe, and even into 
the infinite spaces of Man's Soul, could be had 
there as well as elsewhere. Fritz had his own 
thoughts, in spite of schoolmasters : a little 
heavenly seed of Knowledge, nay of Wisdom, 
had been laid in him, and with no gardener, 
but Nature herself, it was silently growing. 
To some of our readers, the following circum- 
stance may seem unparalleled, if not unintel- 
ligible ; to others nowise so : 

"In the future Literary History of our hero,, 
it will become doubtful whether he was not born 
more for Philosophy than for Poetry. In ear- 
liest times, the word Wcllircisheil, (Philosophy, 
World-u-i.-idom,) — yet also another word, Morgcn- 
land, (East, Morniv§-la,td,) — was to me an open 
Heaven's-gate, through which I looked in, over 
long, long gardens of joy. — Never shall I forget 
that inward occurrence, till now narrated to no 
mortal, wherein I witnessed the birth of my 
Self-consciousness, of which I can still give 
the place and time. One forenoon, I was 
standing, a very young child, in the outer door, 
and looking leftward at the stack of tuel wood, 
— when, all at once the internal vision, — I am 
a Me, (ich bin ein Irh,) came like a flash from 
heaven before me, and in gleaming light ever 
a.fterwards continued: then had my Me, for the 
first time, seen itself, and for ever. Deceptions 
of memory are scarcel}'^ conceivable here; for, 
in regard to an event occurring altogether in 
the veiled Holy-of-Holies of man, and whose 
novelty alone has given permanence to such 
everyday recollections accompanying it, no 
posterior description from another party would 
have mingled itself with accompanying cir- 
cumstances at all." 

It was in his thirteenth year that the family 
removed to that better church-living at Schwar- 
zenbach; with which change, so far as school 
education was concerned, prospects consider- 
ably brightened for him. The public Teacher 
there was no deep scholar or thinker, yet a 
lively, genial man, and warmly interested in 
his pupils ; among whom he soon learned to 
distinguish Fritz, as a boy of altogether supe- 
rior gifts. What was of still more importance, 
Fritz now got access to books ; entered into a 



302 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



course of highly miscellaneous, self-selected 
reading; and what wiih Romances, what with 
Belles-Lettres works, and Hutchesonian Phi- 
losophy, and controversial Divinity, saw an 
astonishing scene opening round him on all 
hands. His Latin and Greek were now better 
taught ; he even began learning Hebrew. Two 
clergymen of the neighbourhood took pleasure 
in his company, young as he was; and were 
of great service now and afierwards: it Avas 
under their auspices that he commenced com- 
position, and al>o speculating on Theology, 
wherein he "inclined strongly to the heterodox 
side." 

In the "family room," however, things were 
not nearly so flourishing. The Professor's 
three Lectures terminate before this date; but 
we gather from his Notes that surly clouds 
hung over Schwarzenbach, that " his evil days 
began there." The Father was engaged in 
more complex duties than formerly, went often 
from home, was encumbered with debt, and 
lost his former cheerfulness of humour. For 
his sons he saw no outlet except the hereditary 
craft of School-keeping ; and let the matter 
rest there, taking little farther charge of them. 
In some three years, the poor man, worn down 
with manifold anxieties, departed this life ; 
leaving his pecuniary affairs, which he had 
long calculated on rectifying by the better in- 
come of Schwarzenbach, nadly deranged. 

Meanwhile, Friedrich had been sent to the 
Hof Gyntnasmm, (Town-school,) where, not- 
withstanding this event, he continued some 
time, two years in all, apparently the most pro- 
fitable period of his whole tuition ; indeed, the 
only period when, properly speaking, he had 
any tutor but himself. The good old cloth- 
making grandfather and grandmother took 
charge of him, under their roof; and he had a 
body of teachers, all notable in their way. 
Herr Otto represents him as a fine, trustful, 
kindly, yet resolute youth, who went through 
his persecutions, preferments, studies, friend- 
ships, and other school-destinies in a highly 
creditable manner; and demonstrates this, at 
great length, by various details of facts, far too 
minute for insertion here. As a trait of Paul's 
intellectual habitudes, it may be mentioned 
that, at this time, he scarcely made any pro- 
gress in History or Geography, much as he 
profited in all other branches ; nor was the 
dull teacher entirely to blame, but also the in- 
disposed pupil : indeed, it was not till long 
afterwards, that he overcame or suppressed 
his contempt for those studies, and with an 
€ffbrt of his own acquired some skill in them.* 
The like we have heard of other Poets and 
Philosophers, especially when their teachers 
chanced to be prosaists and unphilosophical. 
Richter boasts that he was never punished at 
school ; yet between him and the Historico- 



* " All History," tlius he writes in tiis thirty-second 
year, "in so far as it is an affair of memory, ran only be 
reclsoned a sapless, heartless, thistle for pedantic cliaf- 
finches ;— but, on the other hand, like Nature, it has high- 
est value, in as far as we, by means of il, as by means 
of Nature, can divine and read the Infinite Sprit, who, 
with Nature and History, as with letters, legibly writes 
to us. He who finds a God in the physical world, will 
also find one in the moral, which is History. Nature 
forces on our lieart a Creator; History, a Providence." 



geographical Conrcf/or(Second Master) no good 
understanding could subsist. On one tragi- 
comical occasion, of another sort, they came 
into siill more decided collision. The zealous 
Conrector, a most solid, painstaking man, 
desirous to render his Gymnasium as like a 
University as possible, had imagined that a 
series of "Disputations," some foreshadow of 
those held at College, might be a useful, as 
certainly enough it would be an ornamental 
thing. By ill luck, the worthy President had 
selected some church-article for the theme of 
such a Disputation: one boy was to defend, 
and it fell to Paul's lot to impugn the dogma, a 
task which, as hinted above, he was very spe- 
cially qualified to undertake. Now, honest 
Paul knew nothing of the limits of this game ; 
never dreamt but he might argue wiih his 
whole strength, to whatever results it might 
lead. In a very few rounds, accordingly, his 
antagonist was borne out of the ring, as good 
as liteless ; and the Conrector himself, seeing 
the danger, had, as it were, to descend from 
his presiding chair, and clap the gauntlets on 
his own more experienced hands. But Paul, 
nothing daunted, gave him also a Rowland for 
an Oliver; nay, as it became more and more 
manifest to all eyes, was fast reducing him 
also to the frightfullest extremity. The Con- 
rector's tongue threatened cleaving to the roof 
of his mouth ; for his brain was at a stand, or 
whirling in eddies, only his gall was in active 
play. Nothing remained for him but to close 
the debate abruptly by a " Silence, Sirrah !" — 
and leave the room, with a face (like that of 
the much more famous Subrector Hans von 
Fiichslein)* "of a mingled colour, like red 
bole, green chalk, tinsel-yellow, and vomisse' 
ment dc la reine." 

With his studies in the Leipzig University, 
whither he proceeded in 1781, begins a far 
more important era for Paul ; properly, the era 
of his manhood, and first entire dependence on 
himself. In regard to literary or scientific 
culture, it is not clear that he derived much 
furtherance from Leipzig; much more, at least, 
than the mere neighbourhood of libraries and 
fellow-learners might anywhere else have af- 
forded him. Certain professorial courses he 
did attend, and with diligence; but too much 
in the character of critic, as well as of pupil: 
he was in the habit of "measuring minds" 
with men so much older and more honourable 
than he ; and ere long, his respect for many of 
them had not a litiie abated. What his ori- 
ginal plan of studies was, or whether he had 
any fixed plan, we do not learn ; at Hof, without 
election or rejection on his own part, he had 
been trained with some view to Theology ; but 
this and every other professional view soon 
faded away in Leipzig, owing to a variety of 
causes ; and Richter, now still more decidedly 
a self-teacher, broke loose from all corporate 
guilds whatsoever, and in intellectual culture, 
as in other respects, endeavoured to seek out 
a basis of his own. He read multiiudes of 
books, and wrote down whole volumes of ex-' 
cerpts, and private speculations ; labouring in 
all directions with insatiable eagerness ; but 

* See Quintus Fizlein, c. 7. 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



203 



from the University he derived little guidance, 
and soon came to expect little. Ernesti, the 
only truly eminent man of the place, had died 
shortly after Paul's arrival there. 

Nay, it was necessity as well as choice that 
detached him from professions : he had not the 
means to enter any. Quite another and far 
more pressing set of cares lay around him : 
uot how he could live easily in future years, 
but how he could live at all in the present, was 
the grand question with him. Whatever it 
might be in regard to intellectual matters, cer- 
tainly in regard to moral matters, Leipzig was 
his true seminary, where, with many stripes. 
Experience taught him the wisest lessons. It 
was here that he first saw Poverty, not in the 
shape of Parsimony, but in the far sterner one 
of actual Want; and, unseen and single- 
handed, wrestling with Fortune for life and 
death, first proved what a rugged, deep-rooted, 
indomitable strength, under such genial soft- 
ness, dwelt in him ; and from a buoyant cloud- 
capt Youth, perfected himself into a clear, free, 
benignant and lofty-minded Man. 

Meanwhile the steps toward such a consum- 
mation were painful enough. His old School- 
master at Schwarzenbach, himself a Leipziger, 
had been wont to assure him that he might live 
for nothing in Leipzig, so easily were "free- 
tables," " si ipcndiu," private teaching, and the 
like, to be procured there, by youths of merit. 
That Richter was of this latter species, the 
Rector of the Hof Gymnasium bore honour- 
able witness ; inviting the Leipzig dignitaries, 
in his Testimonium, to try the candidate them- 
selves ; and even introducing him in person 
(for the two had travelled together) to various 
influential men : but all these things availed 
him nothing. The Professors he found be- 
leaguered by a crowd of needy sycophants, 
diligent in season, and out of season, whose 
whole tactics were too loathsome to him ; on 
all hands, he heard the sad saying: Lipsia vuli 
expcctari, Leipzig preferments must be waited 
for. Now, waiting was of all things the most 
inconvenient for poor Richter. In his pocket 
he had little; friends, except one fellow-student, 
he had none ; and at home the finance depart- 
ment had fallen into a state of total perplexity, 
fast verging towards final ruin. The worthy 
old Cloth-Manufacturer was now dead ; his 
wife soon followed him : and the Widow Rich- 
ter, her favourite daughter, who had removed 
to Hof, though against the advice of all her 
friends, that she might be near her, now stood 
alone there, with a young family, and in the 
most forlorn situation. She was appointed 
chief heir, indeed ; but former benefactions had 
left far less to inherit than had been expected; 
nay, the other relatives contested the whole 
arrangement, and she had to waste her remain- 
ing substance in lawsuits, scarcely realizing 
from it, in the shape of borrowed pittances and 
by forced sales, enough to supply her with 
daily bread. Nor was it poverty alone that 
she had to suffer, but contumely no less ; the 
Hof public openly finding her guilty of Un- 
thrift, and, instead of assistance, repeating to 
herdispraise, over their coffee, the old proverb, 
'• Hard got, soon gone ;" for which all evils she 
had no remedy but loud complainings to Hea- 



ven and Earth. The good woman, with the 
most honest dispositions, seems, in fact, to have 
had but a small share of wisdom : far too small 
for her present trying situation. Herr Otto 
says that Richter's portraiture of Lenette, in the 
l.lumcn-Frucht und IJorneH-Siiickc, (Flower, F ruix, 
and Thorn Pieces,) contains many features of 
his mother: Lenette is of "an upright, but 
common and limited nature ;" assiduous, even 
to excess, in sweeping and scouring: true- 
hearted, religious in her way, yet full of dis- 
contents, suspicion, and headstrong whims : a 
spouse for ever plagued and plaguing; as the 
brave Sebastian Siebenkiis, that true Diogenes 
of impoverished Poors'-Advocales, often felt, 
to his cost, beside her. Widow Richter's 
family, as well as her fortune, was under bad 
government, and sinking into lower and lower 
degradation : Adam, the brother, mentioned 
above, as Paul's yokefellow in Latin and 
potatoe-digging, had now fallen away even 
from the humble pretension of being a School- 
master, or, indeed,of being any thing ; for, after 
various acts of vagrancy, he had enlisted in a 
marching regiment; with which, or in other 
devious courses, he marched on, and only the 
grand billet-master. Death, found him fixed 
quarters. The Richter establishment had part- 
ed from its old moorings, and was now, with 
wind and tide, fast drifting towards fatal whirl- 
pools. 

In this state of matters, the scarcity of Leip- 
zig could nowise be supplied from the fulness 
of Hof: but rather the two households stood 
like concave mirrors reflecting one another's 
keen hunger into a still keener for both. What 
outlook was there for the poor Philosopher of 
nineteen 1 Even his meagre " bread and milk" 
could not be had for nothing ; it became a se- 
rious considei-ation for him that the shoe- 
maker, who was to sole his boots, " did not 
trust." Far from aflTording him any sufficient 
moneys, his straitened mother would willingly 
have made him borrow for her own wants ; 
and was incessantly persuading him to get 
places for his brothers. Richter felt, too, that 
except himself, desolate, helpless as he was, 
those brothers, that old mother, had no stay on 
earth. There are men with whom it is as 
with Schiller's Friedland : "Night must it be 
ere Friedland's star will beam." On this for- 
saken youth Fortune seemed to have let loose 
her bandogs, and hungry Ruin had him in the 
wind; without -was no help, no counsel: but 
there lay a giant force within ; and so from 
the depths of that sorrow and abasement, his 
better soul rose purified and invincible, like 
Hercules from his long Labours. A high, 
cheerful Stoicism grew up in the man. Po- 
verty, Pain, and all Evil, he learned to regard, 
not as what they seemed, but as what they 
were; he learned to despise them, nay, in kind 
mockery to sport with them, as with bright- 
spotted wild beasts which he had tamed and 
harnessed. " What is Poverty," said he, " who 
is the man that whines under it 1 The pain 
is but as that of piercing the ears of a maiden, 
and you hang jewels in the wound." Dark 
thoughts he had, but they settled into no abid- 
ing gloom: "sometimes," says Otto, "he 
would wave his finger across his brow, as if 



204 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



driving back some hostile series of ideas ;" 
and farther complaint he did not utter.* Dur- 
ing this sad period, he wrote out for himself 
a little manual of practical philosoph3% nam- 
ing It Andachlsbucli, (Book of Devotion,) which 
contains such maxims as these : 

"Every unpleasant feeling is a sign that I 
have become untrue to my resolutions. — 
Epictetus was not unhappy. — 

" Not chance, but I am to blame for my suf- 
ferings. 

" It were an impossible miracle if none be- 
fel thee : look for their coming, therefore ; 
each day make thyself sure of many. 

" Say not, were my sorrows other than these, 
I should bear them better. 

" Think of the host of Worlds, and of the 
plagues on this World-mote. — Death puts an 
end to the whole. — 

" For virtue's sake I am here : but if a man, 
for his task, forgets and sacrifices all, why 
shonldst not thou 1 — 

" Expect injuries, for men are weak, and 
thou thyself doest such too often. 

" Mollify thy heart by painting out the suf- 
ferings of thy enemy ; think of him as of one 
spiritually sick, who deserves sympathy. — 

"Most men judge so badly; why wouldst 
thou be praised by a child 1 — No one would 
respect thee in a beggar's coat : what is a 
respect that is paid to woollen cloth, not to 
thee ?" 

These are wise maxims for so young a man ; 
but what was wiser still, he did not rest satis- 
fied with mere maxims, which, how true so- 
ever, are only a dead letter, till Action first 
gives them life and worth. Besides devout 
prayer to the gods, he set his own shoulder to 
the wheel. "Evil," says he, "is like a night- 
mare ; the instant you begin to strive with it, 
to bestir yourself, it has already ended." With- 
out farther parleying, there as he stood, Rich- 
ter grappled with his Fate, and resolutely 
determined on self-help. His means, it is 
true, were of the most unpromising sort, yet 
the only means he had: the wrilingof Books ! 
He forthwith commenced writing them. The 
Oronldndische Prozcssc, (Greenland Lawsuits,) a 
collection of satirical sketches, full of wild, 
gay wit, and keen insight, was composed in 
that base environment of his, with unpaid 
milkscores and unsoled boots ; and even still 
survives, though the Author, besides all other 
disadvantages, was then only in his nineteenth 
year. But the heaviest part of the business 
yet remained; that of finding a purchaser and 
publisher. Richter tried all Leipzig with his 
manuscript, in vain; to a man, with that total 
contempt of Grammar which Jedediah Cleish- 
botham also complains of. they " declined the 
article." Paul had to stand b}', as so many 
have done, and see his sunbeams weighed on 
hay-scales, and the hay-balance give no symp- 
toms of moving. But Paul's heart moved as 
little as the balance ; Leipzig being now ex- 

*In bodily pnin. lie was wont to show the like endur- 
ance and inditt'erence. At one period of his life, he had 
violent headaches, which forced him, for the sake of a 
slight alleviation, to keep his head perfectly erect ; you 
might see him talking with a calm face, aiid all his'old 
gaiety, and only known by this posture that he was suf- 
fering. 



hausted, the World was all before him where 
to try; he had nothing for it, but to search till 
he found, or till he died searching. One Voss 
of Berlin at length bestirred himself; accepted, 
printed the Book, and even gave him sixteen 
Louis d'or for it. What a Potosi was here ! Paul 
determined to be an author henceforth, and 
nothing but an author; now that his soul 
might even be kept in his body by that trade. 
His mother, hearing that he had written a 
book, thought that perhaps he could even 
write a sermon, and was for his coming down 
to preach in the High Church of Hof. "What 
is a sermon," said Paul, " which every mise- 
rable student can spout forth ? Or, think you, 
there is a parson in Hof that, not to speak of 
writing my Book, can, in the smallest degree, 
understand it 1" 

But unfortunately his Potosi was like other 
mines; the metalliferous vein did not last; 
what miners call a shift or Ironble occurred in 
it, and now there was nothing but hard rock 
to hew on. The Grdnldndischc Prozesse, though 
printed, did not sell ; the public was in quest 
of pap and treacle, not of fierce curry like 
this. The Reviewing world mostly passed it 
by without notice ; one poor dog in Leipzig 
even lifted up his leg over it. " For any thing 
we know," saith he, "much, if not all of what 
the Author here, in bitter tone, sets forth on 
book-making, theologians, women, and so on, 
may be true ; but throughout the whole work, 
the determination to be witty acts on him so 
strongly, that we cannot doubt but his book 
will excite in all rational readers so much dis- 
gust, that they will see themselves constrained 
to close it again without delay." And here- 
with the ill-starred quadruped passes on, as if 
nothing special had happened. "Singular!" 
adds Herr Otto, "this review, which, at the 
time pretended to some ephemeral atten- 
tion, and likely enough obtained it, would 
have fallen into everlasting oblivion, had not 
its connection with that very work, which 
every rational reader was to close again, or ra- 
ther never to open, raised it up for a moment !" 
One moment, say we, is enough : let it drop 
again into that murky pool, and sink there to 
endless depths ; for all flesh, and reviewer- 
flesh too, is fallible and pardonable. 

Richter's next Book was soon ready; but, in 
this position of affairs, no man would buy it. 
The Selection from the Papers of the Devil, such 
was its wonderful title, lay by him, on quite 
another principle than the Horatian one, for 
seven long years. It was in vain that he ex- 
hibited, and corresponded, and left no stone 
unturned; ransacking the world for a pub- 
lisher; there was none anywhere to be met 
with. The unwearied Richter tried other plans.. 
He presented Magazine Editors with essays, 
some one in ten of which might be accepted ; 
he tnade joint stock with certain provincial 
literati of the Hof district, who had cash, and 
published for themselves ; he sometimes bor- 
rowed, but was in hot haste to repay it; he 
lived as the young ravens; he was often in 
danger of starving. "The prisoner's allow- 
ance," says he, " is bread and water, but I had 
only the latter." 

"Nowhere," observes Richter on another 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



205 



occasion, "can you collect the stress-memorials 
and siege-medals of Poverty more pleasantly 
and philosophically than at College: the Aca- 
demic Burschen exhibit to us how many Hu- 
morists and Diogeneses Germany has in it.* 
Travelling through this parched Sahara, with 
nothing round him but stern sandy solitude, 
and no landmark on Earth, but only loadstars 
in the Heaven, Richter does not anywhere 
appear to have faltered in his progress ; for a 
moment to have lost heart, or even to have lost 
good humour. ' The man who fears not death,' 
says the Greek Poet, 'will start at no shadows.' 
Paul had looked Desperation full in the face, 
and found that for him she was not desperate. 
Sorely pressed on from without, his inward 
energy, his strength both of thought and resolve 
did but increase, and establish itself on a surer 
and surer foundation; he stood like a rock 
amid the beating of continual tempests ; nay, a 
rock crowned with foliage; and in its clefts, 
nourishing flowers of sweetest perfume. For 
there was a passionate fire in him, as well as 
a stoical calmness ; tenderest Love was there, 
and devout Reverence; and a deep genial 
Humour lay, like warm sunshine, softening the 
whole, blending the whole into light sportful 
harmony. In these its hard trials, whatever 
was noblest in his nature came out in still 
surer clearness. It was here that he learned 
to distinguish what is perennial and imperish- 
able in man, from what is transient and 
earthly; and to prize the latter, were it king's 
crowns and conqueror's triumphal chariots, 
but as the wrappage of the jewel; we might 
say, but as the finer or coarser Paper on which 
the Heroic Poem of Life is to be written. A 
lofty indestructible faith in the dignity of man 
took posses'^ion of him, and a disbelief in all 
other dignities; and the vulgar world, and 
what it could give him, or withhold from him, 
was, in his eyes, but a small matter. Nay, 
had he not found a voice for these things; 
which, though no man would listen to it, he 
felt to be a true one, and that if true no tone of 
it could be altogether lost. Preaching forth the 
Wisdom, which in the dark deep wells of 
Adversity he had drawn up, he felt himself 
strong, courageous, even gay. He had "an 
internal world wherewith to fence himself 
against the frosts and heats of the external." 
Studying, writing, in this mood, though grim 
Scarcity looked in on him through the win- 
dows, he ever looked out again on that fiend 
with a quiet, half-satirical eye. Surely, we 
should find it hard to wish any generous nature 



* By certain siieciilators on German affairs, much has 
been written and talked ahont what is, after all, a very 
slender iiem in tterinan alTairs, the Bursclienlebev, or 
manners of the yoiiiis men at Universities. We must 
regret thai in discussing this matter, since it was Ihought 
worth discussing, the true sii/iiificance and soul of it 
Bliould not h ive been, hy some faint indication pointed 
out to us. Apart from its duelling punctilios, and heer- 
sones, and tohacco-snioking, and othi'r fopperie.s of the 
system, wtiich arc to ihe German student merely what 
coach-driving and horse-dealing, and other kindred fop- 
peries, are to the English, Burschenisni is not without 
its irieaning more than Oxfordisni or Cambridgeism. 
The Hursch strives to say in the strongest language he 
can : " 8ee ! I am an nnmonied scholar, and a free jwan ;" 
the Oxonian and Cantab again endeavour to say : " See ! 
I am a nionied schi'l ir. and a spirited genilcman." We 
rather think Ihe Bursch's assertion, were it rightly 
worded, would be the more profitable of the two. 



such fortune : yet is one such man, nursed 
into manhood, amid these stern, truth-telling 
influences, worth a thousand popular ballad- 
mongers, and sleek literary gentlemen, kept 
in perpetual boyhood by influences that al- 
ways lie. 

"In my Historical Lectures," says Paul, 
"the business of Hungering will in truth more 
and more make its appearance, — with the hero 
it rises to a great height, — about as often as 
Feasting in ThummcTs Tnivck, and Tea-drink- 
ing in Richardson's Clarissa: nevertheless, I 
cannot help saying to Poverty: Welcome! .so i 
thou come not at quite too late a time ! Wealth | 
bears heavier on talent than Poverty; under j 
gold-mountains and thrones, who knows how { 
many a spiritual giant may lie crushed down ] 
and buried! When among the flames of 
youth, and above all of hotter powers as well, 
the oil of Riches is also poured in, — little will 
remain of the phoenix but his ashes; and only 
a Goethe has force to keep, even, at the sun of 
good fortune, his phoenix-wings unsinged. The 
poor Historical Profes.sor, in this place, Avould 
not, for much money, have had much money 
in his youth. Fate manages Poets, as men do 
singing birds ; you overhang the cage of the 
singer and make it dark, till at length he has 
caught the tunes you play to him, and can sing 
them rightly." 

There have been many Johnsons, Heynes, 
and other meaner natures, in every country, 
that have passed through as hard a probation 
as Richter's was, and borne permanent traces 
of its good and its evil influences; some, with 
their modesty and quiet endurance, combining 
a sickly dispiritment, others a hardened dull- 
ness or even deadness of heart : nay, there are 
some whom Misery itself cannot teach, but 
only exasperate; who, far from parting with 
the mirror of their Vanity, when it is trodden 
in pieces, rather collect the hundred fragments 
of it, and with more fondness and more bitter- 
ness than ever, behold not one but a hundred 
images of Self therein ; to these men Pain is a 
pure evil, and as school-dunces their hard 
Pedagogue will only whip them to the end. 
But, in modern days, and even among the 
better instances, there is scarcely one that we 
remember who has drawn, from Poverty and 
sufl!(?ring, such unmixed advantage as Jean 
Paul; acquiring under it not only Herculean 
strength, but the softest tenderness of soul ; a 
view of man and man's life not less cheerful, 
even sportful, than it is deep and calm. To 
Fear he is a stranger; not only the rage of 
men, "the ruins of nature would strike him 
fearless;" yet he has a heart vibrating to all 
the finest thrills of Mercy, a deep loving sym- 
pathy with all created things. There is, we 
must say, something Old-Grecian in this form 
of mind ; yet Old-Grecian under the new con- 
ditions of our own time; not an Ethnic, but a 
Christian greatness. Richter might have stood 
beside Socrates, as a faithful, though rather 
tumultuous disciple: or better still, he might 
have bandied repartees with Diogenes, who, if 
he could nowhere find Men, must at least have 
admitted that this too was a Spartan Boy. 
Diogenes and he, much as they ditfered, mostly 
to the disadvantage of the former, would have 
S 



206 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



found much in common : above all, that reso- 
lute self-dependence, and quite settled inditfer- 
ence to the "force of public opinion." Of this 
latter quality, as well as of various other qual- 
ities in Richter, we have a curious proof in 
the Episode, which Herr Otto here for the first 
time details with accuracy, and at large, " con- 
cerning the Costume controversies." There 
is something great as well as ridiculous in this 
whole story of the Costume, which we must 
not pass unnoticed. It was in the second year 
of his residence at Leipzig, and when, as we 
have seen, his necessities were pressing 
enough, that Richter, finding himself unpa- 
troniscd by the World, thought it might be 
reasonable if he paid a little attention, as far 
as convenient, to the wishes, rational orders, 
and even whims of his only other Patron, 
namely, of Himself. Now the long visits of 
the hair-dresser, with his powders, pufls, and 
pomatums, were decidedly irksome to him, and 
even too expensive; besides, his love of Swift 
and Sterne made him love the English and 
their modes; which things being considered, 
Paul made free to cut off his cue altogether, 
and with certain other alterations in his dress, 
to walk abroad in what was called the English 
fashion. We rather conjecture that, in some 
points, it was after all but Pseudo-English ; at 
least, we can find no tradition of any such 
mode having then or ever been prevalent here 
in its other details. For besides the docked 
cue, he had shirts a In Hamlet ; wore his breast 
open, without neckcloth: in such guise did he 
appear openly. Astonishment took hold of 
the minds of men. German students have 
more license than most people in selecting 
fantastic garbs; but the bare neck and want 
of cue seemed graces beyond the reach of true 
art. We can figure the massive, portly cynic, 
with what humour twinkling in his eye he 
came forth among the elegant gentlemen; 
feeling, like that juggler-divinity Ram-Dass, 
well-known to Baptist Missionaries, that "he 
had fire enough in his stomach to burn away 
all the sins of the world." It was a species of 
pride, even of foppery, we will admit; but a 
tough, strong-limbed species, like that which 
in ragged gown " trampled on the pride of 
Plato." 

Nowise in so respectable a light, however, 
did a certain Ma^ister, or pedagogue dignitary 
of Richter's neighbourhood, regard the matter. 
Poor Richter, poor in purse, rich otherwise, 
had, at this time, hired himself a small mean 
garden-house, that he might have a little fresh 
air, through summer, in his studies : the Magis- 
ter, who had hired a large sumptuous one in the 
same garden, naturally met him in his walks, 
Ware-necked, cue-less; and perhaps not liking 
the cast of his countenance, strangely twisted 
info Sardonic wrinkles, with all its broad 
honest benignity, — took it in deep dudgeon 
that such an unauthorized character should 
venture to enjoy nature beside him. But what 
was to be donel Supercilious looks, even 
frowning, would accomplish nothing; the Sar- 
donic visage was not to be frowned into the 
smallest terror. The Magistcr wrote to the 
landlord, demanding that this nuisance should 
be abated. Richter, with a praiseworthy love 



of peace, wrote to the Magister, promising to 
do what he could: he v\rould not approach his 
(the Magister's) house so near as last night, 
would walk only in the evenings and mornings, 
and thereby for most part keep out of sight the 
apparel "which convenience, health, and 
poverty had prescribed for him." These were 
fair conditions of a boundary -treaty; but the 
Magister interpreted them in too literal a sense, 
and soon found reason to complain that they 
had been infringed. He again took pen and 
ink, and in peremptory language represented 
that Paul had actually come past a certain 
Statue, which, without doubt, stood within the 
debatable land; threatening him, therefore, 
with Herr Kijrner, the landlord's vengeance, 
and withal openly testifying his own contempt 
and just rage against him. Paul answered, 
also in writing, that he had nowise infringed 
his promise, this Statue or any other Statue 
having nothing to do with it; but that now he 
did altogether revoke said promise, and would 
henceforth walk whensoever and wheresoever 
seemed good to him, seeing he too paid for the 
privilege. " To me," observed he, " Herr 
Kbrner is not dreadful (furchterlich .)" and for 
the Magister himself he put down these re- 
markable words: "You despise my mean 
name; nevcrlhekss take note of it ; for you will 
•not have done the latter long, till the former imll not 
be in your power to do: I speak ambiguously, 
that I may not speak arrogantly." Be it noted, 
at the same time, that with a noble spirit of 
accommodation, Richter proposed yrt new 
terms of treaty; which being accepted, he,, 
pursuant thereto, with bag and baggage forth- 
with evacuated the garden, and returned to his 
" town-room at the Three Roses, in Peter- 
strasse;" glorious in retreat, and "leaving his 
Paradise," as Herr Otto with some conceit re- 
marks, "no less guiltlessly than voluntarily, 
for a certain bareness of breast and neck; 
whereas our First Parents were only allowed 
to retain theirs, so long as they felt themselves 
innocent in total nudity." What the Magister 
thought of the " mean name," some years 
afterwards, we do not learn. 

But if such tragical things went on in Leip- 
zig, how much more when he went down to 
Hof in the holidays, where, at any rate, the 
Richters stood in slight esteem! It will sur- 
prise our readers to learn that Paul, with the 
mildest tempered pertinacity, resisted all ex- 
postulations of friends, and persecutions of 
foes, in this great cause; and went about a la 
Handel, for the space of no less than seven 
years! He himself seemed partly sensible 
that it was affectation; but the man would 
have his humour out. " On the whole," says he, 
" I Iwld the constant regard u-e pay, in all our ac- 
tions, to the judgment of others, as the poison of our 
peace, our reason, and our virtue. At this slave- 
chain I have long filed, and I scarcely ever 
hope to break it entirely asunder. I wish to 
accustom myself to the censure of others, and 
appear a fool, that I may learn to endure fools." 
So speaks the young Diogenes, embracing his 
frozen pillar by way of " exercitation ;" as if 
the world did not give us frozen pillars enough 
in this kind without our wilfully stepping 
aside to seek them ? Belter is that other 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



207 



maxim: "He who diflers from the world in 
important matters should the more carefully 
conform to it in indifferent ones." Nay, by 
degrees Richter himself saw into this, and 
having now proved satisfactorily enough that 
he could take his own way when he so pleased, 
— leaving, as is fair, the " most sweet voices" 
to take theirs also, — he addressed to his friends 
(chiefly the Voiglland Literati above alluded 
to) the following circular: 

" Adtertisemknt. 

"The undersigned begs to give notice, that 
whereas cropt hair has as many enemies as 
red hair, and said enemies of the hair are ene- 
mies likewise of the person it grows on; 
whereas farther, such a fashion is in no respect 
Christian, since otherwise Christian persons 
would have it; and whereas, especially, the 
Undersigned has suffered no less from his hair 
than Absalom did from his, though on contrary 
grounds; and whereas it has been notified that 
the public purposed to send him into his grave, 
since the hair grew there without scissors : he 
hereby gives notice that he will not push mat- 
ters to such extremity. Be it known, there- 
fore, to the nobility, gentry, and a discerning 
public in general, that the Undersigned pro- 
poses, on Sunday next, to appear in various 
important streets (of Hof) with a short false 
cue; and with this cue as with a magnet, and 
cord-of-love, and magic-rod, to possess him- 
self forcibly of the affections of all and sundry, 
belhey who they may." 

And thus ended "gloriously," as Herr Otto 
thinks, the long "clothes-martyrdom;" from 
the course of which, besides its intrinsic 
comicality, we may learn two things : first, 
that Paul nowise wanted a due indifference to 
the popular wind, but, on fit or unfit occasion, 
could stand on his own basis stoutly enough, 
wrapping his cloak as himself listed; and 
secondly, that he had such a buoyant, elastic 
humour of spirit, that besides counter-pressure 
against Poverty, and Famine itself, there was 
still a clear overplus left to play fantastic 
tricks withal, at which the angels could not 
indeed weep, but might well shake their heads 
and smile. We return to our history. 

Several years before the date of this "Ad- 
vertisement," namely, in 1784, Paul, who had 
now determined on writing, with or without 
readers, to the end of the chapter, finding no 
furtherance in Leipzig, but only hunger and 
hardship, bethought him that he might as well 
write in Hof beside his mother, as there. His 
publishers, when he had any, were in other 
cities; and the two households, like two dying 
embers, might perhaps show some feeble point 
of red-heat between them, if cunningly laid 
together. He quitted Leipzig, after a three 
years' residence there; and fairly commenced 
housekeeping on his own score. Probably 
there is not in the whole history of Literature 
any record of a literary establishment like this 
at Hof; so ruggedly independent, so simple, 
not to say altogether unfurnished. Lawsuits 
had now done their work, and the Widow 
Richter, with her family, was living in a 
" house containing one apartment." Paul had 
no books, except "twelve manuscript volumes 



of excerpts," and the considerable library 
which he carried in his head; with which 
small resources, the public, especially as he 
had still no cue, could not well see what was 
to become of him. Two great furtherances, 
however, he had, of which the public took no 
sufficient note : a real Head on his shoulders, 
not as is more common, a mere hat-wearing, 
empty rffigies of a head ; and the strangest, 
stoutest, indeed, a quite noble Heart within 
him. Here, then, he could, as is the duty of 
man, " prize his existence, more than liis 
manner of existence," which latter was, in- 
deed, easily enough dis-csteemed. Come of it 
what might, he determined, on his own 
strength, to try issues to the uttermost with 
Fortune; nay, while fighting like a very Ajax 
against her, to keep laughing in her face tiil 
she too burst into laughter, and ceased frown- 
ing at him. He would nowise slacken in his 
Authorship, therefore, but continued stubborn- 
ly toiling, as at his right work, let the weather 
be sunny or snowy. For the rest. Poverty was 
written on the posts of his door, and within on 
every equipment of his existence; he that ran 
might read in large characters: "Good Chris- 
tian people, you perceive that I have little 
money; what inference do you draw from it?" 
So hung the struggle, and as yet were no signs 
of victory for Paul. It was not till 1788 that 
he could find a publisher for his Tevfels Papiei-en ; 
and even then few readers. But no dishearten- 
ment availed with him: authorship was once 
for all felt to be his true vocation ; and by it 
he was minded to continue at all hazards. 
For a short while, he had been tutor in some 
family, and had again a much more tempting 
ofler of the like sort, but he refused it, purpos- 
ing henceforth to " bring up no children but 
his own, — his books," let Famine say to it 
what she pleased. 

"With his mother," says Otto, " and at times 
also with several of his brothers, but always 
with one, he lived in a mean house, which had 
only a single apartment; and this went on 
even when, — af^ier the appearance of the 
Miimun, — his star began to rise, ascending 
higher and higher, and never again declin- 
ing. * * * 

"As Paul, in the characters of Walt and 
Vult,* (it is his direct statement in these 
Notes,) meant to depict himself; so it may be 
remarked, that in the delineation of Lenette, 
his mother stood before his mind, at the period 
when this down-pressed and humiliated woman 
began to gather heart, and raise herself up 
again ;f seeing she could no longer doubt the 
truth of his predictions, that Authorship must, 
and would prosper with him. She now the 
more busily, in one and the same room where 



* Gottwalt and Q^inddeusvull, two Brotliers (see Paul's 
Flen-eljahre) of the most opposile temperaments: tlie 
tbrmer a still, soft-hearted tearful enthusiast, the other a 
madcap humourist, honest at hottom, but liurstinjr out 
on all hands with the strangest explosions, speculative 
and practical. 

t "(iuite up indeed, she could never more rise ; and 
in silent humility, avoidinir any loud expression of satis- 
faction, she lived to enjoy with timorous fladness, the 
deliiht of seeing her son's worth publicly recognised, 
and his acquaintance soueht by the most influential 
men, and herself, too, honoured, on this account, as she 
had never before been." 



208 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Paul was writing and studying, managed the 
household operations ; cooking, washing, 
scouring, handling the broom, and these being 
finished, spinning cotton. Of the painful in- 
come earned by this latter employment, she 
kept a written account. One such revenue- 
book, under the title, Was ich erspannen, (Earned 
by spinning,) which extends from March, 
1793, to September, 1794, is still in existence. 
The produce of March, the first year, stands 
entered there as 2 florins, 51 kreutzers, 3 pfen- 
nings, [somewhere about four shillings !] ; lliat 
of April, &c. ; ' at last that of September, 1794, 
as 2 fl. 1 kr. ; and on the last page of the little 
book, stands marked, that Samuel (the young- 
est son) had, on the 9th of this same Septem- 
ber, got new boots, which cost 3 thalers, — 
almost a whole quarter's revenue !' " 

Considering these things, how mournful 
would it have seemed to Paul that Bishop Dog- 
bolt could not get translated, because of Poli- 
tics ; and the too high-souled Viscount Plum- 
cake, thwarted in courtship, was seized with a 
perceptible dyspepsia! 

We have dwelt the longer on this portion 
of Paul's history, because we reckon it inte- 
resting in itself; and that if the spectacle of a 
great man struggling with adversity be a fit 
one for the gods to look down on, much more 
must it be so for mean fellow-mortals to look 
up to. For us in Literary England, above all, 
such conduct as Richter's has a peculiar in- 
terest, in these times ; the interest of entire 
novelty. Of all literary phenomena, that of a 
literary man daring to believe that he is poor, 
may be regarded as the rarest. Can a man 
•without capital actually open his lips and 
speak to mankind? Had he no landed pro- 
perty, then : no connection with the higher 
classes; did he not even keep a gig'? By 
these documents it would appear so. This 
was not a nobleman, nor gentleman, nor gig- 
man ;* but simply a man ! 

On the whole, what a wondrous spirit of 
gentility does animate our British Literature 
at this era! We have no Men of Letters now, 
but only Literary Gentlemen. Samuel John- 
son was the last that ventured to appear in 
that former character, and support himself, on 
his own legs, without any crutches, purchased 
or stolen : rough old Samuel, the last of all the 
Romans ! Time M^as, when in English Litera- 
ture, as in English Life, the comedy of- Every 
Man in his Humour" was daily enacted among 
us; but how the poor French word, French in 
every sense, " Q!4'<'w dira-t-07i ?" spellbinds us 
all, and we have nothing for it but to drill and 
cane each other into one uniform, regimental 
" nation of gentlemen." " Let him who would 
write heroic poems," said Milton, "make his 
life a heroic poem." Let him who would 
"write heroic poems, say we, put money in his 
purse; or if he have no gold money, let him 

* In Tliurtell's trial (sfi)'s the Quarterly Reviejr) oc- 
curred the follnwina colloquy: " Q, What sort of per- 
son was Mr. Weare'? Ji. He was always a respectable 
person. Q. What do you mean by respectable ? ^. He 
kept a si?." — Since then we have seen a " Defensin 
Oiffmnnica, or Apology for the Gicrnien of Great Britain, " 
comnosed not without eloquence, and which we h^pe 
one day to prevail on our friend, a man of some whims, 
to give to the public. 



put in copper-money, or pebbles, and chink 
with it as with true metal, in the ears of man- 
kind, that they may listen to him. Herein 
does the secret of good writing now consist, as 
that of good living has always done. When 
we first visited Grub-street, and with bared 
head did reverence to the genius of the place, 
with a "Salve, magna parens!" we were asto- 
nished to learn, on inquiry, that the Authors 
did not dwell there now, but had all removed, 
years ago, to a sort of "High Life below 
Stairs," far in tlie West. For why, what re- 
medy was there; did not the wants of the age 
require it 1 How can men write without High 
Life ; and how, except below Stairs, as 
Shoulder-knot, or as talking Katerfelto, or by 
secondhand communication with these two, 
can the great body of men acquire any know- 
ledge thereof! Nay, has not the Atlantis, or 
true Blissful Island of Poesy, been, in all 
times, understood to lie Westward, though 
never rightly discovered till now ? Our great 
fault with writers used to be, not that they 
were intrinsically more or less completed 
Dolts, with no eye or ear for the "open secret," 
of the world, or for any thing, save the "open 
display" of the world, — for its gilt ceilings, 
marketable pleasures, war-chariots, and all 
manner, to the highest manner, of Lord Mayor 
shows, and Guildhall dinners, and their own 
small part and lot therein; but the head and 
front of their offence lay in this, that they had 
not " frequented the society of the upper 
classes." And now, with our improved age, 
and this so universal extension of "High Life 
below Stairs," what a change has been intro- 
duced, what benign consequences will follow! 
One consequence has already been a degree 
of Dapperism and Dilettantism and ricketty 
Debility unexampled in the history of Litera- 
ture, and enough of itself to "make us the 
envy of surrounding nations ;" for hereby the 
Literary man, once so dangerous to the quies- 
cence of society, has now become perfectly 
innoxious, so that a look will quail him, and 
he can be tied hand and foot by a spinster's 
thread. Hope there is, that henceforth neither 
Church nor State will be put in jeopardy by 
literature. The old Literary man, as we have 
said, stood on his own legs; had a whole 
heart within him, and might be provoked into 
many things. But the new Literary man, on 
the other hand, cannot stand at all, save in 
stays; he must first gird up his weak sides 
with the whalebone of a certain fashionable, 
knowing, half-squirarchal air, — be it inherited, 
bought, or, as is more likely, borrowed or 
stolen, whalebone ; and herewith he stands a 
little without collapsing. If the man now 
twang his jew's-harp to please the children, 
what is to be feared from him; what more is 
to be required of him? 

Seriously speaking, we must hold it a re- 
markable thing that every Englishman should 
be a "gentleman;" that in so democratic a 
country, our common title of honour, which all 
men assert for themselves, should be one 
which professedly depends on station, on acci- 
dents rather than on qualities; or at best, as 
Coleridge interprets it, "on a certain indiflfer- 
ence to money matters," which certain indiffer- 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



209 



ence again must be wise or mad, yon would 
think, exactly as one possesses much mone3% 
or possesses little ! We suppose it must be 
the commercial genius of the nation, counter- 
acting and suppressing its political genius; for 
the Americans are taid to be still more notable 
in this respect than we. Now, what a hollow, 
windy vacuity of internal character this indi- 
cates ; how, in place of a rightly ordered heart, 
we strive only to exhibit a full purse; and all 
pushing, rushing, elbowing on towards a false 
aim, the courtier's kibes are more and more 
galled by the toe of the peasant; and on every 
side, instead of Faith, Hope, and Charity, we 
have Neediness, Greediness, and Vain-glory; 
all this is palpable enough. Fools that we are! 
Why should we wear our knees to horn and 
sorrowfully beat our breasts, praying day and 
night to Mammon, who, if he would even hear 
us, has almost nothing to give? For granting 
that the deaf brute-god were to relent for our 
sacrificings ; to change our gilt brass into solid 
gold, and instead of hungry actors of rich 
gentility, make us all in very deed Rothschild- 
Howards to-morrow, what good were ill Are 
we not already denizens of this wondrous Eng- 
land, with its high Shakspeares and Hamp- 
dens ; nay, of this wondrous Universe, with its 
Galaxies and Eternities, and unspeakable 
Splendours, that we should so worry and 
scramble, and tear one another in pieces, for 
some acres, (nay, still oftener, for the show of 
some acres,) more or less, of clay property, 
the largest of which properties, the Sutherland 
itself, is invisible even from the Moon ? Fools 
that we are! To dig, and bore like ground- 
worms in those acres of ours, even if we have 
acres ; and far from beholding and enjoying 
the heavenly Lights, not to know of them 
except by unheeded and unbelieved report! 
Shall certain pounds sterling that we have in 
the Bank of England, or the ghosts of certain 
pounds that we would fain seem to have, hide 
from us the treasures we are all born to in 
this the "City of God?" 

My inheritance how wide and fair ! 
Time is my estate, to Time I'm heir. 

But leaving the money-changers, and honour- 
hunters, and gigmen of every degree, to their 
own wise ways, which they will not alter, we 
must again remark as a singular circumstance, 
that the same spirit should, to such an extent, 
have taken possession of Literature also. This 
is the eye of the world, enlightening all, and 
instead of the shows of things unfolding to us 
things themselves : has the eye too gone blind ; 
has the Poet and Thinker adopted the philoso- 
phy of the Grocer and Valet in Livery? Nay, 
let us hear Lord Byron himself on the subject. 
Some years ago, there appeared in the Maga- 
zines, and to the admiration of most editorial 
gentlemen, certain extracts from Letters of 
Lord Byron's, which carried this philosophy 
to rather a high pitch. His Lordship, we 
lecoUect, mentioned, that, " all rules for Poetry 
were not worth a d — n," (saving and except- 
ing, doubtless, the ancient RuIe-of-Thumb. 
which must still have place here ;) after which 
aphorism his Lordship proceeded to state that 
the great ruin of all British Poets sprang from 
27 



a simple source; their exclusion from High 
Life in London, excepting only some shape of 
that High Life below Stairs, which, however, 
was nowise adequate: "he himself and Tho- 
mas Moore were perfectly familiar in such 
upper life : he by birth, Moore by happy acci- 
dent, and so they could both write Poetry ; the 
others were not familiar, and so could not write 
it." — Surely it is fast growing time that all this 
should be drummed out of our Planet, and for- 
bidden to return. 

Richter, for his part, was quite excluded 
from the West-end of Hof : for Hof too has its 
West-end; "every mortal longs for his parade- 
place; would still wish, at banquets, to be 
master of some seat or other, wherein to over- 
top this or that plucked goose of the neighbour- 
hood." So poor Richter could only be admitted 
to the West-end of the Universe, where truly 
he had a very superior establishment. The 
legal, clerical, and other conscript fathers of 
Hof might, had they so inclined, have lent him 
a few books, told or believed some fewer lies 
of him, and thus positively and negatively 
shown the young adventurer many a little ser- 
vice ; but they inclined to none of these things, 
and happily he was enabled to do without 
them. Ga)', gentle, frolicsome as a lamb, yet 
strong, forbearant, and royally courageous as 
a lion, he worked along, amid the scouring of 
kettles, the hissing of frying-pans, the hum of 
his mother's wheel; — and it is not without a 
proud feeling that our reader (for he too is a 
man) hears of victory being at last gained, and 
of Works, which the most reflective nation in 
Europe regards as classical, being written 
under such accompaniments. 

However, it is at this lowest point of the 
Narrative that Herr Otto for the present stops 
short; leaving us only the assurance that better 
days are coming: so that concerning the whole 
ascendant and dominant portion of Richter's 
history, we are left to our own resources ; and 
from these we have only gathered some scanty 
indications, which may be summed up with a 
very disproportionate brevity. It appears that 
the Unsichtbare Loge, (Invisible Lodge,) sent 
forth from the Hof spinning establishment in 
179.3, was the first of his works that obtained 
any decisive favour. A long trial of faith; for 
the man had now been besieging the literary 
citadel upwards of ten years, and still no 
breach visible ! With the appearance of 
Hesperus, another wondrous Novel, which pro- 
ceeded from the same " single apartment," in 
1796, the siege maybe said to have terminated 
by storm ; and Jean Paul, whom the most knew 
not what in the world to think of, whom here 
and there a man of weak judgment had not 
even scrupled to declare half-mad, made it 
universally indubitable, that though encircled 
with dusky vapours, and shining out only in 
strange many-hued irregular bursts of flame, 
he was and would be one of the celestial Lumi- 
naries of his day and generation. The keen 
intellectual energy displayed in Hesperus, still 
more the nobleness of mind, the sympathy wilh 
Nature, the warm, impetuous, yet pure and 
lofty delineations of Friendship and Love; in 
a less degree perhaps, the wild boisterous 
Humour that everywhere prevails in it, secure'l 



210 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Richter not only admirers, but personal well- 
wishers in all quarters of his country. Gleim, 
for example, though then eighty years of age, 
and among the last survivors of a quite differ- 
ent school, could not contain himself with rap- 
ture. "What a divine genius {Gott genius)," 
thus wrote he some time aftervvards, " is our 
Friedrich Richter ! I am reading his F.huncn- 
sticckc for the second time : here is more than 
Shakspeare, said I, at fifty passages I have 
marked. What a divine genius! I wonder 
over the human head, out of which these 
streams, these books, these Rhinefalls, these 
Blandusian fountains pour forth over human 
nature to make human nature humane; and if 
To-day I object to the plan, object to phrases, to 
words, I am contented with all to-morrovv^." 
The kind, lively old man, it appears, had sent 
him a gay letter, signed "Septimus Fixlein," 
with a present of money in it; to which Rich- 
ter, with great heartiness and some curiosity to 
penetrate the secret, made answer in this very 
Blumenstiicke ; and so ere long a joyful acquaint- 
ance and friendship was formed; Paul had 
visited Halbersfadl, with warmest welcomes, 
and sat for his picture there, (an oil painting 
by Pfenninger,) which is still to be seen in 
Gleim's Ehrentempel, (Temple of Honour.) 
About this epoch too, the Reviewing world, 
after a long conscientious silence, again opened 
its thick lips, and in quite another dialect, 
screeching out a rusty Nunc Domine dimitlas, 
with considerable force of pipe, instead of its 
last monosyllabic and very unhandsome ^mw^ 
For the credit of our own guild, we could have 
wished that the Reviewing world had struck up 
its Dimittas a little sooner. 

In 1797, the Widow Richter was taken away 
from the strange variable climate of this world, 
we shall hope, into a sunnier one; her kettles 
hung unscoured on the wall; and the spool, 
so often filled with her cotton-thread and wetted 
with her tears, revolved no more. Poor old 
weather-beaten, heavy-laden soul ! And yet a 
"light-beam from on high" was in her also; 
and the "twelve shillings for Samuel's new 
boots" were more lounteous and more blessed 
than many a King's ransom. Nay, she saw, 
before departing, that she, even she, had " borne 
a mighty man;" and her early sunshine, long 
drowned in deluges, again looked out at even- 
ing with farewell sweet. 

The Hof household being thus broken up, 
Richter for some years led a wandering life. 
In the course of this same 1797, we find him 
once more in Leipzig; and truly under far 
other circumstances than of old. For instead 
of silk-stockinged, shovel-hatted, but too impe- 
rious Magisters, that would not let him occupy 
his own hired dog-hutch in peace, "he here," 
says Heinrich Doering,* "became acquainted 
with the three Princesses, adorned with every 
charm of person and of mind, the daughters of 
the Dutchess of Hildburghausen ! The Duke, 
who also did justice to his extraordinary merits, 
conferred on him, some years afterwards, the 
title of Legationsrath, (Councillor of Legation.") 
To Princes and Princesses, indeed, Jean Paul 
seems, ever henceforth, to have had what we 

* Lehen Jean Paul's. Gotha, 1826. 



[ should reckon a surprising access. For ex- 
I ample: — "the social circles where the Duchess 
Amelia (of Weimar) was wont to assemble 
the most talented men, first, in Ettersburg, 
[afterwards in Tiefuri;" — then the "Duke of 
i Meinungen at Coburg, who had with pressing 
I kindness invited him;" — nie Prince Primate 
Dalberg, who did much more than invite him ; 
[ — late in life, " the gifted Duchess Dorothea, in 
Lobichau, of which visit he has himself com- 
memorated the festive days," &c. &c. ; — all 
v.'hich small matters, it appears to us, should 
be taken into consideration by that class of 
British philosophers, troublesome in many 
an intellectual tea-circle, who deduce the 
"German bad taste" from our own old ever- 
lasting "want of intercourse;" whereby, if it 
so seemed good to them, their tea, till some 
less self-evident proposition were started, might 
be " consumed with a certain stately silence." 

But next year (1798) there came on Paul a 
far grander piece of good fortune than any of 
these, namely, a good wife ; which, as Solomon 
has long ago recorded, is a " good thing." He 
had gone from Leipzig to Berlin, still busily 
writing; "and during a longer residence in 
this latter city," says Doering, " Caroline 
Mayer, daughter of the Royal Prussian Privy 
Councillor and Professor of Medicine, Dr. John 
Andrew Mayer," (these are all his titles,) " gave 
him her hand; nay even," continues the micro- 
scopic Doering, "as is said in a public paper, 
bestowed on him {aufdriickte) the bride-kiss of 
her own accord." What is still more aston- 
ishing, she is recorded to have been a " chosen 
one of her sex," one that "like a gentle, guar- 
dian, care-dispelling genius, went by his side 
through all his pilgrimage." 

Shortly after this great event, Paul removed 
with his new wife to Weimar, where beseems 
to have resided some years, in high favour 
with whatever was most illustrious in that 
city. His first impression on Schiller is cha- 
racteristic enough. " Of Hesperus," thus 
writes Schiller, "I have yet made no mention 
to you. I found him pretty much what I ex- 
pected; foreign like a man fallen from the 
Moon; full of good will, and heartily inclined 
to see things about him, but without the organ 
for seeing them. However, I have on\y spoken 
to him once, and so can say little of him."* 
In answer to which, Goethe also expresses his 
love for Richter, but "doubts whether in literary 
practice he will ever fall in with them two, 
much as his theoretical creed inclined that 
way." Hesperus proved to have more " organ" 
than Schiller gave him credit for; nevertheless 
Goethe's doubt had not been unfounded. It 
was to Herder that Paul chiefly attached him- 
self here; esteeming the others as high-gifted, 
friendly men, but only Herder as a teacher 
and spiritual father; of which latter relation, 
and the warm love and gratitude accompany- 
ing it on Paul's side, his writings give frequent 
proof. " If Herder was not a Poet, says he 
once, " he was something more, — a Poem !" 
With Wieland too he stood on the friendliest 
footing, often walking out to visit him at 



* Brieficeehsel iwisehen Schiller und Goethe (Corre- 
spondence between Srhilier and Goethe.) B. ii. 77. 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



m 



Osmanstiidt, whither the old man had now 
retired. Perhaps these years spent at Weimar, 
in close intercourse with so many distinguished 
persons, were, in regard to outward matters, 
among the most instructive of Richter's life: 
in regard to inward matters, he had already 
served, and with credit, a hard apprenticeship 
elsewhere. We must not forget to mention 
that Titan, one of his chief romances, (pub- 
lished at Berlin in 1800,) was written during 
his abode at Weimar ; so likewise the Flcgcl- 
jahre, (Wild Oats ;) and the eulogy of Charlotte 
Cordny, which last, though originally but a 
Magazine Essay, deserves notice for its bold 
eloquence, and the antique republican spirit 
manifested in it. With respect to Titan, which, 
together with its Co?nic Jppendir, forms six 
very extraordinary volumes, Richter was accus- 
tomed, on all occasions, to declare it his mas- 
ter-piece, and even the best he could ever hope 
to do ; though there are not wanting readers 
who continue to regard Hei>pcrus with prefer- 
ence. For ourselves, we have read Titan with 
a certain disappointment, after hearing so 
much of it; yet on the whole, must incline to 
the Author's opinion. One day we hope to 
afford the British public some sketch of both 
these works, concerning which, it has been 
said, "there is solid"^metal enough in them to 
fit out whole circulating libraries, were it beaten 
into the usual filigree; and much which, 
attenuate it as we might, no Quarterly Sub- 
scriber could well carry with him.'" Richter's 
other Novels published prior to this period are 
the Invisible lodge; the Sicbenkds, (or Flower, 
Fruit, and Thorn pieces;) the Life of Quintus 
Fixlcin ; the Jubclsenior, (Parson in Jubilee:) 
Jean Paul's Letters and future History ; the L'C' 
jeuner in Kuhschnappcl ; the Biographical Recrea- 
tions under the Cranium of a Giantess, scarcely 
belong to this species. The Novels published 
afterwards, which we may as well catalogue 
here, are the Leben Fibels, (Life of Fibel ;) Katz- 
enbergcrs Badereise, (Katzenberger's Journey to 
the Bath ;) Schmelzle's Bcise nach Flatz, (Schmel- 
zle's Journey to Fliitz;) the Comet, named also 
Nicolaus Margraf. 

It seems to have been about the year 1802, 
that Paul had a pension bestowed on him by 
the Furst Primas (Prince Primate) von Dal- 
berg, a prelate famed for his munificence, 
whom we have mentioned above. What the 
amount was we do not find specified, but only 
that it " secured him the means of a comfortable 
life," and was " siibsequently," we suppose after 
the Prince Primate's decease, " paid him by 
the King of Bavaria." On the strength of 
which fixed revenue, Paul now established for 
himself a fixed household : selecting for this 
purpose, after various intermediate wander- 
ings, the city of Baireuth, " with its kind pic- 
turesque environment," where, with only brief 
occasional excursions, he continued to live and 
write. We have heard that he was a man uni- 
versally loved, as well as honoured there : a 
friendly, true, and high-minded man ; copious 
in speech, which was full of grave genuine 
humour; contented with simple people and 
simple pleasures ; and himself of the simplest 
habits and wishes. He had three children; 
and a guardian angel, doubtless not without her 



flaws, yet a reasonable angel notwithstandin^y 
For a man with such obdured Stoicism, like 
triple steel, round his breast; and of such- 
gentle, deep-lying, ever-living springs of Love 
within it, — all this may well have made a 
happy life. Besides Paul was of exemplary, 
unwearied diligence in his vocation ; and so 
had, at ail times, " perennial, fire-proof JoyS, 
namely. Employments." In addition to the 
latter part of the novels named above, which, 
with the others, as all of them are more or less 
genuine poetical productions, we feel reluc- 
tant to designate even transiently by so despi- 
cable an English word, — his philosophical and 
critical performances, especially the Vorschuh 
der Jcsfhetik, (Introduction to J^Isthetics,) and 
the Lcviina, (Doctrine of Education,) belong 
wholly to I3aireuth, not to enumerate a multi- 
tude of miscellaneous writings, (on moral, 
literary, scientific subjects, but always in a hu- 
mourous, fantastic, poetic dress,) which of them- 
selves would have made the fortune of no mean 
man. His heart and conscience, as well as his 
head and hand, were in the work ; from which 
no temptation could withdraw him. "I hold 
my duly," says he in these Biographical Notes, 
"not to lie in enjoying or acquiring, but in 
writing, — whatever time it may cost, whatever 
money may be forborne, — nay whatever plea- 
sure ; for example that of seeing Switzerland, 
which nothing but the sacrifice of time for- 
bids." — " I deny myself my evening meal {Vcs-i 
percssen) in my eagerness to work, but the 
interruptions by my children I cannot deny 
myself." And again : " A Poet,Avho presumes 
to give poetic delight, should contemn and will-; 
ingly forbear all enjoyments, the sacrifice of 
which affects not his creative powers ; that so 
he may perhaps delight a century and a whol? 
people." In Richter's advanced years, it was 
happy for him that he could say: "When I 
look at what has been made out of me, I must 
thank God that I paid no heed to external mas- 
ters, neither to time or toil, nor profit, nor losr?;' 
the thing is there, and the instruments that did 
it I have forgotten and none else knows them'. 
In this wise.has the unimportant series of mtf- ' 
ments been changed into something higher that 
remains." — "I have described so much," say^ 
he elsewhere, " and I die without ever having ■ 
seen Switzerland, and the Ocean, and so raan^- ' 
other sights. But the ocean of eternity I shall-; 
in no case fail to see." 

A heavy stroke fell on him in the year 1821, 
when his only son, a young man of great pro- 
mise, died at the University. Paul lost not his 
composure; but was deeply, incTirablywoundec!. 
"Epistolary lamentations on my misfortune," 
says he, "I read unmoved, for the bitterest is to 
be heard within myself, and I must shut the 
ears of my soul to it; but a single new trait 
of Max's fair nature opens the whole lacerated 
heart asunder again, and it can only drive its 
blood into the eyes." New personal sufferings 
awaited him : a decay of health, and what to 
so indefatigable a reader and writer was stili 
worse, a decay of eye-sight, increasing at last 
into almost total blindness. This too he bore 
with his old steadfastness, cheerfully seeking 
what help was to be had; and when no more 
of help remained, still- cheerfully labouring a£ 



CIS 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



1^ vocation, though in sickness and in blind- 
aiess.* Dark without, he was inwardly full of 
light; busied on his favourite theme, the Im- 
SHortali'y of the Soul; when (on the 14th No- 
•wcffiber, 1825) Death came, and Paul's work 
■iiras all accomplished, and that great question 
settled for him on far higher and indisputable 
evidence. The unfinished Volume (which 
■rander the title of Selina we now have) was 
earried on his bier to the grave : for his funeral 
^was public, and in Baireuth,and elsewhere, all 
possible honour was done to his memor}'. 

la regard to Paul's character as a man, we 
have little to say beyond what the facts of this 
Warrative have already said more plainly than 
aa words. We learn from all quarters, in one 
or the other dialect, that the pure high morality 
'wkich adorns his writings, stamped itself also 
an his life and actions. "He was a tender 
3iusband and father," says Doering, "and good- 
aess itself towards his friends and all that was 
iaear him." The significance of such a spirit 
as Richter's, practically manifested in such a 
life, is deep and manifold, and at this era will 
jsLerit careful study. For the present, however, 
Tsre must leave it, in this degree, to the reader's 
own consideration ; another and still more im- 
mediately needful department of our task still 
xemaiKS for us. 

Richter's intellectual and Literary character 
is, perhaps, in a singular degree the counter- 
part and image of his practical and moral 
^character: his Works seem to us a more than 
jasually faithful transcript of his mind; written 
with great warmth direct from the heart, and, 
like himself, wild, strong, original, sincere. 
Viewed under any aspect, whether as Thinker, 
Moralist, Satirist, Poet, he is a phenomenon ; 
a vast, many-sided, tumultuous, yet noble na- 
ture; for faults, as for merits, "Jean Paul the 
Unique." In all departments, we find in him 
a, subduing force; but a lawless, untutored, 
as it were, half savage force. Thus, for ex- 
ample, few understandings known to us are 
of a more irresistible character than Richter's ; 
but its strength is a natural, unarmed, Orson- 
like strength : he does not cunningly under- 
mine his subject, and lay it open, by syllogistic 
implements, or any rule of art; but he crushes 
it to pieces in his arms, he treads it asunder, 
:not without gay triumph, under his feet; and 
■so in almost monstrous fashion, yet with 
piercing clearness, lays bare the inmost 
Iveart and core of it to all eyes. In passion 
;iJgain, there is the same wild vehemence : it is 
3. voice of softest pity, of endless, boundless 
■wailing, a voice as of Rachel weeping for her 
children; — or the fierce bellowing of lions 
amid savage forests. Thus, too, he not only 
loves Nature, but he revels in her; plunges 
into her infinite bosom, and fills his whole 
heart to intoxication with her charms. He tells 
as that he was wont to study, to write, almost 

* He besins a tetter applyinff for spectacles (August, 
1894) in these terms : — " Since last winter, my eyes (the 
ieft had, already without cataract, been Ions half-blind, 
and like Reviewers and Litlerateurs. read nothinpr but 
■litie paaes) have been seized by a daily increasing 
Night-Ultra and Eneniy-to-I.isht, who, did I not with- 
.nland him, would shortly drive ine into the Orcus of 
^.maurosia. Then, Jiddio, opera omnia!" — Doerivg, 32. 



to live, in the open air; and no skyey aspect 
was so dismal that it altogether wanted beauty 
for him. We know of no Poet with so deep 
and passionate and universal a feeling towards 
Nature: "from the solemn phases of the starry 
heaven to the simple floweret of the meadow, 
his eye and his heart are open for her charms 
and her mystic meanings." But what most 
of all shadows forth the inborn, essential 
temper of Paul's mind, is the sportfulness, the 
wild heartfelt Humour, which, in his highest 
as in his lowest moods, ever exhibits itself as 
a quite inseparable ingredient. His Humour, 
with all its wildness, is of the gravest and 
kindliest, a genuine Humour ; " consistent with 
utmost earnestness, or rather, inconsistent 
with the want of it." But on the whole, it is 
impossible for hitn to write in other than a 
humorous manner, be his subject what it may. 
His Philosophical Treatises, nay, as we have 
seen, his Autobiography itself, every thing that 
comes from him, is encased in some quaint 
fantastic framing; and roguish eyes (yet with 
a strange sympathy in the matter, for his 
Humour, as we said, is heartfelt and true) look 
out on us through many a grave delineation. 
In his Novels, above all, this is ever an indis- 
pensable quality, and, indeed, announces itself 
in the very entrance of the business, often even 
on the title-page. Think, for instance, of that 
Selection from the Papers of the Devil : Hesperus, 
on the Dog-post-days ; Siehcnkas's Wedded-life, 
Death and Nuptials.' 

" The first aspect of these peculiarities," says 
one of Richter's English critics, "cannot pre- 
possess us in his favour; we are too forcihly 
reminded of theatrical clap-traps and literary 
quackery: nor on opening one of the works 
theinselves is the case much mended. Piercing 
gleams of thought do not escape us ; singular 
truths, conveyed in a form as singular; gro- 
tesque, and often truly ludicrous delineations; 
pathetic, magnificent, far-sounding passages; 
efl^'usions full of wit, knowledge, and imagina- 
tion, but diflicult to bring under any rubric 
whatever; all the elements, in short, of a 
glorious intellect, but dashed together in such 
wild arrangement, that their order seems the 
very ideal of confusion. The style and struc- 
ture of the book appear alike incomprehen- 
sible. The narrative is every now and then 
suspended, to make way for some 'Extra- 
leaf,' some wild digression upon any subject 
but the one in hand; the language groans 
with indescribable metaphors, and allusions 
to all things human and divine; flowing onward, 
not like a river, but like an inundation ; cir- 
cling in complex eddies, chafing and gurgling, 
now this way, now that, till the proper current 
sinks out of view, amid the boundless uproar. 
We close the work with a mingled feeling of 
astonishment, oppression, and perplexity; and 
Richter stands before us in brilliant cloudy 
vagueness, a giant mass of intellect, but without 
form, beauty, or intelligible purpose. 

"To readers who believe that intrinsic is in- 
separable from superficial excellence, and tha». 
nothing can bfe good or beautiful which is not 
to be seen through in a moment, Richter can 
occasion little difficulty. They admit him to 
be a man of vast natural endowments, but he 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



ZSS 



is utterly uncultivated, and without command 
of them ; full of monstrous affectation, the 
very high-priest of Bad Taste ; knows not the 
art of writing, scarcely that there is sucii an art ; 
an insane visionary, floating for ever among 
baseless dreams that hide the firm earth from 
his view : an intellectual Polyphemus, in short, 
a Tiionslrum horrcndum, informc, ingens, (carefully 
adding) cui lumen adcmplum ; and they close 
their verdict reflectively with his own praise- 
worthy maxim: 'Providence has given to the 
English the empire of the sea, to the French 
that of the land, to the Germans that of — the 
air.' 

"In this way the matter is adjusted ; briefly, 
comfortably, and wrong. The casket was 
diflicult to open : did we know, by its very 
shape, that there was nothing in it, that so we 
should cast it into the sea? Affectation is 
often singularity, but, singularity is not always 
affectation. If the nature and condition of a 
man be really and truly, not conceitedly and 
untruly, singular, so also will his manner be, 
so also ought it to be. Affectation is the pro- 
duct of Falsehood, a heavy sin, and the parent 
of numerous heavy sins ; let it be severely 
punished, but not too lightly imputed. Scarcely 
any mortal is absolutely free lYom it, neither 
most probably is Richter; but it is in minds 
of another substance than his that it grows to 
be the ruling product. Moreover, he is actually 
not a visionary; but, with all his visions, will 
be found to see the firm Earth, in its whole 
figures and relations, much more clearly than 
thousands of such critics, who too probably 
can see nothing else. Far from being un- 
trained or uncultivated, it will surprise these 
persons to discover that kw men have studied 
the art of writing, and many other arts besides, 
more carefull}- than he ; that his Vorschuk 
der Aesthe'Ak abounds with deep and sound 
maxims of criticism; in the course of which, 
many complex works, his own among others, 
are rigidly and justly tried, and even the 
graces and minutest qualities of style are by 
no means overlooked or unwisely handled. 

" Withal, there is something in Richter that 
incites us to a second, to a third perusal. His 
works are hard to understand, but they always 
have a meaning, often a true and deep one. In 
our closer, more comprehensive glance, their 
truth steps forth with new distinctness, their 
error dissipates and recedes, passes into 
veniality, often even into beauty; and at last 
the thick haze which encircled the form of the 
writer melts away, and he stands revealed to us 
in his own steadfast features, a colossal spirit, 
a lofty and original thinker, a genuine poet, 
a high-minded, true, and most amiable man. 

"I have called him a colossal spirit, for this 
impression continues with us : to the last -we 
figure him as something gigantic : for all the 
elements of his structure are vast, and com- 
bined together in living and life-giving, rather 
than in beautiful or symmetrical order. His 
intellect is keen, impetuous, far-grasping, fit to 
rend in peaces the stubbornest materials, and 
extort from them their most hidden and refrac- 
tory truth. In his Humour he sports with the 
highest and the lowest, he can play at bowls 
with the Sun and Moon. His Imagination 



opens for us the Land of Dreams ; we sail wijfe 
him through the boundless Abyss; and the 
secrets of Space, and Time, and Life, and An- 
nihilation, hover round us in dim, cloudy 
forms ; and darkness, and immensity, and 
dread encompass and overshadow us. Nay,' 
in handling the smallest matter, he works ij 
with the tools of a giant. A common truth is 
wrenched from its old combinations, and pre- 
sented us in new, impassable, abysmal con- 
trast with its opposite error. A trifle, some- 
slender character, some jest, or quip, or 
spiritual toy, is shaped into most quaint, yet 
often truly living form ; but shaped somehtm- 
as with the hammer of Vulcan, with three 
strokes that might have helped to forge an 
.-Egis. The treasures of his mind are of a 
similar description with the mind itself; bis 
knowledge is gathered from all the kingdoms 
of Art, and Science, and Nature, and lies 
round him in huge unwieldy heaps. His very 
language is Titanian ; deep, strong, tumul- 
tuous ; shining wiih a thousand hues, fused- 
from a thousand elements, and winding inf 
labyrinthic mazes. 

" Among Richter's gifts," continues this cri- 
tic, " the first that strikes us as truly great is 
his Imagination ; for he loves to dwell in the 
loftiest and most solemn provinces of thoughJ;- 
his M'orks abound with mysterious allegories,- 
visions, and typical adumbrations ; his DreauaSy' 
in particular, have a gloomy vastness, broken- 
here and there by wild far-darting splendour;' 
and shadowy forms of meaning rise dimly 
from the bosom of the void Infinite. Yet, if I 
mistake not. Humour is his ruling quality, tlie 
quality which lives most deeply in his inward' 
nature, and most strongly influences his man- 
ner of being. In this rare gift, for none is 
rarer than true Humour, he stands unrivallefi 
in his own countrj^ and among late writers, in 
every other. To describe Humour is difliciiilt 
at all times, and Avould perhaps be more than, 
usually didicult in Richter's case. Like all his- 
other qualities, it is vast, rude, irregular; often 
perhaps overstrained and extravagant; yet^ 
fundamentally, it is genuine Humour, the Hu- 
mour of Cervantes and Sterne; the product 
not of Contempt, but of Love, not of superfi- 
cial distortion of natural forms, bat of deep 
though playful sympathy with all forms of 
Nature. * * * 

" So long as Humour will avail him, Jiis 
management even of higher and stronger cha- 
racters may still be pronounced successfttl;.. 
but wherever Humour ceases to be applicable^,. 
his success is more or less imperfect. In the 
treatment of heroes proper he is seldom com-' 
pletely happy. They shoot into rugged exag-' 
geration in his hands : their sensibility be- 
comes too copious and tearful, their magnani- 
mity too fierce, abrupt, and thorough-going. 
In some iew instances, they verge towards 
absolute failure : compared with their less am- 
bitious brethren, they are almost of a vulgar" 
cast ; with all their brilliancy and vigour, too- 
like that positive, determinate, volcanic class 
of personages whom we meet with so fre- 
quently in Novels ; they call themselves Men,, 
and do their utmost to prove the assertion, bu£ 
they cannot make us believe it ; for after aiE 



n* 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



their vapouring and storming, we see well 1 
enough that they are but Engines, with no 
more life than the Freethinkers' model 
Mariinus Scriblerus, the Nuremberg Man, who 1 
operated by a combination of pipes and levers, 
and though he could breath and digest perfect- 
Jy, and even reason as well as most country 
parsons, was made of wood and leather. In i 
the general conduct of such histories and de- 1 
lineations, Richter seldom appears to advan- 1 
iage : the incidents are often startling and 
extravagant; the whole structure of the story 
has a rugged, broken, huge, artificial aspect, j 
and will not assume the air of truth. Yet its 
chasms are strangely filled up with the costliest 
materials ; a world, a universe of wit, and 
linovvledge, and fancy, and imagination has 
sent its fairest products to adorn the edifice ; 
the rude and rent Cyclopean walls are resplen- 
jdent with jewels and beaten gold ; rich stately 
foliage screens it, the balmiest odours encircle 
j.t; we stand astonished if not captivated, de- 
lighted if not charmed, by the artist and his 
j«irt."^ 

With these views, so far as they go, we see 
Jittle reason to disagree. There is doubtless a 
deeper meaning in the matter, but perhaps 
this is not the season for evolving it. To de- 
pict, with true scientific accuracy, the essential 
purport and character of Richter's genius and 
Jiterary endeavour; how it originated, whither 
it tends, how it stands related to the general 
tendencies of the world in this age; above all, 
what is its worth and want of worth to our- 
selves, — may one day be a necessary problem ; 
t)ut, as matters actually stand, would be a diffi- 
cult, and not very profitable one. The English 
public has not yet seen Richter ; and must 
know him before it can judge him. For us, in 
Ihe present circumstances, we hold it a more 
promising plan to exhibit some specimens of 
his workmanship itself, than to attempt de- 
scribing it anew or better. The general out- 
line of his intellectual aspect, as sketched in 
few words by the writer already quoted, may 
gtand here by way of preface to these Extracts : 
as was the case above, Avhatever it may want, 
it contains nothing that we dissent from. 

"To characterize Jean Paul's works," says 
he," would be difficult after the fullest inspec- 
tion: to describe them to English readers 
would be next to impossible. Whether poeti- 
cal, philosophical, didactic, fantastic, they 
seem all to be emblems, more or less complete, 
of the singular mind where they originated. 
As a whole, the first perusal of them, more 
particularly to a foreigner, is almost infallibly 
offensive ; and neither their meaning nor their 
po-meaning is to be discerned without long 
jind sedulous study. They are a tropical wil- 
derness, full of endless tortuosities ; but with 
the fairest flowers and the coolest fountains ; 
now overarching us with high umbrageous 
gloom, now opening in long gorgeous vistas. 
We wander through them, enjoying their wild 
grandeur; and, by degrees, our half-contemp- 
tuous wonder at the Author passes into reve- 
rence and love. His face was long hid from 
us ; but we see him at length, in the firm shape 
pi spiritual manhood; a vast and most singu- 
lar nature, but vindicating his singular nature 



by the force, the beauty, and benignity which 
pervade it. In fine, we joyfully accept him 
for what he is and was meant to be. The 
graces, the polish, the sprightly elegancies, 
which belong to men of lighter make, we can- 
not look for or demand from him. His move- 
ment is essentially slow and cumbrous, for he 
advances not with one faculty, but with a 
whole mind; with intellect, and pathos, and 
wit, and humour, and imagination, moving 
onward like a mighty host, motley, ponderous, 
irregular, irresistible. He is not airy, spark- 
ling, and precise; but deep, billowy, and vast. 
The melody of his nature is not expressed in 
common note-marks, or written down by the 
critical gamut : for it is wild and manifold ; its 
voice is like the voice of cataracts, and the 
sounding of primeval forests. To feeble ears 
it is discord, but to ears that understand it, 
deep majestic music."* 

As our first specimen, which also may serve 
for proof that Richter, in adopting his own ex- 
traordinary style, did it with clear knowledge 
of what excellence in style, and the various 
kinds and degrees of excellence therein pro- 
perly signified, we select, from his Vorschule 
der JlesUiclik (above mentioned and recom- 
mended) the following miniature sketches: 
the reader, acquainted with the persons, will 
find these sentences, as we believe, strikingly 
descriptive and exact. 

" Visit Herder's creations, where Greek life- 
freshness, and Hindoo life-weariness are won- 
derfully blended: you walk, as it were, amid 
moonshine, into which the red dawn is already 
falling; but one hidden sun is the painter of 
both." 

" Similar, but more compacted into periods, 
is Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi's vigorous, Ger- 
man-hearted prose ; musical in every sense, 
for even his images are often derived from 
tones. The rare union between cutting force 
of intellectual utterance, and infinitude of sen- 
timent, gives us the tense metallic chord with 
its soft tones." 

"In Goethe's prose, on the other hand, his 
fixedness of form gives us the Memno n' s-tone . 
A plastic rounding, a pictorial determinate- 
ness, which even betrays the manual artist, 
make his works a fixed still gallery of figures 
and bronze statues." 

\" Luther's prose is a half-battle ;\ few deeds 
ar^ equal to his words." 

" Klopstock's prose frequently evinces a 
sharpness of diction bordering on poverty of 
matter; a quality peculiar to Grammarians, 
who most of all know distinctly, but least of all 
know much. From want of matter, one is apt 
to think too much of language. New views 
of the world, like these other poets, Klopstock 
scarcely gave. Hence the naked winter-boughs, 
in his prose; the multitude of circumscribed 
propositions; the brevity; the return of the 
same small sharp-cut figures, for instance, 
of the Resurrection, as of a Harvest-field." 

" The perfection of pomp-prose we find in 
Schiller: what the utmost splendour of reflec- 
tion in images, in fulness and antithesis caa 
give, he gives. Nay, often he plays on the po« 



♦German Romance, iii. 6, 18. 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



215 



etic strings with so rich and jewel-loaded a 
hand, that the sparkling mass disturbs, if not 
the playing, yet our hearing of it." — Vor- 
scliide, s. 545. 

That Richler's own playing and painting 
differed widely from all of these, the reader has 
already heard, and may now convince himself. 
Take, for example, the following of a fair- 
weather scene, selected from a thousand such 
that may be found in his writings ; nowise as 
the best, but simply as the briefest. It is in the 
May season, the last evening of Spring : 

"Such a May as the present, (of 1794,) Na- 
ture has not in the memory of man — begun ; 
for this is but the fifteenth of it. People of re- 
flection have long been vexed once every year, 
that our German singers should indite May- 
songs, since several other months deserve 
such a poetical Night-music better; and I 
myself have often gone so far as to adopt the 
idiom of our market-women, and instead of 
May butter to say June butter, as also June, 
March, April songs. But thou, kind May of 
this year, thou deservest to thyself all the 
songs which were ever made on thy rude 
namesakes ! — By Heaven ! when I now issue 
from the wavering chequered acacia-grove of 
the Castle, in which I am M'riting this Chap- 
ter, and come A)rth into the broad living light, 
and look up to the warming Heaven, and over 
its Earth budding out beneath it, — the Spring 
rises before me like a vast full cloud, with 
a splendour of blue and green. I see the Sun 
jStanding amid roses in the western sky, intoi 
/which he has thrown his ray-brush whcmrith h^ 
j has to-day been painting the Earth ; — and when 
look round a little in our picture exhibition, — 
his enamelling is still hot on the mountains; 
on the moist chalk of the moist earth, the 
flowers, full of sap-colours, are laid out to drj-, 
and the forget-me-not with miniature colours; 
under the varnish of the streams the skyey 
Painter has pencilled his own eye; and the 
clouds like a decoration-painter, he has touched 
off with wild outlines, and single tints ; and 
so he stands at the border of the Earth, and 
looks back on his stately Spring, whose robe- 
folds are valleys, whose breast-bouquet is 
gardens, and whose blush is a vernal evening, 
and who, when she rises, will be — Summer!" — 
Fixkin, z. 11. 

Or the following, in which moreover are 
two happy living figures, a bridegroom and a 
a bride on their marriage-day : 

"He led her from the crowded dancing- 
room into the cool evening. Why does the 
evening, does the night, put warmer love in 
our hearts 1 Is it the nightly pressure of help- 
lessness ; or is it the exalting separation from 
the turmoils of life, that veiling of the world, 
in which for the soul nothing then remains 
but souls: — is it, therefore, that the letters in 
which the loved name stands written in our 
spirit, appear, like phosphorus writing, by 
night, on fire, while by day in their cloudy traces 
they but smoke 1 

" He walked with his bride into the Castle- 
garden : she hastened quickly through the 
Castle, and past its servanl's-hall, where the 
fair flowers of her young life had been crushed 
broad and dry, under a long dreary pressure ; 



and her soul expanded, and breathed in the 
free open garden, on whose flowery soil Des- 
tiny had cast forth the first seeds of the blos- 
soms which to-day were gladdening her exist- 
ence. Still Eden ! Green, flower-chequered 
chiaroscuro .' — The moon is sleeping under 
ground, like a dead one, but beyond the garden, 
the sun's red evening-clouds have fallen down 
like roseleaves ; and the evening-star, the 
brideman of the sun, hovers like a glancing 
butterfly above the rosy red, and, modest as a 
bride, deprives no single starlet of its light. 

" The wandering pair arrived at the old 
gardener's-hut ; now standing locked and 
dumb, with dark windows in the light garden, 
like a fragment of the Past surviving in the Pre- 
sent. Bared twigs of trees were folding, with 
clammy half-formed leaves, over the thick 
intertwisted tangles of the bushes. The Spring 
was standing, like a conqueror, with Winter 
at his feet. In the blue pond now bloodless, 
a dusky evening-sky lay hollowed out; and 
the gushing waters were moistening the flower- 
beds. The silver sparks of stars were rising 
on the altar of the East, and falling down ex- 
tinguished in the red-sea of the West." 

"The wind whirred, like a night-bird, louder 
through the trees ; and gave tones to the aca- 
cia-grove, and the tones called to the pair who 
had first become happy within it : ' Enter, new 
mortal pair, and think of what is past, and of 
my withering and your own ; and be holy as 
Eternity, and weep, not for joy only, but for 
gratitude also i' * * * 

"They reached the blazing, rustling marri- 
age-house, but their softened hearts sought 
stillness ; and a foreign touch, as in the blos- 
soming'vine, would have disturbed the flower- 
nuptials of their souls. They turned rather, 
and winded up into the churchyard, to pre- 
serve their mood. Majestic on the groves and 
mountains stood the Night before man's heart, 
and made it also great. Over the white stee- 
ple-obelisk the sky rested bluer and darker; 
and behind it wavered the withered summit 
of the Maypole with faded flag. The son no- 
ticed his father's grave, on which the wind 
was opening and shutting, with harsh noise, 
the small lid on the metal cross, to let the year 
of his death be read on the brass plate within. 
An overpowering grief seized his heart with 
violent streams of tears, and drove him to the 
sunk hiHock; and he led his bride to the 
grave, and said: 'Here sleeps he, my good 
father: in his thirty-second year he was car- 
ried hither to his long rest. O thou good dear 
father, couldst thou but see the happiness of 
thv son, like my mother ! But thy eyes are 
empty, and thy breast is full of ashes, and thou 
seest us not.' — He was silent. The bride wept 
aloud; she saw the mouldering coifins of her 
parents open, and the two dead arise, and look 
round for their daughter, who had stayed so 
long behind them, forsaken on the earth. She 
fell on his neck and faltered : ' O beloved, I 
have neither father nor mother, do not forsake 
me !' 

"O thou who hast still a father and a mo- 
ther, thank God for it on the day when thy 
soul is full of glad tears, and needs a bosom 
wherein to shed them. . . . 



216 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



"And with this embraciag at a father's 
grave, let this day of joy be holily concluded." 
— Fixkin, z. 9. 

In such passages, slight as they are, we 
fancy an experienced eye will trace some fea- 
tures of originality, as well as of uncommon- 
ness : an open sense for Nature, a soft heart, 
a warm rich fancy, and here and there some 
under-current of Humour are distinctly enough 
discernible. Of this latter quality, which, as 
has been often said, forms Richter's grand 
characteristic, we would fain give our readers 
some correct notion ; but see not well how it 
is to be done. Being genuine poetic humour, 
not drollery or vulgar caricature, it is like a 
fine essence, like a soul ; we discover it only 
in whole works and delineations ; as the soul 
is only to be seen in the living body, not in 
detached limbs and fragments. Richter's Hu- 
mour takes a great variety of forms, some of 
them sufhcienlly grotesque and piebald; rang- 
ing from the light kindly-comic vein of Sterne 
in his Trim and Undc Tuby, over all interme- 
diate degrees, to the rugged grim farce-tragedy 
often manifested in Hogarth's pictures ; nay, 
to still darker and wilder moods than this. 
Of the former sort are his characters of Fix- 
lein, Schmelzle, Tibel ; of the latter his Vult, 
Giannozzo, Leibgebber, Schoppe, which last 
two are indeed one and the same. Of these, 
of the spirit that reigns in them, we should 
despair of giving other than the most inade- 
quate and even incorrect idea, by any extracts 
or expositions that could possibly be furnished 
here. Not without reluctance we have accord- 
ingly renounced that enterprise; and must 
content ourselves with some " Extra-leaf," or 
other separable passage, which, if it afford no 
emblem of Richter's Humour, may be, in these 
circumstances, our best approximation to such. 
Of the "Extra-leaves," in Hesperus itself, a 
considerable volume might be formed, and 
truly one of the strangest. Most of them, 
however, are national; could not be appre- 
hended without a commentary; and even then, 
much to their disadvantage, for Humour must 
be seen, not through a glass, but face to face. 
The following is nowise one of the best; but 
it turns on what we believe is a quite Euro- 
pean subject, at all events is certainly an Eng- 
lish one. 

" Extra-leaf on Daughter-full Houses. 

"The Minister's house was an open book- 
shop, the books in which (the daughters) you 
might read there, but could not take home with 
you. Though five other daughters were al- 
ready standing in five private libraries, as 
wives, and one under the ground at Maienthal 
was sleeping off the child's-play of life, yet 
still in this daughter-warehouse there remained 
three gratis copies to be disposed of to good 
friends. The Minister was always prepared, 
in drawings from the office-lottery, to give his 
daughters as premiums to winners, and hold- 
ers of the lucky ticket. Whom God gives an 
ofiice, he also gives, if not sense for it, at least 
a wife. In a daughter-full house, there must, 
as in the Church of St. Peter's, be cotifessiouals 
for all nations, for all characters, for all faults ; 
that the daughters may sit as confessoiesses 



therein, and absolve from all, bachelorship 
only excepted. As a Natural-Philosopher, I 
have many times admired the wise methods 
of Nature for distributing daughters and 
plants: is it not a fine arrangement, said I 
to the Natural-Historian Goeze, that Nature 
should have bestowed specially on young wo- 
men, who for their growth require a rich mi- 
neralogical soil, some sort of hooking appa- 
ratus, whereby to stick themselves on miserable 
marriage-cattle, that may carry them to fat 
places? Thus Linnteus,* as you know, ob- 
serves that such seeds as can flourish only in 
fat earth are furnished with barbs, and so 
fasten themselves the better on grazing quad- 
rupeds, which transport them to stalls and 
dunghills. Strangely does Nature, by the 
wind, — which father and mother must raise, — 
scatter daughters and fir-seeds into the arable 
spots of the forest. Who does not remark the 
final cause here, and how Nature has equip- 
ped many a daughter with such and such 
charms, simply that some Peer, some mitred 
Abbot, Cardinal-deacon, appanaged Prince, or 
mere country Baron, may lay hold of said 
chaimer, and in the character of Father or 
Brideman, hand over her ready-made to some 
gawk of the like sort, as a wife acquired by 
purchase"! And do we find in bilberries a 
slighter attention on the part of Nature? 
Does not the same Linnaeus notice, in the 
same treatise, that they, too, are cased in a 
nutritive juice to incite the Fox to eat them ; 
after which, the villain, — digest them he can- 
not, — in such sort as he may, becomes their 
sower 1 — 

'• O, my heart is more in earnest than you 
think; the parents anger me who are soul- 
brokers ; the daughters sadden me, who are 
made slave-Negresses. — Ah, is it wonderful 
that these, who in their West-Indian market- 
place, must dance, laugh, speak, sing, till some 
lord of a plantation take them home with him, 
— that these, I say, should be as slavishly treat- 
ed, as they are sold and bought 1 Ye poor 
lambs ! — .\nd yet ye, too, are as bad as your 
sale-mothers and sale-fathers : what is one to 
do with his enthusiasm for your sex, when one 
travels through German towns, where every 
heaviest pursed, every longest-tilled individual, 
were he second cousin to the Devil himself^ 
can point with his finger to thirty houses, and 
say : 'I know not, shall it be from the pearl- 
coloured, or the nut-brown, or the steel-green 
house, that I wed ; open to customers are they 
all !' — How, my girls, is your heart so little 
worth that you cut it, like old clothes, after any 
fashion, to fit any breast; and does it wax or 
shrink, then, like a Chinese ball, to fit itself 
into the ball-mould and marriage ring-case of 
any male heart whatever? — 'Well, it must;- 
unless we would sit at home, and grow Old 
Maids,' answer they; whom I will not answer, 
but turn scornfully away from them to address 
that same Old Maid in these words : 

" ' Forsaken, but patient one ! misknown and 
mistreated! Think not of the times when thou 
hadst hope of a better than the present are, and 



* His ./JHiffl/t. Jlead. — The Treatise ou the Habitable 
Globe. 



JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER. 



217 



repent the noble pride of thy heart never ! It is 
not always our duty to marry, but it is always 
our duty to abide by right, not to purchase hap- 
piness by loss of honour, not to avoid unvved- 
dedness by untruthfulness. Lonely, unadmired 
heroine ! in thy last hour, when all Life and 
the bygone possessions and scaffoldings of Life 
shall crumble in pieces, ready to fall down ; in 
that hour thou wilt look back on thy untenant- 
ed life: no children, no husband, no wet eyes 
will be there ; but in the empty dusk, one high, 
pure, angelic, smiling, beaming Figure, godlike 
and mounting to the Godlike, will hover, and 
beckon thee to mount with her, — mount thou 
with her, the Figure is thy Virtue.' " 

We have spoken above, and warmly, of 
Jean Paul's Imagination, of his high devout 
feeling, which it were now a still more grate- 
ful part of our task to exhibit. But in this 
also our readers must content themselves with 
some imperfect glimpses. What religious 
opinions and aspirations he specially enter- 
tained, how that noblest portion of man's in- 
terests represented itself in such a mind, were 
long to describe, did we even know it with 
certainty. He hints somewhere that "the soul, 
which by nature looks Heavenward, is without 
a Temple in this age ;" in which the careful 
reader will decipher much. 

"But there will come another era," says 
Paul, "when it shall be light, and man will 
awaken from his lofty dreams, and find — his 
dreams still there, and that nothing is gone save 
his sleep. 

" The stones and rocks, which two veiled 
Figures, (Necessity and Vice,) like Deucalion 
and Pyrrha, are casting behind them, at Good- 
ness, will themselves become men. 

"And on the Western Gate (Jhcndlhor, eve- 
ning-gate) of this century stands written : Here 
is the way to Virtue and Wisdom ; as on the 
Western-Gate at Cherson stands the proud In- 
scription : Here is the way to Byzance. 

" Infinite Providence, Thou wilt cause the 
day to dawn. 

" But as yet, struggles the twelfth-hour of the 
Night : the nocturnal birds of prey are on the 
wing, spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living 
dream." — Hesperus. Preface. 

Connected with this, there is one other piece, 
which also for its singular poetic qualities, M'e 
shall translate here. The reader has heard 
much of Richter's Dreams, with what strange 
prophetic power he rules over that chaos of 
spiritual Nature, bodying forth a whole world 
of Darkness, broken by pallid gleams, or wild 
sparkles of light, and peopled with huge, 
shadowy, bewildered shapes, full of grandeur 
and meaning. No Poet known to us, not Milton 
himself, shows such a vastness of Imagination ; 
such a rapt, deep, old Hebrew spirit, as Richter 
in these scenes. He mentions in his Biogra- 
phical Notes the impression which these lines 
of the Tempest, had on him, as recited by one of 
his companions : 

" We are such stuff 
As dreams are iriade of, and our little Life 
Is rounded with a sleep." / 

" The passage of Shakspeare," says he, 
"rounded with a sleep, (mil Scklaf iinigr.ben,) in 
28 



Plattner's mouth, created whole books in me." 
— The following dream is perhaps his grandest, 
as, undoubtedly, it is among his most celebrated. 
We shall give it entire, long as it is, and there- 
with finish our quotations. What value he 
himself put on it, may be gathered from the 
following Note: "If ever my heart," says he, 
" were to grow so wretched and so dead, that 
all feelings in it which announce the being of 
a God were extinct there, I would terrify my- 
self with this sketch of mine; it would heal 
me, and give me my feelings back." We 
translate it from Sicbcnkas, where if forms the 
first chapter, or F.lvmcnsiiick, (Flower-piece.) 

" The purpose of this fiction is the excuse of 
its boldness. Men deny the Divine Existence 
with as little feeling as the most assert it. 
Even in our true systems we go on collecting 
mere words, playmarks, and medals, as the 
misers do coins; and not till late do we trans- 
form the words into feelings, the coins into 
enjoyments. A man may, for twenty years, 
believe the Immortality of the Soul ; — in the 
one-and-twentieth, in some great moment, he 
for the first time discovers with amazement 
the rich meaning of this belief, and the warmth 
of this Naptha-well. 

" Of such sort, too, was my terror at the poi- 
sonous stifling vapour which floats out round 
the heart of him who for the first time enters 
the school of Atheism. I could with less pain 
deny Immortality, than Deity ; there I should 
lose but a world covered with mists, here I 
should lose the present world, namely, the Sun 
thereof: the whole Spiritual Universe is dashed 
asunder by the hand of Atheism, into number- 
less quicksilver-points of Me's, which glitter, 
run, waver, fly together or asunder, without 
unity or continuance. No one in Creation is so 
alone, as the denier of God ; he mourns, with 
an orphaned heart that has lost its great Father, 
by the corpse of Nature, which no World-spirit [ 
moves and holds together, and which grows in 1 
its grave; and he mourns by that Corpse till] 
he himself crumble oif from it. The whole 
world lies before him, like the Egyptian Sphinx 
of stone, half-buried in the sand; and the All 
is the cold iron mask ofa formless Eternity.* * * 
" I merely remark farther, that with the belief 
of Atheism, the belief of Immortality is quite 
compatible ; for the same Necessity, which in 
this Life threw my light dew-drop ofa Mc into 
a flower-bell and under a Sun, can repeat 
that process in a second life; — nay, more 
easily imbody me — the second time than the 
first.' 

"If we hear, in childhood, that the dead,, 
about midnight, when our sleep reaches near the 
soil!, and darkens even our dreams, awake out 
of theirs, and in the church mimic the worship 
of the living, we shudder at Death by reason 
of the dead, and in the night-solitude turn away 
our eyes from the long silent windows of the- 
church, and fear to search in their gleaming, 
whether it proceed from the moon. 

" Childhood, and rather its terrors than its 
raptures, lake wings and radiance again in 
dreams, and sport like fire-flies in the little 
night of the soul. Crush not these flickering 
sparks ! — Leave us even our dark painful 
T 



818 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



dreams as higher half-shadows of reality ! 
And wherewith will you replace to us those 
dreams, which bear us away from under the 
tumult of the waterfall into the still heights of 
childhood, where the stream of life yet ran 
silent in its little plain, and flowed towards its 
abysses, a mirror of the Heaven 1 — 

" I was lying once, on a summer-evening, in 
the sunshine; and I fell asleep. Methought I 
awoke in the churchyard. The down-rolling 
wheels of the steeple-clock, which was striking 
eleven, had awoke me. In the emptied night- 
heaven I looked for the Sun; for I thought an 
eclipse was veiling him with the Moon. All 
the Graves were open, and the iron doors of 
the charnel-house were swinging to and fro by 
invisible hands. On the walls, flitted shadows, 
which proceeded from no one, and other sha- 
dows stretched upwards in the pale air. In the 
open coffins none now lay sleeping, but the 
children. Over the whole heaven hung, in 
large folds, a gray sultry mist, which a giant 
shadow like vapour was drawing down, nearer, 
closer, and hotter. Above me I heard the dis- 
tant fall of avalanches ; under me the first step 
of a boundless earthquake. The Church 
■wavered up and down with two interminable 
Dissonances, which struggled with each other 
in it ; endeavouring in vain to mingle in 
unison. At times, a gray glimmer hovered 
along the windows, and under it the lead and 
iron fell down molten. The net of the mist, 
and the tottering Earth brought me into that 
hideous Temple; at the door of which, in two 
poison-bushes, two glittering Basilisks lay 
brooding. I passed through unknown Shadows, 
on whom ancient centuries were impressed. — 
All the Shadows were standing round the 
empty Altar; and in all, not the heart, but the 
breast quivered and pulsed. One dead man 
only, who had just been buried there, still lay 
•on his coffin without quivering breast; and on 
his smiling countenance, stood a happy dream. 
But at the entrani^e of one Living, he awoke, 
and smiled no longer; he lifted his heavy eye- 
lids, but within was no eye ; and in his beating 
breast there lay, instead of heart, a wound. 
He held up his hands, and folded them to pray ; 
but the arms lengthened out, and dissolved ; 
and the hands, still folded together, fell away. 
Above, on the Church-dome stood the dial-plate 
oi Etcrniiy whereon no number appeared, and 
■which was its own index: but a black finger 
pointed thereon, and the Dead sought to see 
the time by it. 

"Now sank from aloft a noble, high Form, 
1 with a look of uneff'aceable sorrow, down to 
the Altar, and all the Dead cried out, 'Christ I 
I is there no God?' He answered 'There is 
I none !' The whole Shadow of each then shud- 
j dered, not the breast alone; and one after the 
\ other, all, in this shuddering, shook into 
i pieces. 

" Christ continued : ' I went through the 
Worlds, I mounted into the Suns, and flew 
■with the Galaxies through the wastes of Hea- 
ven ; but there is no God ! I descended as far 
as Being casts its shadow, and looked down 
into the Abyss and cried. Father, where art 
thou 7 But I heard only the everlasting storm 
■which no one guides, and the gleaming Rain bow 



of Creation hung without a Sun that made it, 
over the Abyss, and trickled down. And when 
I looked up to the immeasurable world for the 
Divine Eye, it glared on me with an empty, 
black, bottomless Eye-socket : and Eternity lay 
upon Chaos, eating it and ruminating it. Cry 
on, ye Dissonances ; cry away the Shadows, 
for He is not !' 

" The pale-grown Shadov/s flitted away, as 
white vapour which frost has formed with the 
warm breath disappears; and all was void. 
O, then came, fearful for the heart, the dead 
Children who had been awakened in the 
Churchyard, into the temple, and cast them- 
selves before the high Form on the Altar, and 
said, 'Jesus, have we no Father]' And he 
answered, with streaming tears, ' We are all 
orphans, I and you; we are without Father!' 

"Then shrieked the Dissonances still louder, 
— the quivering walls of the Temple parted 
asunder; and the Temple and the Children 
sank down, and the whole Earth and the Sun 
sank after it, and the whole Universe sank 
with its immensity before us; and above, on 
the summit of immeasurable Nature, stood 
Christ, and gazed down into the Universe 
chequered with its thousand Suns, as into the 
Mine bored out of the Eternal Night, in which 
the Suns run like mine-lamps, and the Galaxies 
like silver veins. 

"And as he saw' the grinding press of 
Worlds, the torch-dance of celestial wildfires, 
and the coral-banks of beating hearts ; and 
as he saw how world after world shook off" its 
glimmering souls upon the Sea of Death, as a 
water-bubble scatters swimming lights on the 
waves, then majestic as the Highest of the 
Finite, he raised his eyes towards the Nothing- 
ness, and towards the void Immensity, and 
said : ' Dead, dumb Nothingness ! Cold, ever- 
lasting Necessity I Frantic Chance! Know 
ye what this is that lies beneath youl When 
will ye crush the Universe in pieces, and meT 
Chance, knowest thou what thou doest, when 
with thy hurricanes thou walkest through that 
snow-powder of Stars, and extinguishest Sun 
after Sun, and that sparkling dew of heavenly 
light goes out, as thou passest over it? How 
is each so solitary in this wide grave of the 
All ! I am alone with myself! Father, O 
Father! where is thy infinite bosom that I 
might rest on itl Ah, if each soul is its own 
father and creator, why can it not be its own 
destroyer too 1 

'"Is this beside me yet a Mart? Unhappy 
one ! Your little life is the sigh of Nature, or 
only its echo ; a convex-mirror throws its rays 
into that dust-cloud of dead men's ashes, down 
on the Earth, and thus you, cloud-formed 
wavering phantoms, arise. — Look down into 
the Abyss, over which clouds of ashes are 
moving; mists full of Worlds reek up from 
the Sea of Death ; the Fvtvre is a mounting 
mist, and the Present is a falling one. — Knowest 
thou thy Earth again?' 

" Here Christ looked down, and his eye filled 
with tears, and he said : 'Ah, I was once there; 
I was still happy then ; I had still my Infinite 
Father, and looked up cheerfully from the 
mountains, into the immeasurable Heaven, 
and pressed my mangled breast on his healing 



ON HISTORY. 



219 



form, and said even in the bitterness of death : 
Father, take thy son from this bleeding hull, 
and lift him to thy heart ! — Ah, ye too happy 
inhabitants of Earth, ye still believe in Him. 
Perhaps even now your Sun is going down, 
and ye kneel amid blossoms, and brightness, 
and tears, and lift trustful hands, and cry with 
joy-streaming eyes, to the opened Heaven : 
"Me too thou knowest, Omnipotent, and all my 
wounds ; and at death thou receivest me, and 
closest them all !" Unhappy creatures, at 
death they will not be closed ! Ah, when the 
sorrow-laden lays himself with galled back, 
into the Earth, to sleep till a fairer Morning 
full of Truth, full of Virtue and Joy, he awakens 
in a stormy Chaos, in the everlasting Midnight, 
— and there comes no Morning, and no soft 
healing hand, and no Infinite Father ! — Mortal, 
beside me! if thou still livest, pray io. Him: 
else hast thou lost him for ever!' 

"And as I fell down, and looked into the 
sparkling Universe, I saw the upborne Rings 
of the Giant-Serpent, the Serpent of Eternity, 
which had coiled itself round the All of Worlds, 
— and the Rings sank down, and encircled the 
All doubly; — and then it wound itself, innu- 
merable ways, round Nature, and swept the 
Worlds from their places, and crashing, 
squeezed the Temple of Immensity together, 
into the Church of a Burying-ground, — and all 
grew strait, dark, fearful, — and an immeasur- 
ably extended Hammer was to strike the last 
hour of Time, and shiver the Universe asunder, 

. . . ^VHE^' I AWOKE. 

" My soul wept for joy that I could still pray 
to God ; and the joy, and the weeping, and the 
faith on him were my prayer. And as I arose, 
the Sun was glowing deep behind the full pur- 
pled corn-ears, and casting meekly the gleam 
of its twilight-red on the little Moon, which 
yas rising in the East without an Aurora; 
and between the sky and the earth, a gay 
transient air-people was stretching out its 
short wings and living, as I did, before the In- 
finite Father; and from all Nature around me 
flowed peaceful tones as from distant evening- 
bells." 

Without commenting on this singular piece, 



we must here for the present close our lucu- 
brations -on Jean Paul. To delineate, with 
any correctness, the specific features of such 
a genius, and of its operations and results in 
the great variety of provinces where it dwelt 
and worked, were a long task; for which, per- 
haps, some groundwork may have been laid 
here, and which, as occasion serves, it will be 
pleasant for us to resume. 

Probably enough, our readers, in consider- 
ing these strange matters, will too often be- 
think them of that " Episode concerning Paul's 
Costume ;" and conclude that, as in living, so 
in writing, he was a Mannerist, and man of 
continual Affectations. We will not quarrel 
with them on this point; we must not venture 
among the intricacies it would lead us into. 
At the same time, we hope, many will agree 
with us in honouring Richter, such as he was; 
and " in spite of his hundred real, and his ten 
thousand seeming faults," discern under this 
wondrous guise the spirit of a true Poet and 
Philosopher. A Poet, and among the highest 
of his time, we must reckon him, though he 
wrote no verses ; a Philosopher, though he 
promulgated no systems : for on the whole, 
that " Divine Idea of the World " stood in clear 
ethereal light before his mind ; he recognised 
the Invisible, even under the mean forms of 
these days, and with a high, strong, nnt unin- 
spired heart, strove to represent it in the Visi- 
ble, and published tidings of it to his fellow 
men. This one virtue, the foundation of all 
other virtues, and which a long study more 
and more clearly reveals to us in Jean Paul, 
will cover far greater sins than his were. It 
raises him into quite another sphere than that 
of the thousand elegant sweet-singers, and 
cause-and-effect philosophers, in his own coun- 
try, or in this; the million Novel-manufactu- 
rers, Sketchers, practical Discoursers, and so 
forth, not once reckoned in. Such a man we 
can safely recommend to universal study ; and 
for those who, in the actual state of matters, 
may the most blame him, repeat the old max- 
im : "What is extraordinary try to look at 
with your own eyes." 



ON HISTORY. 



[Fraser's Magazine, 1830.] 



Clio was figured by the ancients as the eld- 
est daughter of Memory, and chief of the 
Muses; which dignity, whether we regard the 
essential qualities of her art, or its practice 
and acceptance among men, we shall still find 
to have been fitly bestowed. History, as it lies 
at the root of all science, is also the first dis- 
tinct product of man's spiritual nature ; his 
earliest expression of what can be called 
Thought. It is a looking both before and after; 
as, indeed, the coming Time already waits, 
unseen, yet definitely shaped, predetermined, 



and inevitable, in the Time come : and only 
by the combination of both is the meaning of 
either completed. The Sibylline Books, though 
old, are not the oldest. Some nations have 
prophecy, some have not: but, of all man- 
kind, there is no tribe so rude that it has not 
attempted History, though several have not 
arithmetic enough to count Five. History has 
been written with quipo-threads, with feather- 
pictures, with wampum-belts; still oftener 
1 with earth-mounds and monumental stone- 
I heaps, whether as pyramid or cairn ; for the 



S20 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Celt and the Copt, the Red man as well as the 
White, lives between two eternities, and, war- 
ring against Oblivion, he would fain unite 
himself in clear, conscious relation, as in dim 
unconscious relation he is already united, with 
the whole Future and the whole Past. 

A talent for History may be said to be born 
with us, as our chief inheritance. In a certain 
sense all men are historians. Is not every me- 
mory written quite full with Annals, wherein 
joy and mourning, conquest and loss, mani- 
foldly alternate; and, with or v.'ithout philoso- 
phy, the whole fortunes of one little inward 
kingdom, and all its politics, foreign and do- 
mestic, stand ineffaceably recorded ] Our 
very speech is curiously historical. Most men, 
you may observe, speak only to narrate ; not 
in imparting what they have thought, which 
indeed were often a very small matter, but in 
exhibiting what they have undergone or seen, 
which is a quite unlimited one, do talkers 
dilate. Cut us oti'from Narrative, how would 
the stream of conversation, even among the 
wisest, languish into detached handfuls, and 
among the foolish utterly evaporate ! Thus, 
as we do nothing but enact History, we say 
little but recite it; nay, rather, in that widest 
sense, our whole spiritual life is built thereon. 
For, strictly considered, what is all Knowledge 
too but recorded Experience, and a product of 
History ; of which, therefore, Reasoning and 
Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are 
essential materials 1 

Under a limited, and the only practicable 
shape. History proper, that part of History 
which treats of remarkable action, has, in all 
modern as well as ancient times, ranked among 
the highest arts, and perhaps never stood 
higher than in these times of ours. For where- 
as, of old, the charm of History lay chiefly in 
gratifying our common appetite for the won- 
derful, for the unknown ; and her office was 
but as that of a Minstrel and Story-teller, she 
has now farther become a Schoolmistress, and 
professes to instruct in gratifying. Whether, 
with the stateliness of that venerable cha- 
racter, she may not have taken up something 
of its austerity and frigidity; whether, in the 
logical terseness of a Hume or Robertson, the 
graceful ease and gay pictorial heartiness of a 
Herodotus or Froissart may not be wanting, is 
not the question for us here. Enough that all 
learners, all inquiring minds of every order, 
are gathered round her footstool, and reve- 
rently pondering her lessons, as the true basis 
of Wisdom. Poetry, Divinity, Politics, Physics, 
have each their adherents and adversaries ; 
each little guild supporting a defensive and 
offensive war for its own special domain ; 
while the domain of History is as a Free Em- 
porium, where all these belligerents peaceably 
meet and furnish themselves; and Sentiment- 
alist and Utilitarian, Skeptic and Theologian, 
with one voice advise us : Examine History, 
for it is " Philosophy teaching by Experience." 

Far be it from us to disparage such teaching, 
the very attempt at which must be precious. 
Neither shall we too rigidly inquire, how much 
it has hitherto profited? Whether most of 
what little practical wisdom men have, has 
come from study of professed History, or from 



other less boasted sources, whereby, as mat- 
ters now stand, a Marlborough may become 
great in the world's business, with no History 
save what he derives from Shakspeare's 
Plays 1 Nay, whether in that same teaching 
by Experience, historical Philosophy has yet 
properly deciphered the first element of all 
science in this kind? What is the aim and 
significance of that wondrous changeful life 
it investigates and paints ? Whence the course 
of man's destinies in this Earth originated, 
and whither they are tending] Or, indeed, if 
they have any course and tendency, are really 
guided forwai'd by an unseen mysterious Wis- 
dom, or only circle in blind mazes without 
recognisable guidance? Which questions, 
altogether fundamenial, one might think, in 
any Philosophy of History, have, since the era 
when Monkish Annalists were wont to answer 
them by the long-ago extinguished light of their 
Missal and Breviary, been by most philosophi- 
cal Historians only glanced at dubiously, and 
from afar; by many, not so much as glanced 
at. The truth is, two difficulties, never wholly 
surmountable, lie in the way. Before philoso- 
phy can teach by Experience, the Philosophy 
has to be in readmess, the Experience must be 
gathered and intelligibly recorded. Now, over- 
looking the former consideration, and with re- 
gard only to the latter, let anj' one who has 
examined the current of human affairs — and 
how intricate, perplexed, unfathomable, even 
when seen into with our own eyes, are their 
thousand-fold, blending movements — say whe- 
ther the true representing of it is easy or im- 
possible. Social Life is the aggregate of all 
the individual men's Lives who constitute so- 
ciety; History is the essence of innumerable 
Biographies. But if one Biography, nay, our 
own Biography, study and recapitulate it as 
we may, remains in so many points unintelli- 
gible to us, how much more must these million, 
the very facts of which, to sa)^ nothing of the 
purport of them, we know not, and cannot 
know ! 

Neither will it adequately avail us to assert 
that the general inward condition of Life is 
the same in all ages ; and that only the re- 
markable deviations from the common endow- 
ment, and common lot, and the more import- 
ant variations which the outward figure of 
Life has from time to time undergone, deserve 
memory and record. The inward condition 
of life, it may rather be affirmed, the conscious 
or half-conscious aim of mankind, so far as 
men are not mere digesting machines, is the 
same in no two ages; neither are the more 
important outward variations easy to fix on, 
or always well capable of representation. 
Which was the greater innovator, which was 
the more important personage in man's his- 
tory, he who first led armies over the Alps, 
and gained the victories of Canna? and Thra- 
symene ; or the nameless boor who first ham- 
mered out for himself an iron spade 1 When the 
oak tree is felled, the whole forest echoes with 
it ; but a hundred acorns are planted silently 
by some unnoticed breeze. Battles and war- 
tumults, which for the time din every ear, and 
with joy or terror intoxicate every heart, pass 
away like tavern-brawls; and, except sorae 



ON HISTORY. 



221 



few Marathons and Morgartens, are remem- 
bered by accident, not by desert. Laws them- 
selves, political Constitutions, are not our Life, 
but only the house wherein our life is led : 
nay, they are but the bare walls of the house; 
all whose essential furniture, the inventions 
and traditions, and daily habits that regulate 
and support our existence, are the work not 
of Dracos and Hampdens, but of Phoenician 
mariners, of Italian masons and Saxon metal- 
lurgists, of philosophers, alchemists, prophets, 
and all the long forgotten train of artists and 
artisans ; who from the first have been jointly 
teaching ns how to think and how to act, how 
to rule over spiritual and over physical Na- 
ture. Well may we say that of our History 
the more important part is lost without reco- 
very, and, — as thanksgivings were once wont 
to be otfered for unrecognised mercies, — look 
with reverence into the dark untenanted 
places of the past, where, in formless obli- 
vion, our chief benefactors, with all their se- 
dulous endeavours, but not with the fruit of 
these, lie entombed. 

So imperfect is that same Experience, by 
which Philosophy is to teach. Nay, even 
with regard to those occurrences that do stand 
recorded, that, at their origin, have seemed 
Avorthy of record, and the summary of which 
constitutes what we now call History, is not 
our understanding of them altogether incom- 
plete ; it is even possible to represent them as 
they were? The old story of Sir Walter Ra- 
leigh's looking from his prison window, on 
some street tumult, which afterwards three 
witnesses reported in three different ways, 
himself differing from them all, is still a true 
lesson for us. Consider how it is that histo- 
rical documents and records originate ; even 
honest records, where the reporters were un- 
biassed by personal regard ; a case which, 
where nothing more were wanted, must ever 
be among the rarest. The real leading fea- 
tures of an historical transaction, those move- 
ments that essentially characterize it, and 
alone deserve to be recorded, are nowise the 
foremost to be noted. At first, among the 
various witnesses, who -are also parties inte- 
rested, there is only vague wonder, and fear or 
hope, and the noise of Rumour's thousand 
tongues ; till, after a season, the conflict of 
testimonies has subsided into some general 
issue ; and then it is settled, by a majority of 
votes, that such and snch a " Crossing of the 
Rubicon," an "Impeachment of Stafford," a 
" Convocation of the Notables," are epochs 
in the world's history, cardinal points on 
which grand world-revolutions have hinged. 
Suppose, however, that the majority of votes 
was all wrong; that the real cardinal points 
lay far deeper, and had been passed over un- 
noticed, because ho Seer, but only mere On- 
lookers, chanced to be there! Our clock 
strikes when there is a change from hour to 
hour; but no hammer in the Horologe of 
Time peals through the universe, when there 
is a change from Era to Era. Men under- 
stand not what is among their hands : as 
calmness is the characteristic of strength, so 
the weightiest causes may be the most silent. 
It is, in no case, the real historical Transac- 



tion, but only some more or less plausible 
scheme and theory of the Transaction, or the 
harmonized result of many such schemes, 
each varying from the other, and all varying 
from Truth, that we can ever hope to behold. 

Nay, were our faculty of insight into passing 
things never so complete, there is still a fatal 
discrepancy between our manner of observing 
these, and their manner of occurring. The 
most gifted man can observe, still more can 
record, only the snics of his own impressions : 
his observation, therefore, to say nothing of 
its other imperfections, must be successive, 
while the things done were often simultaneous ; 
the things done were not a series, but a group. 
It is not in acted, as it is in written History : ac- 
tual events are nowise so simply related to 
each other as parent and offspring are; every 
single event is the offspring not of one, but of 
all other events prior or contemporaneous, 
and will in its turn combine with all others to 
give birth to new: it is an ever-living, ever- 
working Chaos of Being, wherein shape after 
shape bodies itself forth from innumerable 
.elements. And this Chaos, boundless as the 
habitation and duration of man, unfathomable 
as the soul and destiny of man, is what the 
historian will depict, and scientifically gauge, 
we may say, by threading it with single lines 
of a few ells in length! For as all Action is, 
.by its nature, to be figured as extended in 
breadth, and in depth, as well as in length; 
that is to say, is based on Passion and Mys- 
tery, if we investigate its origin ; and spreads 
abroad on all hands, modifying and modified ; 
as well as advances towards completion, so, — 
all Narrative is, by its nature, of only one dimen- 
sion ; only travels forward towards one, or to- 
wards successive points : Narrative is linear, 
Action is solid Alas, for our "chains," or 
chainlets, of " causes and eflects," which we 
so assiduously track through certain hand- 
breadths of years and square miles, when the 
whole is a broad, deep. Immensity, and each 
atom is "chained" and complected with all! 
Truly, if History is Philosophy teaching by 
Experience, the writer fitted to compose his- 
tory is hitherto an unknown man. The Expe- 
rience itself would require All-knowledge to 
record it, were the All-wisdom needful for 
such Philosophy as would interpret it, to be 
had for asking. Better were it that mere 
earthly Historians should lower such preten- 
sions, more suitable for Omniscience than for 
human science; and aiming only at some pic- 
ture of the things acted, which picture itself 
will at best be a poor approximation, leave 
the inscrutable purport of them an acknow- 
ledged secret; or, at most, in reverent Faith, 
far'different from that teachmg of Philosophy, 
pause over the mysterious vestiges of Him, 
whose path is in the great deep of time, whom 
History indeed reveals, but only all History, 
and in Eternity will clearly reveal. 

Such considerations truly were of small pro- 
fit, did they, instead of teaching us vigilance 
and reverent humility in our inquiries inio 
History, abate our esteem for them, or dis- 
courage us from unweariedly prosecuting them. 
Let us search more and more into the Past; let 
all men explore it as the true fountain e<" 
t2 



222 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



knowledge ; by whose light alone, consciously 
or unconsciously employed, can the Present 
and the Future be interpreted or guessed at. 
For though the whole meaning lies far beyond 
our ken ; yet in that complex Manuscript, 
covered over with formless, inextricably en- 
tangled, unknown characters, — nay, which is 
a Palymp^cst, and had once prophetic writing, 
still dimly legible there, — some letters, some 
words, ma}'' be deciphered ; and if no com- 
plete Philosophy, here and there an intelligible 
precept, available in practice, be gathered; 
well understanding, in the mean while, that it 
is only a little portion we have deciphered, 
that much still remains to be interpreted; that 
history is a real prophetic Manuscript, and can 
be fully interpreted by no man. 

But the Artist in History may be distin- 
guished from the Artisan in History ; for here, 
as in all other provinces, there are Artists and 
Artisans ; men who labour mechanically in a 
department, without eye for the Whole, not 
feeling that there is a Whole; and men who 
inform and ennoble the humblest department 
with an Idea of the Whole, and habitually 
know that only ui the Whole is the Partial to 
be truly discerned. The proceedings, and the 
duties of these two, in regard to History, must 
be altogether different. Not, indeed, that each 
has not a real worth, in his several degree. 
The simple Husbandman can till his field, and 
by knowledge he has gained of its soil, sow it 
with the fit grain, though the deep rocks and 
central fires are unknown to him : his little 
crop hangs under and over the firmament of 
stars, and sails through whole untracked celes- 
tial spaces, between Aries and Libra; never- 
theless, it ripens for him in due season, and 
he gathers it safe into his barn. As a husband- 
man he is blameless in disregarding those 
higher wonders ; but as a Thinker, and faithful 
inquirer into nature, he were wrong. So, like- 
wise, is it with the Historian, who examines 
some special aspect of history, and from this 
or that combination of circumstances, political, 
moral, economical, and the issues it has led to, 
infers that such and such properties belong to 
human society, and that the like circumstance 
will produce the like issues; which inference, 
if other trials confirm it, must be held true and 
practically valuable. He is wrong only, and 
an artisan, when he fancies that these proper- 
ties, discovered or discoverable, exhaust the 
matter, and sees not at every step that it is in- 
exhaustible. 

However, that class of cause-and-efTecl 
speculators, with whom no wonder would re- 
main wonderful, but all things in Heaven and 
Earth must be "computed and accounted for;" 
and even the Unknown, the Infinite, in man's 
life, had, under the words Enthusiasm, Super- 
stition, Spirit of the Ag--, and so forth, obtained, 
as it were, an algebraical symbol, and given 
value, — have now well-nigh played their part 
,n European culture; and may be considered, 
as in most countries, even in England itself, 
where they linger the latest, verging towards 
extinction. He who reads the inscrutable Book 
of Nature, as if it were a Merchant's Ledger, is 
justly suspected of having never seen that 
Book, but only some school Synopsis thereof; 



from which, if taken for the real Book, mof6 
error than insight is to be derived. 

Doubtless, also, it is with a growing feeling 
of the infinite nature of history, that in these 
times, the old principle, Division of Labour, 
has been so widely applied to it. The political 
Historian, once almost the sole cultivator of 
History, has now found various associates, 
who strive to elucidate other phases of human 
Life ; of which, as hinted above, the political 
conditions it is passed under, are but one ; and 
though the primar}', perhaps not the most im- 
portant, of the many outward arrangements. 
Of this historian himself, moreover, in his own 
special department, new and higher things are 
now beginning to be expected. From of old, 
it was too often to be reproachfully observed 
of him, that he dwelt with dir^proportionate 
fondness in Senate-houses, in Battle-fields, nay, 
even in King's Antechambers ; forgetting, that 
far away from such scenes, the mighty tide of 
Thought, and Action, was still rolling on its 
wondrous course, in gloom and brightness : 
and in its thousand remote valleys, a whole 
world of Existence, with or without an earthly 
sun of Happiness to warm it, with or without 
a heavenly sun of Holiness to purify and sanc- 
tify it, was blossoming and fading, whether 
the "famous victory" were won or lost. The 
time seems coming when much of this must 
be amended ; and he who sees no world but 
that of courts and camps; and writes only how 
soldiers were drilled and shot, and how this 
ministerial conjurer out-conjured that other, 
and then guided, or at least held, something 
which he called the rudder of government, 
but which was rather the spigot of Taxa- 
tion, wherewith, in place of steering, he could 
tap, and the more cunningly the nearer the- 
lees, — will pass for a more or less instructive 
Gazetteer, but will no longer be called an His- 
torian. 

However, the Political Historian, were his 
work performed with all conceivable perfec- 
tion, can accomplish hut a part, and still leaves 
room for numerous fellow-labourers. Fore- 
most among these comes the Ecclesiastical 
Historian; endeavouring with catholic or sec- 
tarian view, to trace the progress of the Church, 
of that portion of the social establishment, 
which respects our religious condition, as the 
other portion does our civil, or rather, in the 
long run, our economical condition. Rightly 
conducted, this department were undoubtedly 
the more important of the two; inasmuch as 
it concerns us more to understand how man's 
moral well-being had been and might be pro- 
moted, than to understand in the like sort his 
physical well-being; which latter is ultimately 
the aim of all political arrangements. For th*; 
physically happiest is simply the safest, the 
strongest; and in all conditions of Government, 
Power (whether of wealth as in these days, or 
of arras and adherents as in old days) is the 
only outward emblem and purchase-money of 
Good. True Good, however, unless we reckon 
Pleasure synonym(ms with it, is said to be 
rarely, or rather never, ofl^ered for sale in the 
market where that even passes current. So 
that, for man's true advantage, not the outward 
condition of his life, but the inward and: 



ON HISTORY. 



22a 



spiritual, is of prime influence ; not the form of 
government he lives under, and the power he 
can accumulate there, but the Church he is 
a member of, and the degree of moral Eleva- 
tion he can acquire by means of its instruc- 
tion. Church History, then, did it speak 
wisely, would have momentous secrets to 
teach us: nay, in its highest degree, it were a 
sort of continued Holy Writ; our sacred 
books being, indeed, only a History of the 
primeval Church, as it first arose in man's 
soul, and symbolically imbodied itself in his 
external life. How far our actual Church His- 
torians fall below such unattainable standards, 
nay, below quite attainable approximations 
thereto, we need not point out. Of the Eccle- 
siastical Historian we have to complain, as we 
did of his Political fellow-craftsman, Ihathis in- 
quiries turn rather on the outward mechanism, 
the mere hulls and superficial accidents of the 
object, than on the object itself; as if the 
church lay in Bishop's Chapter-houses, and 
Ecumenic Council Halls, and Cardinals' Con- 
claves, and not far more in the hearts of Be- 
lieving Men, in whose walk and conversation, 
as influenced thereby, its chief manifestations 
were to be looked for, and its progress or de- 
cline ascertained. The history of the Church 
is a History of the Invisible as well as of the 
Visible Church ; which latter, if disjoined from 
the former, is but a vacant edifice; gilded, it 
may be, and overhung with old votive gifts, 
yet useless, nay, pestilentially unclean ; to 
write whose history is less important than to 
forward its downfall. 

Of a less ambitious character are the His- 
tories that relate to special separate provinces 
of human Action; to Sciences, Practical Arts, 
Institutions, and the like ; matters which do not 
imply an epitome of man's whole interest and 
form of life; but wherein, though each is still 
connected with all, the spirit of each, at least 
its material results, may be in some degiee 
evolved without so strict reference to that of the 
olhers. Highest in dignity and difficulty, under 
this head, would be our histories of Philosophy, 
of man's opinions and theories respecting the 
nature of his Being, and relations to the Uni- 
verse, Visible and Invisible ; which History, in- 
deed, were it fitly treated, or fit for right treat- 
ment, would be a province of Church History; 
the logical or dogmatical province of it; for 
Philosophy, in its true sense, is or should be 
the soul, of which Religion, Worship, is the 
body; in the healthy state of things the Philo- 
sopher and Priest were one and the same. But 
Philosophy itself is far enough from wearing 
this character ; neither have its Historians been 
men, generally speaking, that could in the 
smallest degree approximate it thereto. Scarce- 
ly since the rude era of the Magi and Druids 
has that same healthy identification of Priest 
and Philosopher had place in any country : but 
rather the worship of divine things, and the 
scientific investigation of divine things, have 
been in quite different hands, their relations 
not friendly but hostile. Neither have the 
Bruckers and Buhles, to say nothing of the 



many unhappy Enfields who have treated of 
that latter department, been more than barren 
reporters, often unintelligent and uninte'ligible 
reporters, of the doctrine uttered, without force 
to discover how the docii'ine originated, or what 
reference it bore to its time and couniiy, to the 
spiritual position of mankind there and then. 
Nay, such a task did not perhaps lie before 
them, as a thing to be attempted. 

Art, also, and Literature are intimately blend- 
ed with Religion ; as it were, outworks and 
abutments, by which that highest pinnacle in 
our inward ' world gradually connects itself 
with the general level, and becomes accessible 
therefrom. He w-ho should write a proper 
Histor)' of Poetry, would depict for us the suc- 
cessive Revelations which man had obtained 
of the Spirit of Nature ; under what aspects he 
had caught and endeavoured to body forth some 
glimpse of that unspeakable Beauty, which in 
its highest clearness is Religion, is the inspira- 
tion of a Prophet, yet in one or the other de- 
gree must inspire every true Singer, were his 
theme never so humble. We should see by 
what steps men had ascended to the Temple; 
how near they had approached ; by what ill 
hap they had, for long periods, turned away 
from it, and grovelled on the plain with no 
music in the air, or blindly struggled to- 
wards other heights. That among all our 
Eichhorns and Wartons there is no such His- 
torian, must be too clear to everyone. Never- 
theless let us not despair of far nearer ap- 
proaches to that excellence. Above all, let us 
keep the Ideal of it ever in our eye; for there- 
by alone have we even a chance to reach it. 

Our histories of Laws and Constitutions, 
wherein many a Montesquieu and Hallam has 
laboured with acceptance, are of a much sim- 
pler nature, yet deep enough, if thoroughly in- 
vestigated ; and useful, when authentic, even 
with little depth. Then we have Histories of 
Medicine, of Mathematics, of Astronomy, Com- 
merce, Chivalry, Monkery; and Goguets and 
Beckmanns have come forward with what 
might be the most bountiful contribution of all, 
a History of Inventions. Of all which sorts, 
and many more not here enumerated, not yet 
devised and put in practice, the merit and the 
proper scheme may require no exposition. 

In this manner, though, as above remarked, 
all Action is extended three ways, and the ge- 
neral sum of human Action is a whole Universe, 
with alllimitsof it unknown, does History strive 
by running path after path, through the Impas- 
sable, in manifold directions and intersections, 
to secure for us some oversight of the Whole ; 
in which endeavour, if each Historian look well 
around him from his path, tracking it out with 
the eye, not, as is more common, with the 7wsc, 
he may at last prove not altogether unsuccess- 
ful. Praying only that increased division of 
labour do not here, as elsewhere, aggravate our 
already strong Mechanical tendencies, so that 
in the manual dexterity for parts we lose all 
command over the whole ; and the hope of any 
Philosophy of History be farther otT than ever ; 
let us all wish her great, and greater success. 



24 



-224 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



LUTHER^S PSALM. 



[Fkaser's Magazine, 1831.] 



Among Luther's Spiritual Songs, of which 
various collections have appeared of late 
years,* the one entitled Eitie fcsic Bui'g ist unsei- 
Gott is universally regarded as the best; and 
indeed still retains its place and devotional use 
in the Psalmodies of Protestant Germany. Of 
the Tune, which also is by Luther, we have no 
copy, and only a second-hand knowledge : to 
the original Words, probably never before 
printed in England, we subjoin the following 
translation ; which, if it possesses the only 
merit it can pretend to, that of literal adherence 
to the sense, will not prove unacceptable to 
our readers. Luther's music is heard daily in 
our churches, several of our finest Psalm-tunes 
being of his composition. Luther's sentiments, 
also, are, or should be, present in many an 
English heart; the more interesting to us is 
any the smallest articulate expression of these. 

The great Reformer's love of music, of poetry, 
it has often been remarked, is one of the most 
significant features in his character. But, in- 
deed, if every great man. Napoleon himself, is 
intrinsically a poet, an idealist, with more or 
less completeness of utterance, which of all our 
great men, in these modern ages, had such an 
endowment in that kind as Luther 1 He it was, 
emphatically, who sto<id based on the Spiritual 
World of man, and only by the footing and mi- 
raculous power he had obtained there, could 
work such changes in the Material World. As 
a participant and dispenser of divine influences, 
he shows himself among human affairs a true 
connecting medium and visible Messenger be- 
tween Heaven and Earth ; a man, therefore, not 
only permitted to enter the sphere of Poetry, 
but to dwell in the purest centre thereof: per- 
haps the most inspired of all Teachers since 
the first apostles of his faith; and thus not 
a poet only but a Prophet and God-ordained 
Priest, which is the highest form of that 
dignity, and of all dignity. 

Unhappily, or happily, Luther's poetic feeling 
did not so much learn to express itself in fit 
Words that take captive every ear, as in fit 
Actions, wherein truly, under still more impres- 
sive manifestation, the spirit of spheral Melody 
resides, and still audibly addresses us. In his 
written Poems we find little, save that Strength 
of one " whose words," it has been said, " were 
half-battles;" little of that still Harmony and 
blending softness of union which is the last 
perfection of Strength ; less of it than even his 
conduct often manifested. With words he had 
not learned to make pure music; it was by 
deeds of Love, or heroic Valour, that he spoke 
freely ; in tones, only through his Flute, amid 
tears, could the sigh of that strong soul find 
utterance. 



* For example : Luther's ffcisllkhe Lieder nebst dessen 
Oedanken iiber die musica, (Berlin, 1817) : Die Lieder L\i- 
ther's gesammelt von Kosegarten und Rambach, ^c. 



Nevertheless, though in imperfect articula- 
tion, the same voice, if we will listen well, is to 
be heard also in his writings, in his Poems. 
The following, for example, jars upon our ears ; 
yet is there something in it like the sound of 
Alpine avalanches, or the first murmur of 
Earthquakes; in the very vastness of which 
dissonance a higher unison is revealed to us. 
Luther wrote this Song in a time of blackest 
threatenings, which, however, could in no wise 
become a time of Despair. In those tones, 
rugged, broken as they are, do we not recognise 
the accent of that summoned man, (summoned 
not by Charles the Fifth, but by God Almighty 
also,) who answered his friend's warning not to 
enter Worms in thiswise: "Were there as 
many devils in Worms as there are roof-tiles, 
I would on ;" — of him who, alone in that as- 
semblage, before all emperors, and principali- 
ties, and powers, spoke forth these final and 
for ever memorable words : " It is neither safe 
nor prudent to do aught against conscience. 
Here stand I, I cannot otherwise. God assist 
me. Amen!"* It is evident enough that to 
this man all Popes' conclaves, and imperial 
Diets, and hosts and nations were but weak; 
weak as the forest, with all its strong Trees, 
may be to the smallest spark of electric Fire. 

EIls"E FESTE BUHG 1ST UXSER GOTT. 

FAn' fesle Burg ist unser Oott, 

FAn' gule Wehr und Waffen ; 

Er hilft unsfrey ans aller JVoth, 

Die uns jetzt hat betroffen. 

Der alte hose Fiend, 

Mit Ernst ers jetzt meint ; 

Gross Marht und viel List 

Seiii grausam' Riistzeuch ist, 

Auf Erd''n ist nicht seins Oleicken. 

Mit unsrer Macht ist nichts gethan, 

Wir sind gar bald verloren : 

Es streit't fur uns der rechte Mann, 

Den Gott sclbst hat erkoren. 

Fragst du wer er ist ? 

Er heisst Jesus Christ, 

Der Herre Zebaoth, 

Undist kein ander Gott, 

Das Feld muss er behalten. 

Und joenn die Welt voll Teufel war, 
Und wollt'n uns gar verschlingen, 
So fiirchtcn wir uns nicht so sehr, 
Es soil uns doch gelingen. 
Der Filrste dieser welt, 
Wie sajier er sich stellt, 
Thut er uns doch nichts ; 
Das macht er ist gerichtt, 
F.in IVortlein kann ihn fallen. 



* " Till such tin)e, as either by proofs from Holy 
Scripture, or by fair reason and argument, I have been 
confuted and convicted, I cannot and will not recant, 
jreil weder sicher voch gerathen ist, etwas wider Oeioissen 
iri thun. Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht andcrs. Oott 
helfe mir. Amen!" 



SCHILLER. 



225 



Das Wort sie soHen lassen stahn 

Und Keimcn Dank dazv haben 

Er ist bey uns wohl auf dem Plan 

Mit seineii Oeist und Oaben. 

JVeAmen sie uns den Leib, 

Gjct', Ehr\ Kind und iVeib, 

Lass fahren dahin. 

Sie haben's kein Gewinn, 

Das Reich Gottes jnuss uns blciben. 

A snfe stronghold our God is still, 
A trusty shield and weapon ; 
He'll help us clear from all the ill 
That hath ns now o'ertaken. 
The ancient Prince of Hell, 
Hath risen with purpose fell; 
Strong mail of Craft and Power 
He weareth in this hour, 
On Earth is not his fellow. 

With force of arms we nothing can, 
Full soon were we down-ridden ; 
But for us fights the proper Man, 
Whom God himself hath bidden. 



Ask ye. Who is this same'? 
Christ Jesus is his name, 
The I ord Zehaoth's Son, 
He and no other one 
Shall conquer in the battle. 

And were this world all Devils o'er 
And watching to devour us, 
We lay it not to heart so sore, 
Not they can overpower us. 
And let the Prince of 111 
Look grim as e'er he will, 
He harms us not a whit, 
For why f His doom is writ, 
A word shall quickly slay him. 

God's Word, for all their craft and force. 
One moment will not linger, 
But spite of Hell, shall have its course, 
' T is written by his finger. 
And though they take our life, 
Goods, honour, children, wife. 
Yet is their profit small ; 
These things shall vanish all. 
The City of God remaineth. 



SCHILLEU; 



[Fraser's Magazine, 1831.] 



To the student of German Literature, or 
of Literature in general, these volumes, pur- 
porting to lay open the private intercourse of 
two men eminent beyond all others of their 
time in that department, will doubtless be a 
welcome appearance. Neitl^pr Schiller nor 
Goethe has ever, that we have hitherto seen, 
written worthlessly on any subject, and the 
writings here offered us are confidential Let- 
ters, relating moreover to a highly important 
period in the spiritual history, not of the par- 
ties themselves, but of their country likewise; 
full of topics, high and low, on which far meaner 
talents than theirs might prove interesting. 
We have heard and known so much of both 
these venerated persons; of their friendship, 
and true co-operation in so many noble endea- 
vours, the fruit of which has long been plain 
to every one : and now are we to look into 
the secret constitution and conditions of all 
this; to trace the public result, which is Ideal, 
down to its roots in the Common ; how Poets 
may live and work poetically among the Pi-ose 
things of this world, and Fuusis and Tells be 
written on rag-paper, and with goose-quills, 
like mere Minerva Novels, and songs by a 
Person of Quality ! Virtuosos have glass 
bee-hives, which they curiously peep into; 
but here truly were a far stranger sort of 
honey-making. Nay, apart from virtuosoship, 
or any technical object, what a hold have such 
things on our univer,'<al curiosity as men ! If 
the sympathy we feel with one another is infi- 
nite, or nearly so, — in proof of which, do but 

* Briefwechscl iicischen Schiller und Goethe, in den jah- 
ren 1794 bis 1805. (Correspondence between Schiller 
»nd Goethe in the years 1794—1805.) Ist— 3d Volumes 
(1794—1797.) Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1828, 1829. 
29 



consider the boundless ocean of Gossip (im- 
perfect, undistilled Biography) which is emit- 
ted and imbibed by the human species daily ; — 
if every secret-history, every closed-door's 
conversation, how trivial soever, has an inte- 
rest for us, then might the conversation of a 
Schiller with a Goethe, so rarely do SchiUers 
meet with Goethes among us, tempt Honesty 
itself into eaves-dropping. 

Unhappily the conversation flits away for 
ever with the hour that witnessed it; and the 
Letter and Answer, frank, lively, genial as they 
may be, are only a poor emblem and epitome 
of it. The living dramatic movement is gone ; 
nothing but the cold historical net-product re- 
mains for us. It is true, in every confidential 
Letter, the writer will, in some measure, more 
or less directly depict himself: but nowhere 
is Painting, by pen or pencil, so inadequate 
as in delineating spiritual Nature. The Py- 
ramid can be measured in geometric feet, and 
the draughtsman represents it, with all its en- 
vironment, on canvas, accurately to the eye ; 
nay Mont-Blanc is embossed in coloured 
stucco; and we have his very type, and minia- 
ture fac-simile, in our museums. But for 
great Men, let him who would know such, 
pray that he may see them daily face to face: 
for, in the dim distance, and by the eye of the 
imagination, our vision, do what we may, will 
be too imperfect. How pale, thin, ineffecluai 
do the great figures we would fain stimmon 
from History rise before us ! Scarcely as pal- 
pable men does our utmost effort body them 
forth; oftenest only like Ossian's ghosts, in 
hazy twilight, with "stars dim twinkling 
through their forms." Our Socrates, our Lu- 
ther, ^fter all that we have talked and argued 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of ihem, are to most of us quite invisible; the 
Sage of Athens, the Monk of Eisleben : not 
Persons but Titles. Yet such men, far more 
than any Alps or Coliseums, are the true 
world-wonders, which it concerns us to behold 
clearly, and imprint for ever on our remem- 
brance. Great men are the Fire-pillars in this 
dark pilgrimage of mankind; they stand as 
heavenly Signs, ever-living witnesses of what 
has been, prophetic tokens of what may still 
be, the revealed, imbodied Possibilities of hu- 
man nature ; which greatness he who has 
never seen, or rationally conceived of, and 
with his whole heart passionately loved and 
reverenced, is himself for ever doomed to be 
little. How many weighty reasons, how many 
innocent allurements attract our curiosity to 
such men ! We would know them, see them 
visibly, even as we know and see our like: 
no hint, no notice that concerns them is super- 
fluous or too small for us. Were Gulliver's 
conjurer but here, to recall and sensibly bring 
back the brave Past, that we might look into 
it, and scrutinize it at will ! But, alas, in Na- 
ture there is no such conjuring: the great 
spirits that have gone before us can survive 
only as disembodied •Voices ; their form and 
distinctive aspect, outward and even in many 
respects inward, all whereby they were known 
as living, breathing men, has passed into an- 
other sphere; from which only Historj', in 
scanty memorials, can evoke some faint resem- 
blance of it. The more precious, in spite of 
all imperfections, is such History, are such 
memorials, that still in some degree preserve 
what had otherwise been lost without reco- 
very. 

For the rest, as to the maxim, often enough in- 
culcated on us, that close inspection will abate 
our admiration, that only the obscure can be sub- 
lime, let us put small faith in it. Here, as in other 
provinces, it is not knowledge, but a little know- 
ledge, that pufi'eth up, and for wonder at the 
thing known substitutes mere wonder at the 
knower thereof: to a sciolist, the starry hea- 
vens revolving in dead mechanism, may be 
less than a Jacob's vision; but to the Newton 
they are more ; for the same God still dwells 
enthroned there, and holy Influences, like An- 
gels, still ascend and descend; and this clearer 
vision of a little but renders the remaining 
mystery the deeper and more divine. So like- 
wise is it with true spiritual greatness. On 
the whole, that theory of "no man being a 
hero to his valet," carries us but a little way 
into the real nature of the case. With a su- 
perficial meaning which is plain enough, it 
esr-entially holds good only of such heroes as 
are false, or else of such valets as are too ge- 
nuine, as are shoulder-knotted and brass-lack- 
ered in soul as well as in body: of other sorts 
it does not hold. Milton was still a hero to 
the good Elwood. But we dwell not on that 
mean doctrine, which, true or false, may be 
left to itself the more safely, as in practice it 
is of little or no immediate import. For were 
it never so true, yet, unless we preferred huge 
bug-bears to small realities, our practical 
course were still the same: to inquire, to in- 
vestigate by all methods, till we saw clearly. 

What worth in this biographical point of 



view, the " Correspondence of Schiller and 
Goethe" may have, we shall not attempt de- 
termining here ; the lather as only a portion 
of the work, and to judge by the space of time 
included in it, only a small portion, is yet be- 
fore us. Nay, perhaps its full worth will not 
become apparent till a future age, when the 
persons and concerns it treats of shall have 
assumed their proper relative magnitude and 
stand disencumbered, and for ever separated 
from contemporary trivialities, which, for the 
present, with their hollow, transient bulk, so 
mar our estimate. Two centuries ago, Lei- 
cester and Essex might be the wonders of 
England; their Kenilworth festivities and Ca- 
diz Expeditions seemed the great occurrences 
of that day; but what should we now give, 
were these all forgotten and some " Corre- 
spondence between Shakspeare and Ben Jon- 
son" suddenly brought to light ! 

One valuable quality these letters of Schil- 
ler and Goeihe everywhere exhibit, that of 
truth : whatever we do learn from them, whe- 
ther in the shape of fact or of opinion, may 
be relied on as genuine. There is a tone of 
entire sincerity in that style : a constant natu- 
ral courtesy nowhere obstructs the right free- 
dom of word or thought; indeed, no ends but 
honourable ones, and generally of a mutual 
interest, are before either party; thus neither 
needs to veil, still less to mask himself from 
the other; the two self-portraits, so far as they 
are filled up, may be looked upon as real like- 
nesses. Perhaps, to most readers, some larger 
intermixture of what we should call domestic 
interest, of ordinary human concerns, and the 
hopes, fears, and other feelings these excite, 
would have improved the work; which as it is, 
not indeed without pleasant exceptions, turns 
mostly on compositions, and publications, and 
philosophies, and other such high matters. 
This, we believe, is a rare fault in modern 
Correspondences; where generally the oppo- 
site fault is complained of, and except mere 
temporalities, good and evil hap of the corre- 
sponding parties, their state of purse, heart, 
and nervous system, and the moods and hu- 
mours these give rise to, — little stands record- 
ed for us. It may be too that native readers 
will feel such a want less than foreigners do, 
whose curiosity in this instance is equally mi- 
nute, and to whom so many details, familiar 
enough in the country itself, mti.st be unknown. 
At all events, it is to be remembered that Schil- 
ler and Goethe are, in strict speech. Literary 
Men ; for whom their social life is only as the 
dwelling-place and outward tabernacle of their 
spiritual life; which latter is the one thing 
needful ; the other, except in subserviency to 
this, meriting no attention, or the least possi- 
ble. Besides, as cultivated men, perhaps even 
by natural temper, they are not in the habit of 
yielding to violent emotions of any kind, still 
less of unfolding and depicting such, by letter, 
even to closest intimates; a turn of mind 
which, if it diminished the warmth of their 
epistolary intercourse, must have increased 
their private happiness, and so, by their friends, 
can hardly be regretted. He who wears his 
heart on his sleeve, will often have to lament 
aloud that daws peck at it: he who does 



SCHILLER. 



227 



not, -will spare himself such lamenting. Of 
Rousseau's Confessions, whatever value we 
assign that sort of ware, there is no vestige in 
this Correspondence. 

Meanwhile, many cheerful, honest little do- 
mestic touches are given here and there ; 
which we can accept gladly, with no worse 
censure than wishing that there had been more. 
But this Correspondence has another and more 
proper aspect, under which, if rightly consi- 
dered, it possesses a far higher interest than 
most domestic delineatipns could have imparl- 
ed. It shows us two high, creative, truly poetic 
minds, unweariedly cultivating themselves, un- 
weariedly advancing from one measure of 
strength and clearness to another; whereby to 
such as travel, we say not on the same road, 
for this few can do, but m the same direction, 
as all should do, the richest psychological and 
practical lesson is laid out; from which men 
of every intellectual degree may learn some- 
thing, and he that is of the highest degrea will 
probably learn the most. What value lies in 
this lesson, moreover, may be expected to in- 
crease in an increasing ratio as the Correspond- 
ence proceeds, and a larger space, with broad- 
er differences of advancement, comes into 
view ; especially as respects Schiller, the 
younger and more susceptive of the two ; for 
whom, in particular, these eleven years may 
be said to comprise the most important era of 
his culture ; indeed, the whole history of his 
progress therein, from the time when he first 
found the right path, and properly became 
progressive. 

But to enter farther on the merits and special 
qualities of these Letters, which, on all hands, 
will be regarded as a publication of real value, 
both intrinsic and extrinsic, is not our task 
now. Of the frank, kind, mfttually-respectful 
relation that manifests itself between the two 
Correspondents ; of their several epistolary 
styles, and the worth of each, and whatever 
else characterizes this work as a series of bio- 
graphical documents, or of philosophical views, 
we may at some future period have occasion 
to speak; certain detached speculations and 
indications will of themselves come before us 
in the course of our present undertaking. 
Meanwhile to British readers, the chief object 
is not the Letters, but the writers of them. Of 
Goethe the public already know something : 
of Schiller, less is known, and our wish is to 
bring him into closer approximation with our 
readers. 

Indeed, had we considered only his impor- 
tance in German, or we may now say, in Eu- 
ropean Literature, Schiller might well have de- 
manded an earlier notice in our Journal. As 
a man of true poetical and philosophical ge- 
nius, who proved this high endowment both in 
his conduct, and by a long series of Writings 
which manifest it to all; nay, even as a man 
so eminently admired by his nation, while 
he lived, and whose fame, there and abroad, 
during the twenty-five years since his decease, 
has been constantly expanding and confirm- 
ing itself, he appears with such claims as can 
belong only to a small number of men. If we 
have seemed negligent of Schiller, want of 
affection was nowise the cause. Our admira- 



tion for him is of old standing, and has not 
abated, as it ripened into calm, loving estima- 
tion. But to English expositors of Foreiga 
Literature, at this epoch, there will be many 
more pressing duties than that of expounding 
Schiller. To a considerable extent, Schiller* 
may be said to expound himself. His great- 
ness is of a simple kind; his manner of dis- 
pla3'ing it is, for most part, apprehensible to 
every one. — Besides, of all German Writers, 
ranking in any such class as his, Klopstock 
scarcely excepted, he has the least nationality: 
his character indeed is German, if German 
mean true, earnest, nobly-humane; but his 
mode of thought, and mode of utterance, all 
but the mere vocables of it, are European. 
Accordingly, it is to be observed, no German 
Writer has had such acceptance with foreign- 
ers ; has been so instantaneously admitted 
into favour, at least any favour which proved 
permanent. Among the French, for example, 
Schiller is almost naturalized ; translated, com- 
mented upon, by men of whom Constant is 
one; even brought upon the stage, and by a 
large class of critics vehemently extolled there. 
Indeed, to the^Romanticist class, in all coun- 
tries, Schiller is naturally the pattern man and 
great master; as it were a sort of ambassador 
and mediator, were mediation possible, be- 
tween the Old School and the New ; pointing to 
his own Works, as to a glittering bridge, that 
will lead pleasantly from the Versailles gar- 
dening and artificial hydraulics of the one, 
into the ti Lie Ginnistan and wonderland of the 
other. With ourselves too, who are troubled 
with no controversies on Romanticism and 
Classicism, — the Bowles controversy on Pope 
having long since evaporated without result, 
and all critical guild-brethren now working 
diligently with one accord, in the calmer sphere 
of Vapidism, or even NuUism, — Schiller is no 
less universally esteemed by persons ofanyfeel- 
ing for poetry. To readers of German, and these 
are increasing everywhere a hundred fold, he is 
one of the earliest studies ; and the dullest 
cannot study him without some perception of 
his beauties. For the un-German, again, we 
have Translations in abundance and supera- 
bundance ; through which, under whatever 
distortion, however shorn of his beams, some 
image of this poetical sun must force itself; 
and in susceptive hearts, awaken love, and a 
desire for more immediate insight. So that 
now, we suppose, anywhere in England, a man 
who denied that Schiller was a Poet would 
himself be, from every side, declared a Prosa- 
ist, and thereby summarily enough put to 
silence. 

All which being so, the weightiest part of our 
duty, that of preliminary pleading for Schiller, 
of asserting rank and excellence for him while 
a stranger, and to judges suspicious of coun- 
terfeits, is taken off' our hands. The knowledge 
of his works is silently and rapidly proceeding ; 
in the only way by which true knowledge can 
be attained, by loving study of them, in many 
an inquiring, candid mind. Moreover, as 
remarked above, Schiller's works, generally 
speaking, require little commentary : for a 
man of such excellence, for a true Poet we 
should say that his worth lies singularly open ; 



328 



GARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



nay, in great part of his writings, beyond such 
open universally recognisable worth, there is no 
other to be sought. 

Yet doubtless if he is a Poet, a genuine in- 
terpreter of the Invisible, Criticism will have a 
'deeper duty to discharge for him. Every Poet, 
be his outward lot what it may, finds himself 
born in the midst of Prose; he has to struggle 
from the littleness and obstruction of an Actual 
world, into the freedom and infinitude of an 
Ideal; and the history of such struggle, which 
is the history of his life, cannot be other than 
instructive. His is a high, laborious, unre- 
quited, or only self-requited endeavour, which, 
however, by the law of his being, he is com- 
pelled to undertake, and must prevail in, or be 
permanently wretched; nay the more wretched, 
the nobler his gifts are. For it is the deep, in- 
born claim of his whole spiritual nature, and 
will not and must not go unanswered. His 
youthful unrest, that "unrest of genius," often 
so wayward in its character, is the dim antici- 
pation of this; the mysterious, all-powerful 
mandate, as from Heaven, to prepare himself, 
to purify himself, for the vocation wherewith 
he is called. And yet how few can fulfil this 
mandate, how few ever earnestly give heed to 
it! Of the thousand jingling dilettanti, whose 
jingle dies with the hour which it harmlessly 
or hurtfully amused, we say nothing here: to 
these, as to the mass of men, such calls for 
spiritual perfection speak only in whispers, 
drowned without difficulty in the din and dis- 
sipation of the world. But even for the Byron, 
for the Burns, whose ear is quick for celestial 
messages, in whom " speaks the prophesying 
spirit," in awful prophetic voice, how hard is 
it to "take no counsel with flesh and blood," 
and instead of living and writing for the Day 
that passes over them, live and write for the 
Eternity that rests and abides over them; in- 
stead of living commodiously in the Half, the 
Reputable, the Plausible, "to live resolutely in 
the Whole, the Good, the True !"* Such Half- 
(less, such halting between two opinions, such 
painful, altogether fruitless negotiating between 
Truth and Fiilsehood, has been the besetting 
sin, and chief misery, of mankind in all ages. 
Nay, in our age, it has christened itself Moder- 
ation, a prudent taking of the middle course; 
and passes current among us as a virtue. How 
virtuous it is, the withered condition of many 
a once ingenious nature that has lived by this 
inethod — the broken or breaking heart of many 
a noble nature that could not live by it — speak 
aloud, did we but listen. 

And now, when from among so many ship- 
wrecks and misventures one goodly vessel 
comes to land, we joyfully survey its rich 
cargo, and hasten to question the crew on the 
fortunes of their voyage. Among the crowd 
of uncultivated and raiscultivated writers, the 
high, pure Schiller stands before us with a like 
distinction. We ask, how was this man suc- 
cessful ? — From what peculiar point of view 
did he attempt penetrating the secret of spiritual 
Nature ? — From what region of Prose rise into 
Poetry] — Under what outward accidents — 
with what inward faculties — by what methods 
.—with what result 1 

f Iia Oanzen, Outen, JVahren resolut zu Zeien.— Goethe. 



For any thorough or final answer to such 
questions, it is evident enough, neither our own 
means, nor the present situation of our readers, 
in regard to this matter, are in any measure 
adequate. Nevertheless, the imperfect begin- 
ning must be made, before the perfect result 
can appear. Some slight far-off glance over 
the character of the man, as he looked and 
lived, in Action and in Poetry, will not, perhaps, 
be unacceptable from us: for such as know 
little of Schiller, it may be an opening of the 
way to belter knowledge; for such as are 
already familiar with him, it may be a stating 
in words of what they themselves have often 
thought ; and welcome, therefore, as the con- 
firming testimony of a second witness. 

Of Schiller's personal history there are 
accounts in various accessible publications; 
so that, we suppose, no formal Narrative of 
his Life, which may now be considered gene- 
rally known, is necessary here. Such as are 
curi,ous on the subject, and still uninformed, 
may find some satisfaction in the Life of Schil- 
ler, (London, 1824;) in the Vie de Schiller, (pre- 
fixed to the French Translation of his Dramatic 
Works;) in Ihe Account of Schiller, (prefixed to 
the English Translation of his Thirty-Years' 
War, Edinburgh, 1828;) and, doubtless, in 
many other Essays, known to us only by title. 
Nay, in the survey we propose to make of his 
character, practical as well as speculative, the 
main facts of his outward history will of them- 
selves come to light. 

Schiller's Life is emphatically a literary one; 
that of a man existing only for Contemplation; 
guided forward by the pursuit of ideal things, 
and seeking and finding his true welfare there- 
in. A singular simplicity characterizes it, — a 
remoteness from whatever is called business; 
an aversion to the tumults of business, an in- 
difference to its prizes, grows with him from 
year to year. He holds no office ; scarcely for 
a little while a University Professorship; he 
covets no promotion ; has no stock of money ; 
and shows no discontent with these arrange- 
ments. Nay, when permanent sickness, con- 
tinual pain of body, is added to them, he still 
seems happy: these last fifteen years of his 
life are, spiritually considered, the clearest and 
most productive of all. We might say, there 
is something priest-like in that Life of his: 
under quite another colour and environment, 
yet with aims differing in form rather than in 
essence, it has a priest-like stillness, a priest- 
like purity; nay, if for the Catholic Faith, we 
substitute the Ideal of Art, and for Convent 
Rules, Moral, Esthetic Laws, it has even 
something of a monastic character. By the 
three monastic vows he was not bound; yet 
vows of as high and difficult a kind, both to do 
and to forbear, he had taken on him; and his 
happiness and whole business lay in observing 
them. Thus immured, not in cloisters of 
stone and mortar, yet in cloisters of the mind, 
which separate him as impassably from the 
vulgar, he works and meditates only on what 
we may call Divine things; his familiar talk, 
his very recreations, the whole actings and 
fancyings of his daily existence, tend thither. 

As in the life of a Holy Man, too, so in that 
of Schiller, there is but one great epoch : that 



SCHILLER. 



3^9 



of taking on him these Literary Vows; of finally 
extricating himself from the distractions of the 
world, and consecrating his whole future days 
to Wisdom. What lies before this epoch, and 
what lies after it, have two altogether different 
characters. The former is worldly, and occu- 
pied with worldly vicissitudes; the latter is 
spiritual, of calm tenor, marked to himself 
only by his growth in inward clearness, to the 
world only by the peaceable fruits of this. It 
is to the first of these periods that we shall 
here chiefly direct ourselves. 

In his parentage, and the circumstances of 
his earlier years, we may reckon him fortu- 
nate. His parents, indeed, are not rich, nor 
even otherwise independent : yet neither are 
they meanly poor; and warm affection, a true 
honest character, ripened in both into religion. 
not without an openness for knowledge, and 
even considerable intellectual culture, makes 
amends for every defect. The Boy, too, is 
himself of a character in which, to the ob- 
servant, lies the richest promise. A modest, 
still nature, apt for all instruction in heart or 
head ; flashes of liveliness, of impetuosity, 
from time to time breaking through. That 
little anecdote of the Tlwnder-storm is so 
graceful in its littleness, that one cannot but 
hope it may be authentic. 

" Once, it is said, during a tremendous thun- 
der-storm, his father missed him in the young 
group within doors ; none of the sisters could 
tell what was become of Fritz, and the old man 
grew at length so anxious that he was forced to 
go out in quest of him. Fritz was scarcely 
passed the age of infancy, and knew not the 
dangers of a scene so awful. His father found 
him at last, in a solitary place of the neigh- 
bourhood, perched on the branch of a tree, 
gazing at the tempestuous face of the sky, and 
watching the flashes as in succession they 
spread their lurid gloom over it. To the re- 
primands of his parent, the whimpering truant 
pleaded in extenuation, ' that the Lightning was 
so beautiful, and he wished to see where it 
was coming from !' " 

In his village-school he reads the Classics 
with diligence, without relish; at home, with 
far deeper feelings, the Bible; and already his 
young heart is caught with that mystic grandeur 
of the Hebrew Prophets. His devout nature, 
moulded by the pious habits of his parents, in- 
clines him to be a clergyman : a clergyman, 
indeed, he proved; only the Church he minis- 
tered in was the Catholic, a far more Catholic 
than that false Romish one. But already in 
his ninth year, not without rapturous amaze- 
ment, and a lasting remembrance, he had seen 
the "splendours of the liudwigsburg Theatre ;" 
and so, unconsciously, cast a glimpse into that 
world, where, by accident or natural preference, 
his own genius was one day to work out its 
noblest triumphs. 

Before the end of his boyhood, however, 
begins afar harsher era for Schiller ; wherein, 
under quite other nurture, other faculties were 
to be developed in him. He must enter on a 
scene of oppression, distortion, isolation ; under 
which, for the present, the fairest years of his 
existence are painfully crushed down. But 
this too has its wholesome influences on him; 



for there is in genius that alchymy which coii- 
verts all metals into gold; which from suffer- 
ing educes strength, from error clearer wisdom, 
from all things good. 

" The Duke of Wurtemberg had lately 
j founded a free seminary for certain branches 
; of professional education: it was first set up 
'at Solitude, one of his country residences; 
and had now been transferred to Stultgard, 
where, under an improved form, and with the 
name of Karls-srhnlc, we believe it still exists. 
The Duke proposed to give the sons of his 
military officers a preferable claim to the 
benefits of this institution; and having formed 
a good opinion both of Schiller and his father^ 
he invited the former to profit by this oppor- 
tunity. The ofter occasioned great embarrass- 
ment: the young man and his parents were 
alike determined in favour of the Church, a 
project with which this new one was incon- 
sistent. Their embarrassment was but in- 
creased, when the Duke, on learning the 
nature of their scruples, desired them to think 
well before they decided. It was out of fear, and 
with reluctance that his proposal was accepted- 
Schiller enrolled himself in 1773; and turned, 
with a heavy heart, from freedom and cherished 
hopes, to Greek, and seclusion, and Law. 

" His anticipations proved to be but too 
just: the six years which he spent in this Es- 
tablishment were the most harassing and 
comfortless of his life. The Stuttgard system 
of education seems to have been formed on the 
principle, not of cherishing and correcting 
nature, but of rooting it out, and supplying its 
place by something better. The process of 
teaching and living was conducted with the 
stift' formality of military drilling; every thing 
went on by statute and ordinance; there was 
no scope for the exercise of free-will, no allow- 
ance for the varieties of original structure. A 
scholar might possess what instincts or capa- 
cities he pleased ; the ' regulations of the 
school' took no account of this ; he must fit 
himself into the common mould, which, like 
the old Giant's bed, stood there, appointed by 
superior authority, to be filled alike by the 
great and the little. The same strict and nar- 
row course of reading and composition was 
marked out for each beforehand, and it was by 
stealth if he read or wrote any thing beside- 
Their domestic economy was regulated in the 
same spirit as their preceptorial : it consisted 
of the same sedulous exclusion of all that 
could border on pleasure, or give any exercise 
to choice. The pupils were kept apart from 
the conversation or sight of any person but 
their teachers ; none ever got beyond the pre-' 
cincts of despotism to snatch even a fearful 
joy ; their very amusements proceeded by the 
word of command. 

"How grievous all this must have been it is 
easy to conceive. To Schiller it was more* 
grievous than to any other. Of an ardent ancJ 
impetuous, yet delicate nature, whilst his dis 
contentment devoured him internally, he wa.-. 
too modest to give it the relief of utterance by 
deeds or words. Locked up within himself, 
he suffered deepl}% but without complaining 
Some of his Letters written during this period 
have been preserved : thev exhibit the inef-' 
U 



S30 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fectual struggles of a fervid and busy mind, 
veiling its many chagrins under a certain 
dreamy patience, which only shows them more 
painfully. He pored over his lexicons, and 
grammars, and insipid tasks, with an artificial 
composure; but his spirit pined within him 
like a captive's, when he hxiked forlh into the 
cheerful world, or recollected the affection of 
parents, the hopes and frolicsome enjoyments 
of past years." 

Youth is to all the glad season of life ; but 
often only by what it hopes, not by what it 
attains, or what it escapes. In these sufferings 
of Schiller's, many a one may say, there is 
nothing unexampled: could not the history of 
every Eton Scholar, of every poor Midship- 
man, with his rudely-broken domestic ties, his 
privations, persecutions, and cheerless solitude 
of heart, equal or outdo them 1 In respect of 
these, its palpable hardships, perhaps it might ; 
and be still very miserable. But the hardship 
which presses heaviest on Schiller lies deeper 
than all these; out of which the natural fire of 
almost any young heart will sooner or later 
rise victorious. His worst oppression is an 
oppression of the moral sense ; a fettering not 
of ihe Desires only, but of the pure reasonable 
Will : for besides all outward sufferings, his 
mind is driven from its true aim, dimly yet 
invincibly felt to be the true one; and turned, 
by sheer violence, into one which it feels to be 
false. Not in Law, with its profits and digni- 
ties ; not in Medicine, which he willingly, yet 
still hopelessly exchanged for Law ; not in the 
routine of any marketable occupation, how 
gainful or honoured soever, can his soul find 
content and a home : only in some far purer 
and higher region of Activity; for which he 
has yet no name; which he once fancied to be 
the Church, which at length he discovers to be 
Poetry. Nor is this any transient, boyish 
wilfulness, but a deep-seated, earnest, ineradi- 
cable longing, the dim purpose of his whole 
inner man. Nevertheless as a transient, boyish 
wilfulness his teachers must regard it, and deal 
with it; and not till after the fiercest contest, 
and a clear victory, will its true nature be 
recognised. Herein lay the sharpest sting of 
Schiller's ill fortune ; his whole mind is 
wrenched asunder; he has no rallying point 
in his misery ; he is suffering and toiling for a 
wrong object. " A singular miscalculation of 
Nature," he says long afterwards, " had com- 
bined my poetical tendencies with the place 
of my birth. Any disposition to Poetry did 
violence to the laws of the Institution where I 
was educated, and contradicted the plan of its 
founder. For eight years, my enthusiasm 
struggled with military discipline ; but the 
passion for Poetry is vehement and fiery as a 
first love. What discipline was meant to ex- 
tinguish, it blew into a flame. To escape from 
arrangements that tortured me, my heart 
sought refuge in the world of ideas, when as 
yet I was unacquainted with the world of 
realities, from which iron bars excluded me." 
Doubtless Schiller's own prudence had 
already taught him that in order to live poeti- 
cally, it was first requisite to live; that he 
should and must, as himself expresses it, "for- 
sake the balmy climate of Pindus for the 



Greenland of a barren and dreary science of 
terms." But the dull work of this Greenland 
once accomplished, he might rationally hope 
that his task .was done; tUat the "leisure 
gained by superior diligence" would be his 
own, for Poetry, or whatever else he pleased. 
Truly, it was " intolerable and degrading to be 
hemmed in still farther by the caprices of 
severe and formal pedagogues." No wonder 
that Schiller " brooded gloomily" over his 
situation. But what was to be done ? "Many 
plans he formed for deliverance; sometimes 
he would escape in secret to catch a glimpse 
of the free and busy world, to him forbidden: 
sometimes he laid schemes for utterly aban- 
doning a place which he abhorred, and trusting 
to fortune for the rest." But he is young, in- 
experienced, unprovided ; without help, or 
counsel : there is nothing to be done, but endure. 

"Under such corroding and continual vexa- 
tions," says his Biographer, "an ordinary 
spirit would have sunk at length; would have 
gradually given up its loftier aspirations, and 
sought refuge in vicious indulgence, or at best 
have sullenly harnessed itself into the yoke, 
and plodded through existence; weary, dis- 
contented, and bi^pken, ever casting back a 
hankering look on the dreams of his youth, 
and ever without power to realize them. But 
Schiller was no ordinary character, and did 
not act like one. Beneath a cold and simple 
exterior, dignified with no artificial attractions, 
and marred in its native amiableness by the 
incessant obstruction, the isolation and pain- 
ful destitutions under which he lived, there 
was concealed a burning energy of soul, which 
no obstruction could extinguish. The hard 
circumstances of his fortune had prevented 
the natural development of his mind; his 
faculties had been cramped and misdirected; 
but they had gathered strength by opposition 
and the habit of self-dependence which it en- 
couraged. His thoughts, unguided by a teacher, 
had sounded into the depths of his own nature 
and the mysteries of his own fate ; his feelings 
and passions, unshared, by any other heart, had 
been driven back upon his own ; where, like 
the volcanic fire that smoulders and fuses in 
secret, they accumulated till their force grew 
irresistible. 

"Hitherto Schiller had passed for an unpro- 
fitable, discontented, and a disobedient Boy: 
but the time was now come when the gyves 
of school-discipline could no longer cripple 
and distort the giant might of his nature: he 
stood forth as a Man, and wrenched asunder 
his fetters with a force that was felt at the ex- 
tremities of Europe. The publication of the 
Robbers forms an era not only in Schiller's his- 
tory, but in the literature of the World; and 
there seems no doubt that, but for so mean a 
cause as the perverted discipline of the Stutt- 
gard school, we had never seen this tragedy. 
Schiller commenced it in his nineteenth year; 
and the circumstances under which it was 
composed are to be traced in all its parts. 

"Translations of the work soon appeared 
in almost all the languages of Europe,* and 

* Our English translation, one of the washiest, was 
executed (we have been told) in Edinburgh by a "Lord 
of Session," otherwise not unknown in Literature : who 



SCHILLER. 



231 



■were read in almost all of them with a deep 
interest, compounded of admiration and aver- 
sion, according to the relative proportions of 
sensibility and judgment in the various minds 
■which contemplated the subject. In Germany, 
the enthusiasm which the Robbers excited was 
extreme. The young author had burst upon 
the world like a meteor; and surprise, for a 
time, suspended the power of cool and rational 
criticism. In the ferment produced by the 
universal discussion of this single topic, the 
poet was magnified above his natural dimen- 
sions, great as they were : and though the 
general sentence was loudly in his favour, yet 
he found detractors as well as praisers, and 
both equally beyond the limits of moderation. 

" But the tragedy of the Robbeis produced 
for its Author some consequences of a kind 
much more sensible than these. We have 
called it the signal of Schiller's deliverance 
from school tyranny and military constraint; 
but its operation in this respect was not imme- 
diate. At first it seemed to involve him more 
deeply than before. He had finished tjje 
original sketch of it in 1778; but for fear of 
oflfence, he kept it secret till his medical studies 
"were completed. These, in the mean time, he 
had pursued with sutficient assiduity to merit 
the usual honours. In 1780, he had, in con- 
sequence, obtained the post of Surgeon to the 
regiment Juge, in the Wurtemberg army. This 
advancement enabled him to complete his pro- 
ject, — to print the Robbers at his own expense; 
not being able to find any bookseller that 
would undertake it. The nature of the work, 
and the universal interest it awakened, drew 
attention to the private circumstances of the 
Author, whom the Robbers, as well as other 
pieces of his writing that had found their way 
into the periodical publications of the time, 
sufficiently showed to be no common man. 
Many grave persons were ofl^ended at the vehe- 
ment sentiments expressed in the Robbers; and 
the unquestioned ability with which these ex- 
travagances were expressed but made the mat- 
ter worse. To Schiller's superiors, above all, 
such things were inconceivable ; he might per- 
haps be a very great genius, but was certainly 
a dangerous servant for His Highness, the 
Grand Duke of Wurtemberg. Officious people 
mingled themselves in the affair: nay, the 
graziers of the Alps were brought to bear upon 
it. The Grisons' magistrates, it appeared, had 
seen the book, and were mortally huffed at their 
people's being there spoken of, according to a 
Swabian adage, as common higlnvuymcn* They 
complained in the Hamburg Correspondent ; and 



went to work under deepest concealment, lest evil might 
befal him. The confidenlial Devil, now an Angel, who 
mysteriously carried him the proof-sheets, is our in- 
formant. 

♦ The obnoxious passage has l)een carefully e.xpunged 
from sulisequent editions. It was in the third .Scene of 
the second Act. Spiegelberg, discoursing with Raz- 
mann, observes, "An honest man you may form of 
windle-straws ; but to make a rascal you must have 
grist : besides there is a national genius in it — a certain 
rascal-climate, so to speak." In the first Edition there 
was added, " Oo to the Orisons, for instonce ; that is 
what J call the Thief's Mhens." The patriot who stood 
forth, on this occasion, for the honour of the Grisons, to 
deny this weighty charge, and denounce the crime of 
making it, was (not Dogberry or Verges, but) "one of 
the noble family of Salis." 



a sort of jackall, at Ludwigsburg, one Walter, 
whose name deserves to be thus kept in mind, 
volunteered to plead their cause before the 
Grand Duke. 

"Informed of all the.se circumstances, the 
Grand Duke expressed disapprobation of 
Schiller's poetical labours in the most une- 
quivocal terms. Schiller was at length sum- 
moned before him ; and it then turned out, that 
his Highness was not only dissatisfied with the 
moral or political errors of the work, but 
scandalized moreover at its want of literary 
merit. In this latter respect, he was kind 
enough to proffer his own services. But Schil- 
ler seems to have received the proposal with 
no sufficient gratitude ; and the interview 
passed without advantage to either party. It 
terminated in the Duke's commanding Schiller 
to abide by medical subjects : or at least, to 
beware of writing any more poetry, without 
submitting it to his inspection. 

"Various new mortifications awaited Schil- 
ler. It was in vain that he discharged the 
humble duties of his station with the most 
strict fidelity, and even, it is said, with superior 
skill : he was a suspected person, and his 
most innocent actions were misconstrued, his 
slightest faults were visited with the full mea- 
sure of official severity. * * * His free spirit 
shrunk at the prospect of wasting its strength 
in strife against the pitiful constraints, the 
minute and endless persecutions of men, who 
knew him not, yet had his fortune in their 
hands : the idea of dungeons and jailers 
haunted and tortured his mind ; and the means 
of escaping them, the renunciation of poetry, 
the source of all his joy, if likewise of many 
woes, the radiant guiding-star of his turbid 
and obscure existence, seemed a sentence of 
death to all that was dignified, and delightful, 
and worth retaining, in his character. * * * 
With the natural feeling of a young author, he 
had ventured to go in secret, and witness the 
first representation of his Tragedy, at Man- 
heim. His incognito did not conceal him; 
he was put under arrest, during a week, for 
this ofl'ence : and as the punishment did not 
deter him from again transgressing in a similar 
manner, he learned that it was in contempla- 
tion to try more rigorous measures with him. 
Dark hints were given to him of some exem- 
plary as well as imminent severity: and Dal- 
berg's aid, the sole hope of averting it by quiet 
means, was distant and dubious. Schiller saw 
himself reduced to extremities. Beleaguered 
with present distresses, and the most horrible 
forebodings, on every side; roused to the 
highest pitch of indignation, yet forced to keep 
silence, and wear the face of patience, he could 
endure this maddening constraint no longer. 
He resolved to be free, at whatever risk; to 
abandon advantages which he could not buy at 
such a price ; to quit his step-dame home, and 
go forth, though fiiendless and alone, to seek 
his forlixue in the great market of life. Some 
foreign Duke or Prince was arriving at Stutt- 
gard ; and all the people were in movement, 
witnessing ihespectable of his entrance : Schil- 
ler seized this opportunity of retiring from tho 
city, careless whither he went, so he got be 



■232 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



yond the reach of turnkeys, and Grand Dukes, 
and commanding officers. It was in the month 
of October, 1782, his twenty-third year." — Life 
of Schilier, Part I. 

Such were the circumstances under which 
Schiller rose to manhood. We see them per- 
manently influence his character; but there is 
also a strength in himself which on the whole 
triumphs over them. The kindly and the un- 
kindly alike lead him towards the goal. In 
childhood, the most unheeded, but by far the 
most important era of existence, — as it were, 
the still Creation-days of the whole future man, 
— he had breathed the only wholesome atmo- 
sphere, a soft atmosphere of afiection and joy: 
the invisible seeds which are one day to ripen 
into clear Devoutness, and all humane Virtue, 
are happily sown in him. Not till he has 
gathered force for resistance, does the time of 
contradiction, of being "purified by suifering," 
arrive. For this contradiction, too, we have 
to thank those Stuttgard Schoolmasters and 
their purblind Duke. Had the system they fol- 
lowed been a milder, more reasonable one, we 
should not indeed have altogether lost our 
Poet, for the Poetry lay in his inmost soul, and 
could not remain unuttered ; but we might 
well have found him under a far inferior cha- 
racter ; not dependent on himself and truth, but 
dependent on the world and its gifts ; not 
standing on a native, everlasting basis, but on 
an accidental, transient one. 

In Schiller himself, as manifested in these 
emergencies, we already trace the chief fea- 
tures which distinguish him through life. A 
tenderness, a sensitive delicacy, aggravated 
under that harsh treatment, issues in a certain 
shyness and reserve: which, as conjoined 
moreover with habits of internal and not of ex- 
ternal activity, might in time have worked 
itself, had his natural temper been less warm 
and afl"ectionate, into timorous self-seclusion, 
dissociality, and even positive misanthropy. 
Nay, generally viewed, there is much in Schil- 
ler at this epoch that to a careless observer 
might have passed for weakness ; as indeed, 
for such observers, weakness, and fineness of 
nature are easily confounded. One element 
of strength, however, and the root of all 
strength, he throughout evinces: he wills one 
thing, and knows what he wills. His mind 
has a purpose, and still better, a right purpose. 
He already loves true spiritual Beaut}^, with 
his whole heart and his whole soul; and for 
the attainment, for the pursuit of this, is pre- 
pared to make all sacrifices. As a dim instinct, 
under vague forms, this aim first appears ; 
gains fiirce with his force, clearness in the op- 
position it must conquer; and at length declares 
itself, with a peremptory emphasis which will 
admit of no contradiction. 

As a mere piece of literary history, these 
passages of Schiller's life are not without 
interest ; this is a "persecution for conscience- 
sake," such as has oftener befallen heresy in 
Religion, than heresy in Literature; a blind 
struggle to extinguish, by physical Adolence, 
the inward, celestial light of a human soul; 
and here in regard to Literature, as in regard 
1o Religion, it always is an ineSectual struggle. 
Doubtless, as religious Inquisitors have often 



done, these secular Inquisitors meant honestly 
in persecuting; and since the matter went 
well in spite of them, their interference with 
it may be forgiven and forgotten. We have 
dwelt the longer on these proceedings of theirs, 
because they bring us to the grand crisis of 
Schiller's history, and for the first time show 
us his will decisively asserting itself, deci- 
sively pronouncing the law whereby his whole 
future life is to be governed. He himself says, 
he "went empty away; empty in purse and 
hope." Yet the mind that dwelt in him was 
still there with its gifts ; and the task of his 
existence now lay undivided before him. He 
is henceforth a Literary Man ; and need appear 
in no other character. "All my connections," 
he could ere long say, "are now dissolved. 
The public is now all to me ; my study, my 
sovereign, my confidant. To the public alone 
I from this time belong; before this and 
no other tribunal will I place myself; this 
alone do I reverence and fear. Something 
majestic hovers before me, as I determine now 
tQ wear no other fetters but the sentence of the 
world, to appeal to no other throne but the soul 
of man."* 

In his subsequent life, with all varieties of 
outward fortune, we find a noble inward unity. 
That love of Literature, and that resolution to 
abide by it at all hazards, do not forsake him. 
He wanders through the world, looks at it 
under man}' phases; mingles in the joys of 
social life; is a husband, father ; experiences 
all the common destinies of man ; but the same 
" radiant guiding-star" which, often obscured, 
had led him safe through the perplexities of 
his youth, now shines on him with unwavering 
light. In all relations and conditions, Schiller 
is blameless, amiable ; he is even little tempted 
to err. That high purpose after spiritual per- 
fection, which with him was a love of Poetry, 
and an unwearied, active love, is itself, when 
pure and supreme, the necessary parent of 
good conduct, as of noble feeling. With all 
men it should be pure and supreme; for in one 
or the other shape it is the true end of man's 
life. Neither in any man is it ever wholly 
obliterated; with the most, however, it remains 
a passive sentiment, an idle wish. And even 
with the small residue of men in whom it 
attains some measure of activity, who would 
be Poets in act or word, how seldom is it the 
sincere and highest purpose, how seldom un- 
mixed with vulgar ambition, and low, mere 
earthly aims, which distort or utterly pervert 
its manifestations! With Sdiiller, again, it, 
was the one thing needful ; the first duty, for 
which all other duties worked together, under 
which all other duties quietly prospered, as 
under their rightful sovereign. Worldly pre- 
ferment, fame itself, he did not covet: yet of 
fame he reaps the most plenteous harvest; and 
of worldly goods what little he wanted is in 
the end made sure to him. His mild, honest 
character everywhere gains him friends : that 
upright, peaceful, simple life is honourable in 
the eyes of all ; and they who know him the 
best love him the most. 

Perhaps, among all the circumstances of 

* Preface to the Thalia. 



SCHILLER. 



233 



Schiller's literary life there was none so im- 
portant for him as his connection with Goethe. 
To use our old figure, we might say, that if 
Schiller was a Priest, then was Goethe the 
Bishop from whom he first acquired clear spi- 
ritual light, by whose hands he was ordained to 
the priesthood. Their friendship has been 
much celebrated, and deserved to be so ; it is a 
pure relation ; unhappily too rare in Literature ; 
where if a Swift and Pope can even found an 
imperious Duumvirate, on little more than 
mutually-tolerated pride, and part the spoils, 
for some time, without quarrelling, it is thought 
a credit. Seldom do men combine so steadily 
and warmly for such purposes, — which when 
weighed in the economical balance are but 
gossamer. It appears also that preliminary 
difficulties stood in the way; prepossessions 
of some strength had to be conquered on both 
sides. For a number of years, the two, by 
accident or choice, never met, and their first 
interview scarcely promised anj' permanent 
approximation. " On the whole," says Schiller, 
"this personal meeting has not at all dimin- 
ished the idea, great as it was, which I had 
previously formed of Goethe ; but I doubt 
whether we shall ever come into close com- 
munication with each other. Much that still 
interests me has already had its epoch with 
him. His whole nature is, from its very origin, 
otherwise constructed than mine: his world is 
not my world ; our modes of conceiving things 
appear to he essentiall)' different. From such 
a combination no secure substantial intimacy 
can result." 

Nevertheless, in spite of far graver preju- 
dices on the part of Goethe, — to say notlnng of 
the poor jealousies which in another man so 
circumstanced would openlj' or secretly have 
been at work, — a secure substantial intimacy 
did result — manifesting itself by continual good 
offices, and interrupted onl}' by death. If we 
regard the relative situation of the parties, and 
their conduct in this matter, we must recognise 
in both of them no little social virtue; at all 
events, a deep disinterested love of worth. In 
the case of Goethe, more especially, who, as 
the elder and every way greater of the two, has 
little to expect in comparison with what he 
gives, this friendly union, had we space to ex- 
plain its nature and progress, would give new 
proof that, as poor Jung Stilling also experi- 
enced, " the man's heart, which few know, is 
as true and noble as his genius, which all 
know." By Goethe, and this even before the 
date of their friendship, Schiller's outward in- 
terests had been essentially promoted : he was 
introduced under that sanction, into the ser- 
vice of Weimar, to an academic orfice, to a 
pension : his whole way was made smooth for 
him. In spiritual matters, this help, or rather 
let us say co-operation, for it came not in the 
shape of help, but of reciprocal service, was 
of still more lasting consequence. By the side 
of his friend, Schiller rises into the highest 
regions of Art he ever reached; and in all 
worthy things is sure of sympathy, of one wise 
judgment amid a crowd of unwise ones, of one 
helpful hand amid many hostile. Thus out- 
wardly and inwardly assisted and confirmed, 
he henceforth goes on his way with new stead- 
30 



fastness, turning neither to the right hand, nor 
to the left; and while days are given him, de- 
votes them wholly to his best duty. It is rare 
that one man can do so much for another, can 
permanently benefit another; so mournfully,, 
in giving and receiving, as in most charitable 
affections and finer movements of our nature,, 
are we all held in by that paltry vanity, which, 
under reputable names, usurps, on both sides, 
a sovereignty it has no claim to. Nay, many 
times, when our friend would honestly help us, 
and strives to do it, yet will he never bring him- 
self to understand what we really need, and so 
to forward us on our own path; but insists 
more simply on us taking his path, and leaves 
us as incorrigible because we will not and can- 
not. Thus " men are solitary among each 
other;" no one will help his neighbour; each 
has even to assume a defensive attitude lest his 
neighbour hinder him ! 

Of Schiller's zealous, entire devotedness to 
Literature we have already spoken as of his 
crowning virtue, and the great source of his 
welfare. With what ardour he pursued this 
object his whole life, from the earliest stage of 
it, had given proof: but the clearest proof, 
clearer even than that youthful self-exile, was 
reserved for his later years, when a lingering, 
incurable disease had laid on him its new and 
ever-galling burden. At no period of Schiller's 
history does the native nobleness of his cha- 
racter appear so decidedly, as now in this sea- 
son of silent, unwitnessed heroism, when the 
dark enemy dwelt within himself, unconquer- 
able, yet ever, in all other struggles, to be kept 
at bay. We have medical evidence that during 
the last fifteen years of his life, not a moment 
could have been free of pain. Yet he utters 
no complaint. In this "Correspondence with 
Goethe" we see him cheerful, laborious ; 
scarcel}' speaking of his maladies, and then 
only historically, in the style of a third parly, 
as it were, calculating what force and length 
of days might still remain at his disposal. Nay, 
his highest poetical performances, we may say 
all that are truly poetical, belong to this era. 
If we recollect how many poor valetudinarians, 
Rousseaus, Cowpers, and the like, men other- 
wise of fine endowment, dwindle under the in- 
fluence of nervous disease, into pining wretch- 
edness, some into madness itself; and then that 
Schiller, under the like influence, wrote some 
of his deepest speculations, and all his genuine 
dramas, from Wallenslein to IMlhcbn Tell, we 
shall the better estimate his merit. 

It has been said that only in Religion, or 
something equivalent to Religion, can human 
nature support itself under such trials. But 
Schiller too had his Religion ! was a Worship- 
per, najs as we have often said, a Priest; and 
so in his earthly sufferings wanted not a hea- 
venly stay. Without some such stay his life 
might well have been intolerable; stnptof the 
Ideal, what remained for him in the Real was 
but a poor matter. Do we talk of his "happi- 
ness V Alas, what is the loftiest flight ofgenius, 
the finest frenzy that ever for moments united 
Heaven with Earth, to the perennial never-fail- 
ing jo3'-s of a digestive-apparatus thoroughly 
eupeptic? Has not the turtle-eating man an 
eternal sunshine of the breast 1 Does not his 
V 3 



S34 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Soul, — which, as in some Sclavonic dialects, 
means his Stomach, — sit fur ever at his case, 
enwrapped in warm condiments, amid spicy 
odours; enjoying the past, the present and the 
future ; and only awakening from its soft trance 
to the sober certainty of a still higher bliss each 
meal-time — three or even four visions of 
Heaven in the space of one solar day ! While 
for the sick man of genius, " whose world is 
of the miiiti, ideal, internal; when the mildew 
of lingering disease has struck that world, and 
begun tij blacken and consume its beauty, what 
remains but despondency, and bitterness, and 
desolate sorrow felt and anticipated to ihe end 1" 

"Wo to him," continues this Jeremiah, "if 
his will likewise falter, if his resolution fail, 
and his spirit bend its neck to the yoke of this 
new enemy ! Idleness and a disturbed imagi- 
nation will gain the mastery of him, and let 
loose their thousand fiends to harass him, to 
torment him into madness. Alas ! the bondage 
of Algiers is freedom compared with this of 
the sick man of genius, whose heart has faint- 
ed, and sunk beneath its load. His clay dwell- 
ing is changed into a gloomy prison; every 
nerve has become an avenue of disgust or an- 
guish, and the soul sits within in her melan- 
choly loneliness, a prey to the spectres of des- 
pair, or stupified with excess of suffering; 
doomed, as it were, to a life-in-death, to a con- 
sciousness of agonized existence, without the 
consciousness of power which should accom- 
pany it. Happily death, or entire latnity, at 
length puts an end to such scenes of ignoble 
misery, which, however, ignoble as they are, 
we ought to view with pity rather than con- 
tempt." — Life of Schilkr, p. 167. 

Yet on the whole, we say, it is a shame for 
the man of genius to complain. Has he not 
a " light from Heaven" within him, to which 
the splendour of all earthly thrones and prin- 
cipalities is but darkness '! And the head that 
wears such a crown grudges to lie uneasy] 
If that same "light from Heaven," shining 
through the falsest media, supported Syrian 
Simon through all weather on his sixty -feet pil- 
lar, or the still more wonderful Eremite, who 
walled himself, for life, up to the chin, in stone 
and mortar; how much more should it do, 
when shining direct and pure from all inter- 
mixture 1 Let the modern Priest of wisdom 
either suffer his small persecutions and inflic- 
tions, though sickness be of the number, in 
patience, or admit that ancient fanatics and bed- 
lamites were truer worshippers than he. 

A foolish controversy on this subject of hap- 
piness now and then occupies some intellectual 
dinner-party; speculative gentlemen we have 
seen, more than once, almost forget their wine 
in arguing whether Happiness was the chief 
end of man. The most cry out, with Pope: 
" Happiness, our being's end and aim ;" and 
ask whether it is even conceivable that we 
should f illow any other. How comes it, then, 
■cry the Opposition, that the gross are happier 
than the refined; that even though we kncivv 
them to be happier, we would not change 
places with them ! Is it not written, " increase 
of knowledge is increase of sorrow?" And 
yet also written, in characters still more inef- 
faceable, " Pursue knowledge, attain clear vi- 



sion, as the beginning of all good V Were your 
doctrine right, for what should we struggle with 
our whole might, for what pray to Heaven, if 
not that the " malady of thought" might be 
utterly stifled within us, and a power of diges- 
tion and secretion, to which that of the tiger 
were trifling, be imparted instead thereof? 
Whereupon the others deny that thought is a 
malady ; that increase of knowledge is increase 
of sorrow; that Aldermen have a sunnier life 
than Aristotle's, though the Stagyrite himself 
died exclaiming. Fade mundum intravi, anxiits 
vixi, perlurbatus morior, S^r. .• and thus the argu- 
ment circulates, and the bottles stand still. 

So far as that Happiness question concerns 
the symposia of speculative gentlemen, — the 
rather as it really is a good enduring backlog 
whereon to chop logic, for those so minded, — 
we with great willingness leave it resting on 
its own bottom. But there are earnest natures 
for whom Truth is no plaything, but the staff 
of life ; men whom ihe " solid reality of things" 
will not carry forward ; who when the " inward 
voice" is silent in them, are powerless, nor will 
the loud huzzaing of millions supply the want 
of it. To these men, seeking anxiously for 
guidance ; feeling that did they once clearly see 
the right, they would follow it cheerfully to 
weal or to wo, comparatively careless which; 
to these men the question, what is the proper 
aim of man, has a deep and awful interest. 

For the sake of such, it may be remarked 
that the origin of this argument, like that of 
every other argument under the sun, lies in the 
confusion of language. If Happiness mean 
Welfare, there is no doubt but all men should 
and must pursue their Welfare, that is to say, 
pursue what is worthy of their pursuit. But 
if, on the other hand, Happiness mean, as for 
most men it does, " agreeable sensations," 
Enjoyment refined or not, then must we observe 
that there is a doubt ; or rather that there is a 
certainty the other way. Strictly considered, 
this truth, that man has in him something 
higher than a Love of Pleasure, take Pleasure 
in what sense you will, has been the text of all 
true Teachers and Preachers, since the begin- 
ning of the world ; and in one or another dia- 
lect, we may hope, will continue to be preached 
and taught till the world end. Neither is our 
own day without its asserters thereof: what, 
for example, does the astonished reader make 
of this little sentence from Schiller's jEsthetic 
Letters? It is on that old question the "im- 
provement of the species;" which, however, is 
handled here in a very new manner. 

"The first acquisitions, then, which men 
gathered in the Kingdom of Spirit were. /?nx!e?y 
; and Fear; both, it is true, products of Reason, 
j not of Sense; but of a Reason that mistook its 
object, and mistook its mode of application. 
Fruits of this same tree are all your Happiness- 
i Systems, (Gtiirkselvjicilsi'ysleme,) whether they 
! have for object the passing Day, or the whole 
! of life, or what renders them no whit more 
! venerable, the whole of Eternity. A boundless 
duration of Being and Well-being (Z)"Sfynsimrf 
Wohheytif) simply for Being and Well-being's 
sake, is an Ideal belonging to Appetite alone, 
and which only the struggle of mere Animal- 
ism, (Thicrheit,) longing to be infinite, gives 



SCHILLER. 



235 



rise to. Thus without gaining any thing for 
his Manhood, he, by this first effort of Reason, 
loses the happy limitation of the Animal ; and 
has now only the unenviable superiority of 
missing the Present in an effort directed to the 
Distance, and whereby still, in the whole 
boundless Distance, nothing but the Present is 
sought for." — Iriefe iibcr die Aeslhetische Erzie- 
hv.7ig dcs Menschen, B. 24. 

The JEsihetic Letters, in which this and many 
far deeper matters come into view, will one day 
deserve a long chapter to themselves. Mean- 
while we cannot but remark, as a curious 
symptom of this time, that the pursuit of 
merely sensuous good, of personal Pleasure in 
one shape or other, should be the universally 
admitted formula of man's whole duty. Once, 
Epicurus had his Zeno; and if the herd of 
mankind have at all times been the slaves of 
Desire, Drudging anxiously for their mess of 
pottage, or filling themselves with swine's 
husks, — earnest natures were not wanting, who, 
at least in theory, asserted for their kind a 
higher vocation than this ; declaring, as they 
could, that man's sonl was no dead Balance 
for "motives" to sway hither and thither, but 
a living, divine Soul, indefeasibly Free, whose 
birthright it was to be the servant of Virtue, 
Goodness, God, and in such service to be 
blessed without fee or reward. Now-a-days, 
however, matters are, on all hands, managed 
far more prudently. The choice of Hercules 
could not occasion much difficulty in these 
times to any young man of talent. On the one 
hand — by a path which is steep, indeed, yet 
smoothed by much travelling, and kept in con- 
stant repair by many a moral Macadam — 
smokes (in patent calefactors) a Dinner of in- 
numerable courses; on the other, by a down- 
ward path, through avenues of very mixed 
character, frowns in the distance a grim Gal- 
lows, probably "improved drop." Thus is 
Utility the only God of these days ; and our 
honest Benthamites are but a small Provincial 
Synod of that boundless Communion. With- 
out gift of .prophecy we may predict, that the 
straggling bush-fire which is kept up here and 
there against that body of M-ell-intentioned 
men, must one day become a universal battle ; 
and the grand question. Mind versus Matter, be 
again under new forms judged of and decided. 
— But we wander too far from our task; to 
which, therefore, nothing doubtful of a pros- 
perous issue in due time to that Utilitarian 
struggle, we hasten to return. 

In forming for ourselves some picture of 
Schiller as a man, of what may be called his 
moral character, pei-haps the very perfection 
of his manner of existence tends to diminish 
our estimate of its merits. What he aimed at 
he has attained in a singular degree. His life, 
at least from the period of manhood, is still 
unruffled, — of clear even course. The com- 
pleteness of the victory hides from us the 
magnitude of the struggle. On the whole, 
however, we may admit, that his character 
was not so much a great character as a holy 
one. We have often named him a Priest; and 
this title, with tiie quiet loftiness, — the pure, 
secluded, only internal, yet still heavenly worth 
that should belong to it, perhaps best describes 



him. One high enthusiasm takes possession 
of his whole nature. Herein lies his strength, 
as well as the task he has to do; for this he 
lived, and we may say aL<o he died for it. In 
his life we see n.ot that the social affections 
played any deep part. As a son, husband, 
father, friend, he is ever kindly, honest, amia- 
ble ; but rarely, if at all, do outward things 
stimulate him into what can be called passion. 
Of the wild loves and lamentations, and all the 
fierce ardour that distinguish, for instance, his 
Scottish contemporary. Burns, there is scarcely 
any trace here. In fact, it was towards the 
Ideal, not towards the Actual, that Schiller's 
faith and hope was directed. His highest hap- 
piness lay not in outward honour, pleasure, so- 
cial recreation, perhaps not even in friendly 
affection, such as the world could show it ; but 
in the realm of Poetry, a city of the mind, 
where, for him, all that was true and noble had 
foundation. His habits, accordingly, though far 
from dissocial, were solitary ; his chief business 
and chief pleasure lay in silent meditation. 

" His intolerance of interruptions," we are 
told at an early period of his life, "first put 
him on the plan of studying by night ; an al- 
luring, but pernicious practice, which began 
at Dresden, and was never afterwards given up. 
His recreations breathed a similar spirit : he 
loved to be much alone, and stront;ly moved. 
The banks of the Elbe were the favourite re- 
sort of his mornings: here, wandering in soli- 
tude, amid groves and lawns, and green and 
beautiful places, he abandoned his mind to de- 
licious musings; or meditated on the cares 
and studies which had lately been employing, 
and were again soon to employ him. At times 
he might be seen floating on the river, in a 
gondola, feasting himself with the loveliness 
of earth and sky. He delighted most to be 
there when tempests were abroad ; his unquiet 
spirit found a solace in the expression of its 
own unrest on the face of Nature; danger lent 
a charm to his situation ; he felt in harmony 
with the scene, when the rack was sweeping 
stormfully across the heavens, and the forests 
WPie sounding in the breeze, and the river was 
rolling its chafed waters into wild eddying 
heaps." 

" During summer," it is mentioned at a sub- 
sequent date, "his place of study was in a 
garden which he at length purchased, in the 
suburbs of Jena, not far from the Weselhoft's 
house, where, at that time, was the office of the 
JlUgcmeinc Litleralvrzeitvni;. Reckoning from 
the market-place of .Tena, it lies on the south- 
west border of the town, between the Engel- 
gatter and the Neuthor, in a hollow defile, 
through which a part of the Leutrabach flows 
round the city. On the top of the acclivity, 
from which there is a beautiful prospect into 
the valley of the Saal, and the fir-mountains 
of the neighbouring forest, Schiller built him- 
self a small house with a single chamber. It 
was his favourite abode during hours of com- 
position; a great part of the works he then 
wrote were written here. In winter he likewise 
dwelt apart from the tumult of men, — in Gries- 
bach's house, on the outside of the city trench. 
On sitting down to his desk at night, he was 
wont to keep some strong coffee, or wine-cho- 



236 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WPITINGS. 



colate, but more frequently a flask of old Rhe- 
nish, or Champagne, standing by him, that he 
might from time to time repair the exhaustion 
of nature. Often the neighbours used to hear 
him earnestly declaiming in the silence of the 
night; and whoever had an opportunity of 
watching him on such occasions — a thing very 
easy to be done, from the heights lying oppo- 
site his little garden-house, on the other side 
of the dale — might see him now speaking 
aloud, and walking swiftly to and fro in his 
chamber, then suddenly throwing himself 
down into his chair, and writing; and drink- 
ing the while, sometimes more than once, from 
the glass standing near him. In winter he 
was to be found at his desk till four, or even 
five o'clock, in the morning; in summer till 
towards three. He then went to bed, from 
which he seldom rose till nine or ten." 

And again : 

" At Weimar his present way of life was 
like his former one at Jena: his business was 
to study and compose ; his recreations were 
in the circle of his family, where he could 
abandon himself to affections grave or trifling, 
and in frank cheerful intercourse with a few 
friends. Of the latter he had lately formed a 
social club, the meetings of which afforded him 
a regular and innocent amusement. He still 
loved solitary walks: in the Park at Weimar 
he might frequently be seen, wandering among 
the groves and remote avenues, with a note- 
book in his hand ; now loitering slowly along, 
now standing still, now moving rapidly on ; if 
any one appeared in sight, he would dart into 
another alley, that his dream might not be 
broken. One of his favourite resorts, we are 
told, was the thickly overshadowed, rocky path, 
which leads to the lldmischc Haiis, a pleasure- 
house of the Duke's, built under the direction 
of Goethe. There he would often sit in the 
gloom of the crags overgrown with C3'presses 
and boxwood ; shady thickets before him ; not 
far from the murmur of a little brook, which 
there gushes in a smooth slaty channel, and 
where some verses of Goethe are cut upon a 
brown plate of stone, and fixed in the rock." — 
Life of Schiller. 

>Such retirement, alike from the tumults and 
the pleasures of busy men, though it seems to 
diminish the merit of virtuous conduct in 
Schiller, is itself, as hinted above, the best 
proof of his virtue. No man is born without 
ambitious w^orldly desires; and for no man, 
especially for no man like Schiller, can the 
victory over them be too complete. His duty 
lay in that mode of life ; and he had both dis- 
covered his duty, and addressed himself with 
his whole might to perform it. Nor was it in 
estrangement from men's interests that this se- 
clusion originated: but rather in deeper con- 
cern for those. From man}'' indications, we 
can perceive that to Schiller the task of the 
Poet appeared of far weightier import to man- 
kind, in these times, than that of any other 
man whatever. It seemed to him that he was 
"casting his bread upon the waters, and would 
find it after many days ;" that when the noise 
of all conquerors, and demagogues, and politi- 
cal reformers had quite died away, some tone 



of heavenly wisdom that had dwelt even in 
him might still linger among men, and be ac- 
knowledged as heavenly and priceless, whether 
as his or not; whereby, though dead, he would 
yet speak, and his spirit would live throughout 
all generations, when the syllables that once 
formed his name had passed intoforgetfulness 
for ever. We are told, " he was in the highest 
degree philanthropic and humane: and often 
said that he had no deeper wish than to know all 
men happy." What was still more, he strove, 
in his public and private capacity, to do his 
utmost for that end. Honest, merciful, disin- 
terested, he is at all times found: and for the 
great duty laid on him no man was ever more 
unweariedly ardent. It was " his evening song 
and his morning prayer." He lived for it ; and 
he died for it ; " sacrificing," in the words of 
Goethe, "his Life itself to this delineating of 
Life." 

In collision with his fellow-men, for with him 
as with others this also was a part of his rela- 
tion to society, we find him no less noble than 
in friendly union with them. He mingles in 
none of the controversies of the time ; or only 
like a god in the battles of men. In his con- 
duct towards inferiors, even ill-intentioned and 
mean inferiors, there is everywhere a true, dig- 
nified, patrician spirit Ever witnessing, and 
inwardly lamenting, the baseness of vulgar 
Literature in his da}', he makes no clamorous 
attacks on it; alludes to it only from afar: as in 
Milton's writings, so in his, few of his con- 
temporaries are named, or hinted at ; it was 
not with men, but with things that he had a 
warfare. The Eevicw of Biirgcr, so often des- 
canted on, was doubtless highly afllicting to 
that down-broken, unhappy poet; but no hos- 
tility to Biirger, only love and veneration for 
the Art he professed, is to be discerned in it. 
With Biirger, or with any other mortal, he had 
no quarrel : the favour of the public, which he 
himself enjoyed in the highest measure, he 
esteemed at no high value. " The Artist," said 
he in a noble passage, already known to Eng- 
lish readers, " the Artist, it is true, is the son 
of his time; but pity for him if he is its pupil, 
or even its favourite ! Let some beneficent 
divinity snatch him, when a suckling, from the 
breast of his mother, and nurse him with the 
milk of a better time ; that he may ripen to his 
full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. 
And having grown to manhood, let him return, 
a foreign shape, into his century ; not, however, 
to delight it by his presence, but, dreadful like 
the son of Agamemnon, to purify it!" On the 
whole, Schiller has no trace of vanity; scarce- 
ly of pride, even in its best sense, for the mo- 
dest self-consciousness, which characterizes 
genius, is with him rather implied than openly 
expressed. He has no hatred ; no anger, save 
against Falsehood and Baseness, where it may 
be called a holy anger. Presumptuous trivi- 
ality stood bared in his keen glance; but his 
look is the noble scowl that curls the lip of an 
Apollo, when, pierced with sun-arrows, the 
serpent expires before him. In a word, we 
can say of Schiller, what can he said only of 
few in any country or time : He was a high 
ministering servant at Truth's altar; and bore 



SCHILLER. 



237 



him worthily of the office he held. Let this, 
and that it was even in our age, be forever re- 
membered to his praise. 

Schiller's intellectual character has, as in- 
deed is always the case, an accurate conformit}' 
with his moral one. Here too he is simple in 
his excellence; lofty rather than expansive or 
varied; pure, divinely ardent rather than great. 
A noble sensibility, the truest sympathy with 
Nature, in all forms, animates him ; yet 
scarcely any creative gift altogether commen- 
surate with this. If to his mind's eye all forms 
of Nature have a meaning and beauty, it is 
only under a few forms, chiefly of the severe 
or pathetic kind, that he can body forth this 
meaning, can represent as a Poet what as a 
Thinker he discerns and loves. We might 
say, his music is true spheral music; yet only 
with few tones, in simple modulation; no full 
choral harmony is to be heard in it. That 
Schiller, at least in his later years, attained a 
genuine poetic style, and dwelt, more or less, 
in the perennial regions of his Art, no one will 
deny : yet still his poetry shows rather like a 
partial than a universal gift ; the laboured 
product of certain faculties rather than the 
spontaneous product of his whole nature. At 
tiie summit of the pyre, there is indeed white 
flame ; but the materials are not all in flame, 
perhaps not all ignited. Nay, often it seems 
to us, as if poetry were, on the whole, not his 
essential gift ; as if his genius were reflective 
in a still higher degree than creative; philoso- 
phical and oratorical rather than poetic. To 
the last, there is a stiflTness in him, a certain 
infusibility. His genius is not an ^olian- 
harp for the common wind to play with, and 
make wild, free melody; but a scientific har- 
monica, that being artfully touched will yield 
rich notes, though in limited measure. Ii may 
be, indeed, or rather it is highly probable, that 
of the gifts which lay in him only a small por- 
tion was unfolded: for we are to recollect that 
nothing came to him without a strenuous 
effort; and that he was called away at middle 
age. At all events, here as we find him we 
should say, that of all his endowments the 
most perfect is understanding. Accurate, 
thorough insight, is a quality we miss in none 
of his productions, whatever else may be 
wanting. He has an intellectual vision, clear, 
wide, piercing, methodical, — a truly philoso- 
phic eye. Yet in regard to this also it is to be 
remarked,4hat the same simplicity, the same 
want of universality again displays itself He 
looks atbft rather than around. It is in high, 
far-seeing philosophic views that he delights; 
in speculations on Art, — on the dignity and 
destiny of Man, rather than on the common 
doings and interests of Men. Nevertheless 
these latter, mean as they seem, are boundless 
in significance; for every the poorest aspect 
of Nature, especially of living Nature, is a 
type and manifestation of the invisible spirit 
that works in Nature. There is properly no 
object trivial or insignificant: but every finite 
thing, could we look well, is as a window, 
through which solemn vistas are opened into 
Infinitude itself. But neither as a Poet nor as 
a Thinker, neither in delineation nor in expo- 
sition and discussion, does Schiller more than 



glance at such objects. For the most part, the 
Common is to him still the Common, or is 
idealized, rather as it were by mechanical art 
than by inspiration : not by deeper poetic or 
philosophic inspection, disclosing new beauty 
in its everyda\' features, but rather by deduct- 
ing these, by casting them aside, and dwelling 
on what brighter features may remain in it. 
Herein Schiller, as, indeed, himself was mo- 
destly aware, differs essentially from most 
great poets ; and from none more than from 
his great contemporary, Goethe. Such intel- 
lectual pre-eminence as this, valuable though 
it be, is the easiest and the least valuable ; a 
pre-eminence that, indeed, captivates the gene- 
ral eye, but may, after all, have little intrinsic 
grandeur. Less in rising into lofty abstrac- 
tions lies the difficulty, than in seeing well and 
lovingly the complexities of what is at hand. 
He is wise who can instruct us and. assist us 
in the business of daily virtuous living; he 
who trains us to see old truth under Academic 
formularies may be wise or not as it chances; 
but we love to see Wisdom in unpretending 
forms, to recognise her royal features under 
week-day vesture. — There may be more true 
spiritual force in a Proverb than in a philoso- 
phical System. A King in the midst of his 
body-guards, with all his trumpets, war-horses, 
and gilt standard-beaiers, will look great 
though he be little ; but only some Roman 
Carus can give audience to satrap-ambassa- 
dors, while seated on the ground, with a 
woollen cap, and supping on boiled pease, like 
a common soldier. 

In all Schiller's earlier writings, nay, more 
or less, in the whole of his writings, this aris- 
tocratic fastidiousness, this comparatively 
barren elevation, appears as a leading cha- 
racteristic. In speculation he is either alto- 
gether abstract and systematic, or he dwells on 
old, conventionally-noble themes ; never look- 
ing abroad, over the many-coloured stream of 
life, to elucidate and ennoble it; or only look- 
ing on it, so to speak, from a college window. 
The philosophy even of his Histories, for ex- 
ample, founds itself mainly on the perfectibility 
of man, the effect of constitutions, of religions, 
and other such high, purely scientific objects. 
In his Poetry we have a similar manifestation. 
The interest turns on prescribed, old-establish- 
ed matters, common love-mania, passionate 
greatness, enthusiasm for liberty, and the like. 
This, even in Don Carlos, a work of what may 
be called his transition-period, the turning- 
point between his earlier and his later period, 
where still we find Posa, the favourite hero, 
" towering aloft, far-shining, clear and cold, as 
a sea-beacon." In after years, Schiller him- 
self saw well that the greatest lay not here. 
With unwearied eflTort he strove to lower and 
to widen his sphere, and not without success, 
as many of his Poems testify; for example, 
the Lied dcr Glorkc, (Song of the Bell,) every 
way a noble composition ; and, in a still higher 
degree, the tragedy of W'dhehn Tell, the last, 
and, so far as spirit and style are concerned, 
the best of all his dramas. 

Closely connected with this imperfection, 
both as cause and as consequence, is Schil- 
ler's singular want of Humour. Humour is 



238 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



properly the exponent of low things ; that 
which first renders them poetical to the mind. 
The man of Humour sees common life, even 
mean life, under the new light of sportfulness 
and love; whatever has existence has a charm 
for him. Humour has justly been regarded as 
the finest perfection of poetic genius. He who 
wants it, be his other gifts what they may, has 
only half a mind ; an eye for what is above 
him, not for what is about him or below him. 
Now, among ail writers of any real poetic 
genius, we cannot recollect one who, in this 
respect, exhibits such total deficiency as 
Schiller. In his whole writings there is 
scarcely any vestige of it, scarcely any attempt 
that way. His nature was without Humour; 
and he had too true a feeling to adopt any 
counterfeit in its stead. Thus no drollery or 
caricature, still less any barren mockery, 
which, in the hundred cases, are all that we 
find passing current as Humour, discover 
themselves in Schiller. His works are full of 
laboured earnestness ; he is the gravest of all 
writers. Some of his critical discussions, 
especially in the AcsLhetische Briefe, where he 
designates the ultimate height of man's culture 
by the title Spieltrich, (literally. Sport-impulse,) 
prove that he knew what Humour was, and 
how essential; as indeed, to his intellect, all 
forms of excellence, even the most alien to his 
own, were painted with a wonderful fidelity. 
Nevertheless, he himself attains not that height 
which he saw so clearly ; to the last the Spiel- 
trieb could be little more than a theory with 
him. With the single exception of WoUen- 
stein's Lager, where, too, the Humour, if it be 
such, is not deep, his other attempts at mirth, 
fortunately very few, are of the heaviest. A 
rigid intensity, a serious enthusiastic ardour, 
majesty rather than grace, still more than 
lightness or sportfulness, characterizes him. 
Wit he had, such wit as keen intellectual in- 
sight can give; yet even of this no large 
endowment. Perhaps he was too honest, too 
sincere, for the exercise of wit; too intent on 
the deeper relations of things to note their 
more transient collisions. Besides, he dealt in 
Affirmation, and not in Negation ; in which 
last, it has been said, the material of wit 
chiefly lies. 

These observations are to point out for us 
the special department and limits of Schiller's 
excellence ; nowise to call in question its re- 
ality. Of his noble sense for Truth, both in 
speculation and in action ; of his deep, genial 
insight into nature; and the living harmony 
in which he renders back what is highest and 
grandest in Nature, no reader of his works 
need be reminded. In whatever belongs to 
the pathetic, the heroic, the tragically elevat- 
ing, Schiller is at home; a master; nay, per- 
haps the greatest of all late poets. To the 
ass^uuous student, moreover, much else that 
lay in Schiller, but was never worked into 
shape, will become partially visible: deep in- 
exhaustible mines of thought and feeling; a 
whole world of gifts, the finest produce of 
which was but beginning to be realized. To 
his high-minded, unwearied efforts what was 
impossible, had length of years been granted 
him ! There is a tone in some of his later 



pieces, which here and there breathes of the 
very highest region of Art. Nor are the na- 
tural or accidental defects we have noticed in 
his genius, even as it stands, such as to ex- 
clude him from the rank of great Poets. 
Poets whom the whole world reckons great, 
have, more than once, exhibited the like. Mil- 
ton, for example, shares most of them with 
him: like Schiller he dwells, with full power, 
only in the high and earnest; in all other 
provinces exhibiting a certain inaptitude, an 
elephantine unplianc}': he too has little Hu- 
mour; his coarse invective has in it con- 
temptuous emphasis enough, yet scarcely any 
graceful sport. Indeed, on the positive side, 
also, these two worthies are not without a re- 
semblance. Under far other circumstances, 
with less massiveness, and vehement strength 
of soul, there is in Schiller the same intensi- 
ty ; the same concentration, and towards 
similar objects, towards whatever is Sublime 
in Nature and in Art, which sublimities 
they both, each in his several way, worship 
with undivided heart. There is not in Schil- 
ler's nature the same rich complexity of 
rhythm, as in Milton's, with its depth of linked 
sweetness ; yet in Schiller too there is some- 
thing of the same pure, swelling force, some 
tone which, like Milton's, is deep, majestic, 
solemn. 

It was as a Dramatic Author that Schiller 
distinguished himself to the world : yet often 
we feel as if chance rather than a natural ten- 
dency had led him into this province; as if 
his talent were essentially, in a certain style, 
lyrical, perhaps even epic, rather than drama- 
tic. He dwelt within himself, and could not 
without efl^ort, and then only within a certain 
range, body forth other forms of being. Nay, 
much of what is called his poetry seems to 
us, as hinted above, oratorical rather than po- 
etical ; his first bias might have led him to be 
a speaker, rather than a singer. Neverthe- 
less, a pure fire dwelt deep in his soul ; and 
only in Poetry, of one or the other sort, could 
this find utterance. The rest of his nature, at 
the same time, has a certain prosaic rigour; 
so that not without strenuous and complex en- 
deavours, long persisted in, could its poetic 
quality evolve itself. Quite pure, and as the 
all-sovereign element, it perhaps never did 
evolve itself; and among such complex en- 
deavours, a small accident might influence 
large portions in its course. • 

Of Schiller's honest, undivided zeal in this 
great problem of self-cultivation, we have often 
spoken. What progress he had made, and in 
spite of what difiiculties, appears, if we con- 
trast his earlier compositions with those of 
his later years. A few specimens of both 
sorts we shall here present. By this means, 
too, such of our readers as are unacquainted 
with Schiller, may gain some clearer notion 
of his poetic individuality than any descrip- 
tion of ours could give. We shall take the 
Robbers, as his first performance, what he him- 
self calls "a monster produced by the unna- 
tural union of Genius with Thraldom;" the 
fierce fuliginous fire that burns in that singu- 
lar piece will still be discernible in separated 
passages. The following Scene, even in the 



SCHILLER. 



239 



yeasty vehicle of our common English ver- 
sion, has not wanted its admirers; it is the 
Second of the Third Act. 

Country on the Danube. 

The Robbers. 

(^Camped on a Height, nnder Trees: the Horses arc 
grazing on the HUl further down.) 

Moor. I can no farther (thrmvs himself on the 
ground.) My limbs ache as if ground to 
pieces. My tongue parched as a potsherd. 
(^Schweitzer glides awuy uriper reived.) I would 
ask you to fetch me a handful of water from 
the stream ; but ye all are wearied to death. 

ScHWAHZ. And the wine too is all down 
there, in our jacks. 

Moor. See, how lovely the Harvest looks ! — 
The Trees almost breaking under their load. 
The vine full of hope. 

Grimm. It is a plentiful year. 

Moor. Think'st thou ? — And so one toil in 
the world will be repaid. Ow? — Yet over 
night there may come a hailstorm, and shatter 
it all to ruin. 

ScHWARZ. Possible enough, it might all be 
yuined two hours before reaping. 

Moor. Ay, so say I. It will all be ruined. 
Why should man prosper in what he has from 
the Ant; when he fails in what makes him 
like the Gods ] — or is this the true aim of his 
Destiny ? 

ScHWARz. I know it not. 

Moor. Thou hast said well; and done still 
better, if thou never tri'dsl to know it ! — Bro- 
ther, — 1 have looked at men, at their insect- 
anxieties, and giant projects — their godlike 
schemes and mouselike occupations — their 
wondrous race-running after Happiness ; — he 
trusting to the gallop of his horse, — he to the 
nose of his ass, — a third to his own legs; this 
whirling lottery of life, in which so many a 
creature stakes his innocence, and — his Hea- 
ven ! all trying for a prize, and — blanks are 
the whole drawing, — there was not a prize in 
the batch. It is a drama. Brother, to bring 
tears into thy eyes, if it tickle thy midriff to 
laughter. 

ScHWAKz. How gloriously the sun is setting 
yonder ! 

Moor {lost in the view.) So dies a Hero ! — 
To be worshipped! 

Grimm. It seems to move thee. 

Moor. When I was a lad — it was my darling 
thought to live so, to die so — (ivith suppressed 
pain.) It was a lad's thought ! 

Grimm. I hope so, truly. 

Moor (draws his hat down on his face.) There 
was a time — Leave me alone, comrades. 

ScHWARz. Moor! Moor! What, Devil? — 
How his colour goes ! 

Grimm. Ha ! What ails him ! Is he ill 1 
Moor. There was a time when I could not 
sleep, if my evening prayer had been forgot- 
ten — 

Grimm. Art thou going crazed ? Will Moor 
let such milksop fancies tutor him? 

Moor (lays his head on Grimm's breast.) Bro- 
ther! Brother! 

Grimm. Come ! don't be a child, — I beg — 
Moor. Were I a child ! — Oh, were I one ! 



Grimm. Pooh! Pooh! 

ScHWARz. Cheer up. Look at the brave 
landscape, — the fine evening. 

Moor. Yes, Friends, this world is all so 
lovely. 

ScHWARz. There now — that's right. 

Mook. This Earth is so glorious. 

Grimm. Right, — Right — that is it. 

Moor (sinking bark.) And I so hideous in 
this lovely world, and I a monster in this glo- 
rious Earth. 

Guimm. Out on it ! 

Moor. My innocence! My innocence! — 
See, all things are gone forth to bask in the 
peaceful beamof theSpring, — why must I alone 
inhale the torments of Hell out of the joys of 
Heaven T — That all should be so happy, all so 
married together by the spirit of peace ! — The 
whole world one family, its Father above — that 
Father not mine! — I alone the castaway, — I 
alone struck out from the company of the just ; 
— for me no child to lisp my name, — never for 
me the languishing look of one whom I love ; 
never, never, the embracing of a bosom friend 
(dashing vnldly back.) Encircled with murder- 
ers, — serpents hissing round me, — rushing 
down to the gulph of perdition on the eddying 
torrent of wickedness, — amid the Ilowers of 
the glad world, a howling Abaddon ! 

ScHWARz (/o ;Ae ^•fs^) How is this? I never 
saw him so. 

Moor {with piercing sorrow.) Oh, that I might 
return into my mother's womb, — that I might 
be born a beggar! — No! I dr.vst not pray, O 
Heaven, to be as one of these day-labourers — 
Oh ! I would toil till the blood ran down my 
temples to buy myself the pleasure of one 
noontide sleep, — the blessedness of a single 
tear. 

Grimm (lo the rest.) Patience, a moment. 
The fit is passing. 

Moor. There was a time loo when I could 
weep — O ye days of peace, thou castle of my 
father, ye green lovely valleys ! O all ye Ely- 
sian scenes of my childhood ! will ye never 
come again, never with j'our balmy sighing 
cool my burning bosom 1 Mourn with me, Na- 
ture! They will never come again, never cool 
my burning bosom with their balmy sighing. 
They are gone! gone! and will not return! 

Or take thatstill wilder monologue of Moor's 
on the old subject of suicide; in the midnight 
Forest, among the sleeping Robbers : 

(He lays aside the lute, and walks up and down in 
deep tho-ught.) 

Who shall warrant me? 'Tis all so 

dark, — perplexed labyrinths, — no outlet, no 
loadstar — were it but otic/- with this last draught 
of breath — Over, like a sorry farce. But whence 
this fierce Hunger aUer Happiness ? whence this 
ideal of a never-reached perfection ? this continua- 
tion of uncompleted plans 7 — if the pitiful 
pressure of this pitiful thing (holding out a pis- 
tol) makes the wise man equal with the fool, 
the coward with the brave, the nobleminded 
with the caitiff! — There is so divine a harmo- 
ny in all irrational Nature, why should there 
be this dissonance in rational 1 No ! no ! there 
is somewhat beyond, for I have yet never 
known happiness. 



MO 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Think ye, I will tremble 1 spirits of my 
murdered ones ! I will not tremble. {Trem- 
bling vinlenily.) — Your feeble dying moan, — 
your black-choked faces, — your frightfully 
gaping wounds are but links of an unbreaka- 
ble chain of Destiny; and depend at last on 
my childish sports, on the whims of my 
nurses and pedagogues, on the temperament 
of my father, on the blood of my mother — 
{^shaken icith horror.) Why has my Perillus 
made of me a Brazen Bull to roast mankind 
in my glowing belly] 

(Gazing on the Pistol.) Time and Eternity 
— linked together by a single moment ! — Dread 
key, that shultest behind me the prison of life, 
and before me openest the dwelling of eternal 
Night — say — say — whither, — whither wilt thou 
lead me 7 Foreign, never circumnavigated 
Land! — See, manhood waxes faint under this 
image; the effort of the finite gives up, and 
Fancy, the capricious ape of Sense, juggles 
our credulity with strange shadows. — No ! No ! 
It becomes not a man to waver. Be what thou 
wilt, nameless Yonder — so this me keep but true. 
Be what thou wilt, so I take myself along with 
rae — ! — Outward things are but the colouring 
of the man — I am my Heaven and my Hell. 

What if thou shouldst send me companionless 
to some burnt and blasted circle of the Uni- 
verse ; which thou hast banished from thy 
sight; where the lone darkness and the mo- 
tionless desert were my prospects — for ever 1 
— I would people the silent wilderness with 
my fantasies ; I should have Eternity for lei- 
sure to unravel the perplexed image of the 
boundless wo. — Or wilt Thou lead me through 
still other births ! still other scenes of pain, 
from stage to stage — Onwards to Annihilation ? 
The life-threads that are to be woven for me 
Yonder, cannot I tear them asunder, as I do 
these 1 — Thou canst make me Nothing ; — this 
freedom canst Thou not take from me. (He 
loads the Pistol. Suddenly he Stops.) And shall 
I for terror of a miserable life — die! — Shall I 
give wretchedness the victory over me 1 — No, 
I will endure it. (He throws the Pistol axuay.) 
Let misery blunt itself on my pride ! I will 
go through with it. — Act IV. Scene VI. 

And now with these ferocities, and Sybilline 
frenzies, compare the placid strength of the 
following delineation, also of a stern charac- 
ter, from the Maid of Orleans , where Talbot, 
the gray veteran, dark, unbelieving, indomita- 
ble, passes down, as he thinks, to the land of 
utter Nothingness, contemptuous even of the 
Fate that destroys him, and — 

" In (trtatti reposes on the soil of France, 
Lilie hero on his unsurrender'd shield." 

It is the sixth Scene of the third Act; in the 
heat of a Battle : 
(^The scene changes to an open Space encircled with 

Trees. During the music. Soldiers are seen hastily 

retreating across the Background.) 

Talbot, leaning on Fastolf, a7id accompanied by 
Soldiers. Soon after, Lionei.. 

TALBOT. 

Here, set me down beneath this tree, and you 
Betal<e yourselves again to battle : quick! 
I need no help to die. 



O day of wo ! {Lionet enUHrg.) 
I.nok what a siglit awaits you, Lionel! 
Our leader wounded, dying ; 

LIONEt. 

God forbid! 
O noble Talbot, this is not a time to die. 
Yield not to Uealh; force faltering Nature* 
By your strength of soul, that life depart not ! 

TALBOT. 

In vain ! the day of Destiny is come 
That levels with the dust our power in France. 
In vain, in the fierce clash of desp'rate battle, 
Have I risk'd our utmost to withstand it: 
The bolt has smote and crush'd uie, and I lie 
To rise no more for ever. Rheims is lost ; 
Make haste to rescue Paris. 

LIONEL. 

Paris is the Dauphin's : 
A post arrived even now with th' evil news 
It had surrender'd. 

TALBOT {tears away his bandages.) 
Then flow out, ye life-streams; 
This Sun is growing loathsome to me. 

LIONEL. 

Fastolf, 
Convey him to the rear : this post can hold 
Few instants more ; you coward knaves, fall back, 
Resistless comes the Witch, and havoc round her. 



Madness, thou conquerest, and I must yield : 
Against Stupidity the Gods themselves are powerless. 
High Reason, radiant Daughter of the head of God, 
Wise Foundress of the system of the Universe, 
Conductress of the Stars, who art thou, then. 
If tied to th' tail o' th' wild horse, Superstition, 
Thou must plunge, eyes open, vainly shrieking, 
Sheer down with that drunk Beast to the Abyss f 
Cursed who sets his life upon the great 
And dignified ; and with foretasting spirit 
Lays out wise plans! The Fool-King's is this World. 

LIONEL. 

Oh ! Death is near ! Think of your God, and pray ! 

TALBOT. 

Were we, as brave men. wcirsted by the brave, 
'T had been but Fortune's common fickleness : 
But that a paltry farce should tread us down! — 
Did toil and peril, all our earnest life, 
Deserve no graver issue ? 

LIONEL (grasps his hand.) 

Talbot, farewell ! 
The meed of bitter tears I'll duly pay you. 
When the fight is done, should I outlive it 
But now Fate calls me to the field, where yet 
She wav'ring sits, and shakes her doubtful urn. 
Farewell ! we irieet beyond the unseen shore. 
Brief parting for long friendship! God be with you! [£xtt 

TALBOT. 

Soon it is over, and to the earth I render. 

To th' everlasting Sun, the transient atoms 

Which for pain and pleasure join'd to form me ; 

And of ihe mighty Talbot, whose renown 

Ome fill'd the worM, remains nought but a handful 

or flitting dust Thus man comes to his end ; 

And all our conquest in the fight of Life 

Is knowledge Ibnt 'tis Nothing, and contempt 

For hollow shows which once we chas'd and worship'd. 

SCENE VIL 
£n<er Charles, Bu BOUND r,DDNOis,DuCHATBL, 

and Soldiers. 



BURGUNDY. 



The trench is stormed. 



SCHILLER. 



S41 



DCKOIS. 

Bravo ! The fight is ours. 
CHARLES (^observing- TALBOT.) 
Ha ! who is this that to the light of day 
Is hiddin? his constrained and sad farewell "! 
His bearing s|ieaks no eoninion man ; go, haste, 
Assist him, if assistance yet avail. 

(Soldiers from the Dauphin's suite step forward.) 

FASTOLF. 

Back ! Keep away ! Approach not the Departing, 
Him whom in life ye never wished too near. 

BuncuifDr. 
What do I see t Great Talbot in his blood : 
{He goes towards him. TALBOT gazes fixedly at him and 

di'S.) 
FASTOLF. 
Off, Burgundy! With the aspect of a Traitor 
Disturb not the last moment of a Hero. 

The " Power-words and Thunder-words," as 
the Germans call them, so frequent in the 
Eobbers,* are altogether wanting here; that 
volcanic fury has assuaged itself; instead of 
s.moke and red lava, we have sunshine and a 
verdant world. For still more striking exam- 
ples of this benignant change, we might refer 
to many scenes, (too long for our present pur- 
poses) in Walleiistein, and indeed in all the 
Dramas which followed this, and most of all 
in WiUielm Tell, which is the latest of them. 
The careful, and in general truly poetic struc- 
ture of these works, considered as complete 
Poems, would exhibit it infinitely better ; but 
for this object, larger limits than ours at pre- 
sent, and studious Readers as well as a Re- 
viewer, were essential. 

In his smaller Poems, the like progress is 
visible. Schiller's works should all be dated, 
as we study them; but indeed the most, by 
internal evidence, date themselves. — Besides 
the Lied der Glocke, already mentioned, there 
are many lyrical pieces of high merit; particu- 
larly a whole series of Ballads, nearly every 
one of which is true and poetical. The Ritler 
Togs,cnbcrg, the Dragon-fighi, the Diver, are all 
well known ; the Cranes of Ibycus has in it, 
under this simple form, something Old-Grecian, 
an emphasis, a prophetic gloom, which might 
seem borrowed even from the spirit of ^schy- 
lus. But on these, or any farther on the other 
poetical works of Schiller, we must not dilate 
at present. One little piece, which lies by us 
translated, we may give as a specimen of his 
style in this lyrical province, and therewith 
terminate this part of our subject. It is en- 
titled Jlpenlied, (Song of the Alps,) and seems 
to require no commentary. Perhaps something 
of the clear, melodious, yet still somewhat 
metallic tone of the original may penetrate 
even through our version : 

Song of the Alps. 
By the edge of the chasm is a slippery Track, 

The torrent beneath, and the mist hanging o'er thee : 
The cliffs of Ihe mountain, huge, rngged, and black. 

Are frowning like Giants before thee ; 
And, wonldst ihoii not waken the sleeping Lawine, 
Walk silent and soft throui'h the deadh ravine. 

* Thus, to lake one oflen cited instance, Moor's simple 
question, " Whether there is any powder leff!'" receives 
this emphaiic answer, "Powder enough to blow the 
Earth into the Moon !" 

31 



That Bridge with its dizzying, perilous span 
Aloft o'er the gulph and its flood suspended, 

Thiiik'st Ihou it was built by the art of man. 
By his hand that grim old ar( h was bended? 

Far down in the jaws of the t'looniy abyss 

The water is boiling and hissing — for ever will hiss. 

That Gate through the rocks is as darksome and drear, 

As if to the region of Shadows it carried : 
Yet enter ! A sweet lanchin;.' landscape is here, 

Where the Spring with the Autumn is married. 
From the world with its sorrows and warfare and wail, 
O could 1 but hide in this bright little vale ! 

Four Rivers rush down from on high, 

Their spring will be hidden for ever ; 
Their course is to all the four points of the sky, 

To each point of the sky is a river ; 
And fast as they start from their old Mother's feet, 
They dash forth, and no more will they meet. 

Two Pinnacles rise to the depths of the Blue ; 

Aloft on their white summits glancing, 
Bedeck'd in their garments of golden dew. 

The Clouds of the Sky are dancing ; 
There threading alone their lightsome maze, 
Uplifted apart from all mortals' gaze. 

And high on her ever-enduring throne 

The Queen of the mountain reposes ; 
Her head serene, and azure, and lone 

A diamond crown encloses ; 
The Sun with his darts shoots round it keen and hot, 
He gilds it always, he warms it not. 

Of Schiller's Philosophic talent, still more 
of the results he had arrived at in philosophy, 
there were much to be said and thought, which 
we mustnot enter upon here. As hinted above, 
his primary endowment seems to us fully as 
much philosophical as poetical ; his intellect, 
at all events, is peculiarly of that character; 
strong, penetrating, yet systematic and scho- 
lastic, rather than intuitive ; and manifesting 
this tendency both in the objects it treats, and 
in its mode of treating them. The transcen- 
dental Philosophy, which arose in Schiller's 
busiest era, could not remain without influence 
[ on him ; he had carefully studied Kant's Sy^tem, 
and appears to have not only admitted but 
zealously appropriated its fundamental doc- 
trines; remoulding them, however, into his 
own peculiar forms, so that they seem no longer 
borrowed, but permanently acquired, u; t less 
Schiller's than Kant's. Some, perhaps, liitle 
aware of his natural wants and tendencies, are 
of opinion that these speculations did nut pmfit 
him: Schiller himself, on the other hand, 
appears to have been well contented wiih his 
Philosophy; in which, as harmonized wiih his 
Poetry, the assurance and safe anchorage 
for his moral nature might lie. 

" From the opponents of the New Philoso- 
phy," says he, "I expect not that tolerance, 
which is shown to every other system, no 
better seen into than this: for Knni's Philo- 
sophy itself, in its leading points, practises no 
tolerance; and bears much too rigorous a 
character, to leave any room for accommoda- 
tion. But in my eyes this does it honour; 
proving how little it can endure to have truth 
tampered with. Such a Philosophy will not be 
discussed with a mere shake of the head. In 
the open, clear, accessible field of Inquiry it 
builds up its system ; seeks no shade, makes 
no reservation ; but even as it treats its neigh- 
bours, so it requires to be treated; and may 



242 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



be forgiven for lightly esteeming every thing 
but Proofs. Nor am I terrified to think that 
the law of Change, from which no human and 
no divine work finds grace, will operate on 
this Philosophy, as on every other, and one 
day its Form will be destroyed: but its Foun- 
dations will not have this destiny to fear; for 
ever since mankind has existed, and any Rea- 
son among mankind, these same first principles 
have been admitted, and on the whole acted 
upon." — Correspondence ivith Goeihe, I. 58. 

Schiller's philosophical performances relate 
chiefly to matters of Art; not, indeed, v.'ithout 
significant glances into slill more important 
regions of speculation: nay, Art, as he viewed 
it, has its basis on the most important interests 
of man, and of itself involves the harmonious 
adjustment of these. We have already un- 
dertaken to present our readers, on a future 
occasion, with some abstract of the JEsthelic 
Letters, one of the deepest, most compact 
pieces of reasoning we are anywhere acquaint- 
ed with : by that opportunity, the general 
character of Schiller, as a Philosopher, will 
best fall to be discussed. Meanwhile, the two 
following brief passages, as some indication 
of his views on the highest of ail philosophical 
questions, may stand here without commentary. 
He is speaking of Wilhelm Mcistcr, and in the 
first extract, of the Fair Saint^s Confessions, 
which occupy the Fifth Book of that work : 

"The transition from Religion in general to 
the Christian Religion, by the experience of 
sin, is excellently conceived. * * * I find vir- 
tually in the Christian System the rudimentvS 
of the Highest and Noblest; and the different 
phases of this System, in practical life, are so 
oflensive and mean, precisely because they are 
bungled representations of that same Highest. 
If you study the specific character of Chris- 
tr&Tiity, what distinguishes it from all mono- 
theistic Religion, it lies in nothing else than in 
that making dead of the Law, the removal of that 
Kantean Imperative, instead of which Chris- 
tianity requires a free Inclination. It is thus, 
in its pure form, a representing of Moral 
Beauty, or the Incarnation of the Holy; and in 
this sense, the only cesthciic Religion: hence, 
too, I explain to myself why it so prospers 
with female natures, and only in women is 
now to be met with under a tolerable figure." 
— Correspondence, I. 195. 

"But in seriousness," he says elsewhere, 
"whence may it proceed that you have had a 
man educated, and in all points equipt, without 
ever coming upon certain wants which only 
Philosophy can meet? I am convinced, it is 
entirely attributable to the mslhetir direction you 
have taken through the whole Romance. 
Within the esthetic temper there arises no 
want of those grounds of comfort, which are 
to be drawn from speculation : such a temper 
has self-subsistence, has infinitude, within it- 
self; only when the Sensual and the Moral in 
man strive hostilely together, need help be 
sought of pure Reason. A healthy poetic na- 
ture wants, as you yourself say, no Moral Law, 
no Rights of Man, no Political Metaphysics. 
You might have added as well, it wants no 
Deity, no Immortality, to stay and uphold 
itself withal. Those three points round which, 



in the long run, all speculation turns, may in 
truth afford such a nature matter for poetic 
play, but can never become serious concerns 
and necessities for it." — II. 131. 

This last seems a singular opinion ; and may 
prove, if it be correct, that Schiller himself 
was no "healthy poetic nature;" for undoubt- 
edly with hitn those three points were "serious 
concerns and necessities;" as many portions 
of his works, and various entire treatises, will 
testify. Nevertheless, it plays an important 
part in his theories of Poetry ; and often, 
under milder forms, returns on us there. 

But, without entering farther on those com- 
plex topics, we must here for the present take 
leave of Schiller. Of his merits we have all 
along spoken rather on the negative side ; and 
we rejoice in feeling authorized to do so. That 
any German writer, especialh' one so dear to 
us, should already stand so high with British 
readers that, in admiring him, the critic may 
also, without prejudice to right feeling on the 
subject, coolly judge of him, cannot be other 
than a gratifying circumstance. Perhap.s 
there is no other true Poet of that nation with 
whom the like course would be suitable. 

Connected with this there is one farther ob- 
servation we must make before concluding. 
Among young students of German Literature, 
the question often arises, and is warmly 
mooted : whether Schiller or Goethe is the 
greater Poet 1 Of this question we must be 
allowed to say that it seems rather a slender 
one, and for two reasons. First, because 
Schiller and Goethe are of totally dissimilar 
endowments and endeavours, in regard to all 
matters intellectual, and cannot well be com- 
pared together as Poets. Secondly, because 
if the question mean to ask, which Poet is on 
the whole the rarer and more excellent, as 
probably it does, it must be considered as long 
ago abundantly answered. To the clear-sighted 
and modest Schiller, above all, such a question 
would have appeared surprising. No one 
knew better than himsell', that as Goethe was 
a born Poet, so he was in great part a made 
Poet; that as the one spirit was intuitive, all- 
embracing, instinct with melody, so the other 
was scholastic, divisive, only partially and as 
it were artificially melodious. Besides, Goethe 
has lived to perfect his natural gift, which the 
less happy Schiller was not permitted to do. 
The former, accordingly, is the national Poet; 
the latter is not, and never could have been. 
We once heard a German remark that readers 
till their twenty-fifth year usually preferred 
Schiller; after their twenty-fifth year, Goethe. 
This probably was no unfair illustraticm of the 
question. Schiller can seem higher than 
Goethe only because he is narrower. Thus to 
unpractised eyes, a Peak of Teneriffe, nay, a 
Strasburg Minster, when we stand on it, may 
seem higher than a Chimborazo ; because the ' 
former rise abruptly, without abutment or en- 
vironment; the latter rises gradually, carrying ) 
half a world aloft with it; and only the deeper 1 
azure of the heavens, the widened horizon, the ! 
"eiernal sunshine," disclose to the geographer ) 
that the " Region of Change" lies far below him. 
However, let us not divide these two Friends, 
who in life were so benignantly united. With- 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



out asserting for Schiller any claim that even 
enemies can dispute, enough will remain for 
him. We may say that, as a Poet and Thinker, 
he attained to a perennial Truth, and ranks 
among the noblest productions of his century 
and nation. Goethe may continue the German 
Poet, but neither through long generations can 



Schiller be forgotten. " His works, too, tfec 
memory of what he did and was, will arise 
afar off like a towering landmark in the soli-- 
tude of the Past, when distance shall have 
dwarfed into invisibility many lesser people 
that once encompassed him, and hid him from 
the near beholder." 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED.* 



[Westminster Review, 1831.] 



In the year 1757, the Swiss Professor Bod- 
mer printed an ancient poetical manuscript, 
under the title of Chriemhddcn Ruche und die 
Klage, (Chriemhilde's Revenge, and the La- 
ment;) which may be considered as the first 
of a series, or stream of publications, and 
speculations still rolling on, with increased 
current, to the present day. Not, indeed, that 
all these had their source or determining cause 
in so insignificant a circumstance; their 
source, or rather thousand sources, lay far 
elsewhere. As has often been remarked, a 
certain antiquarian tendency in Literature, a 
fonder, more earnest looking back into the 
Past, began about that time to manifest itself in 
all nations, (witness our own Percy's Relicjues:) 
this was among the first distinct symptoms of 
it in Germany: where, as with ourselves, its 
manifold effects are still visible enough. 

Some fifteen years after Bndmer's publica- 
tion, which, for the rest, is not celebrated as 
an editorial feat, one C. H. MuUer undertook a 
Collection of German Poems from the Twelfth, 
Thirteenth, and Fourteenth Centuries; wherein, 
among other articles, he reprinted Bodmer's 
ChricmhUde and Klage, with a highly remarka- 
ble addition prefixed to the former, essential 
indeed to the right understanding of it ; and 
the whole now stood before the world as one 
Poem, under the name of the Nibchingcn Lied, 
or Lay of the Nibclungen. It has since been 
ascertained that the Klage is a foreign inferior 
appendage ; at best, related only as epilogue 
to the main work: meanwhile out of this Nibe- 
Iwigen, such as it was, there soon proceeded 
new inquiries, and kindred enterprises. For 
much as the Poem, in the shape it here bore, 
was defaced and marred, it failed not to attract 
observation : to all open-minded lovers of 
poetry, especially where a strong patriotic 
feeling existed, this singular, antique Nibclungen 
was an interesting appearance. Johannes 
Milller, in his famous Siviss History, spoke of it 
in warm terms: subsequently, August Wilhelm 
Schlegel, through the medium of Das Deutsche 
Museum, succeeded in awakening something 
like a universal popular feeling on the subject; 
and, as a natural consequence, a whole host 
of Editors, and Critics, of deep and of shallow 
endeavour, whose labours we yet see in pro- 



* Das JVibfluvgen Lied, Ulersctit iwn Karl Simrock. 
(The JVihclungen Lied, translated by Karl f?imrock ) 
2 vola. ISmo. Berlin, 1827. 



gress. The Nibclungen has now been investi- 
gated, translated, collated, commented upon, 
with more or less result, to almost boundless 
lengths: besides the Work named at the head' 
of this Paper, and which stands there simply 
as one of the latest, we have Versions into the 
modern tongue by Von der Hagen, by Hins- 
berg, Lachmann, Biisching, Zeune, the last in 
Prose, and said to be worthless ; Criticisms, 
Introductions, Keys, and so forth, by innumer- 
able others, of whom we mention only Docen 
and the Brothers Grimm. 

B)' which means, not only has the Poem 
itself been elucidated with all manner of re- 
searches, but its whole environment has come 
forth in new light; the scene and personages 
it relates to, the other fictions and traditions 
connected with it, have attained a new import- 
ance and coherence. Manuscripts, that for ages 
had lain dormant, have issued from their 
archives into public view; books that had 
circulated only in mean guise for the amuse- 
ment of the people, have become important, 
not to one or two virtuosos, but to the general 
body of the learned: and now a whole System 
of antique Teutonic Fiction and Mythology 
unfolds itself, shedding here and there a real 
though feeble and uncertain glimmer over 
what was once the total darkness of the old 
Time. No fewer than Fourteen ancient Tradi- 
tionary Poems, all strangely intertwisted, and 
growing out of and into one another, have 
come to light among the Germans ; M'ho now, 
in looking back, find that they too, as well as 
the Greeks, have their Heroic Age, and round 
the old Valhalla, as their Northern Pantheon, 
a world of demi-gods and wonders. 

Such a phenomenon, unexpected till of late, 
cannot but interest a deep-thinking, enthusi- 
astic people. For the Nibclungen especially, 
which lies as the centre and distinct keystone 
of the whole too chaotic System, — let us say 
rather, blooms as a firm sunny island in the ' 
middle of these cloud-covered, ever-shifting, • 
sand-whirlpools, — they cannot sufficiently tes- 
tify their love and veneration. Learned profes- 
sors lecture on the Nibclungen, in public schools, 
with a praiseworthy view to initiate the Ger- 
man youth in love of their fatherland; from 
many zealous and nowise ignorant critics we 
hear talk of a "great Northern Epos," of a 
"German Iliad ;" the more saturnine are shamed 
into silence, or hollow mouth-homage; thus 
from all quarters comes a sound of jovfiii 



844 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



acclamation: the Nihelungen is welcomed as a 
precious national possession, recovered after 
six centuries of neglect, and takes undisputed 
place among the sacred books of German 
literature. 

Of these curious transactions, some rumour 
has not failed to reach us in England, where 
our minds, from their own antiquarian dis- 
position, were willing enough to receive it. 
Abstracts and extracts of the Nibelungcn have 
been printed in our language; there have been 
disquisitions on it in our Reviews; hitherto, 
however, such as nowise to exhaust the sub- 
ject. On the contrary, where so much was to 
be told at once, the speaker might be some- 
what puzzled where to begin: it was a much 
readier method to begin with the end, or with 
any part of the middle, than like Hamilton's 
Ram (whose example is too little followed in 
literary narrative) to begin with the beginning. 
Thus has our stock of intelligence come 
rushing out on us quite promiscuously and 
pell-mell ; whereby the whole matter could not 
but acquire a tortuous, confused, altogether 
inexplicable, and even dreary aspect; and the 
class of "well-informed persons" now find 
themselves in that uncomfortable position, 
■where they are obliged to profess admiration, 
and at the same time feel that, except by name, 
Ihey know not what the thing admired is. 
Such a position towards the venerable Ntbelun- 
gen, which is no less bright and graceful than 
historically significant, cannot be the right 
one. Moreover, as appears to us, it might be 
somewhat mended by very simple means. 
Let any one that had honestly read the Nibe- 
kcngeu, which in these days is no surprising 
achievement, only tell us what he found there, 
and nothing that he did not find: we should 
then know something, and, what were still bet- 
ter, be ready for knowing more. To search out 
the secret roots of such a production, ramified 
through successive layers of centuries, and 
drawing nourishment from each, may be work, 
and too hard work, for the deepest philosopher 
and critic; but to look with natural eyes on 
what part of it stands visibly above ground, 
and record his own experiences thereof, is what 
any reasofiable mortal, if he will take heed, 
can do. 

Some such slight service we here intend 
proffering to our readers : let them glance with 
us a little into that mighty maze of Northern 
Archaeology; where, it may be, some pleasant 
prospects will open. ] [ ihe Nibelungeti is what 
we have called it, a firm sunny island amid 
the weltering chaos of antique tradition, it must 
be worth visiting on general grounds; nay, if 
the primeval rudiments of it have the antiquity 
assigned them, it belongs especially to us 
English Tciilones as well as to the German. 

Far be it from us, meanwhile, to venture 
rashly or farther than is needful, into that same 
traditionary chaos, fondly named the "Cycle 
of Northern Fiction," with its Fourteen Sectors, 
(or separate Poems,) which are rather Four- 
teen shoreless Limbos, where we hear of 
])ieces containing "a hundred thousand verses," 
and "seventy thousand verses," as of a quite 
natural aflair! How travel through that inane 
tfountry; by what art discover the little grain 



of Substance that casts such multiplied im- 
measurable Shadows 1 The primeval Mythus, 
were it at first philosophical truth, or were it 
historical incident, floats too vaguely on the 
breath of men : each successive Singer and 
Redactor furnishes it with new personages, 
new scenery, to please a new audience; each 
has the privilege of inventing, and the far 
wider privilege of borrowing and new-model- 
ling from all that have preceded him. Thus 
though Tradition may have but one root, it 
grows like a Banian, into a whole overarching 
labyrinth of trees. Or rather might we say, it 
is a Hall of Mirrors, where in pale light each 
mirror reflects, convexly or concavely, not 
only some real Object, but the Shadows of this 
in other mirrors ; which again do the like for 
it: till in such reflection and re-reflection the 
whole immensity is filled with dimmer and 
dimmer shapes; and no firm scene lies round 
us, but a dislocated, distorted chaos, fading 
away on all hands, in the distance, into utter 
night. Only to some brave Von der Hagen, 
furnished with indefatigable ardour, and a deep, 
almost a religious love, is it given to find sure 
footing there, and see his way. All those Dukes 
of Aqiiilania, therefore, and Etzd's Couri-Jioldings, 
and Diciriche and Sigcnols, we shall leave stand- 
ing where they are. Such as desire farther in- 
formation, will find an intelligible account of 
the whole Series or Cycle, in Messrs. Weber 
and Jamieson's IllustralKms of Northern Anti- 
(juities ; and all possible furtherance, in the 
numerous German works above alluded to; 
among which Von derHagen's writings, though 
not the readiest, are probably the safest guides. 
But for us, our business here is with the 
Ntbclu-rigcn,lhe inhabited poetic country round 
which all these wildernesses lie ; only as en- 
vironments of which, as routes to which, are 
they of moment to us. Perhaps our shortest 
and smoothest route will be through the Hcld- 
enbnrh, (Hero-book ;) which is greatly the most 
important of these subsidiary Fictions, not 
without interest of its own, and closely related 
to the Nibelungen. This Hebknbuth, therefore, 
we must now address ourselves to traverse 
with all despatch. At the present stage of the 
business, too, we shall forbear any historical 
inquiry and argument concerning the date and 
local habitation of those Traditions; reserving 
what little is to be said on that matter till the 
Traditions themselves have become better 
known to us. Let the reader, on trust, for the 
present, transport himself into the twelfth or 
thirteenth century; and tnerefrom looking back 
into the sixth or fifth, see what presents itself. 

Of the Hchknbiuh, tried on its own merits, 
and except as illustrating that other far worthier 
Poem, or at most as an old national, and still 
in some measure popular book, we should have 
felt strongly inclined to say, as the curate in 
Don QuLrole so often did, ./ll corral con ello, Out 
of window with it ! Doubtless there are touches 
of beauty in the work, and even a sort of 
heartiness and antique quaintness in its wild- 
est follies; but on the whole that George-and- 
Dragon species of composition has long ceased 
to find favour with any one; and except for its 
groundwork, more or less discernible, of old 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



S4» 



Northern Fiction, this Heldcnhuch has little to 
distinguish it from these. Nevertheless, what 
is worth remark, it seems to have been a far 
higher favourite than the Nibelungcn, with an- 
cient readers : it was printed soon after the 
invention of printing: some think in 1472, for 
there is no place or date on the first edition; at 
all events, in 1491, in 1509, and repeatedly 
since; whereas the Nibelungen, though written 
earlier, and in worth immeasurably superior, 
had to remain in manuscript three centuries 
longer. From which, for the thousandth time, 
inferences might be drawn as to the infallibility 
of popular taste, and its value as a criterion for 
poetry. However, it is probably in virtue of this 
neglect, that the Nibelungen boasts of its actual 
purity; that it now comes before us, clear and 
graceful as it issued from the old singer's head 
and heart; not over-loaded with Ass-eared 
Giants, Fiery Dragons, Dwarfs, and Hairy Wo- 
men, as the Heldcnhuch is, many of which, as 
charity would hope, may be the produce of a 
later age than that famed Swabian Em, to which 
these poems, as we now see them, are common- 
ly referred. Indeed, one Casper von Roen is 
understood to have passed the whole Heldcnhuch 
through his limbec, in the fifteenth century ; but 
like other rectifiers, instead of purifying it, to 
have only drugged it with still fiercer ingredi- 
ents to suit the sick appetite of the time. 

Of this drugged and adulterated Hero-Book 
(the only one we yet have, though there is talk 
of a better) we shall quote the long Title-page 
of Lessing's Copy, the edition of 1560; from 
which, with a few intercalated observations, 
the reader's curiosity may probably obtain what 
little satisfaction it wants. 

Das Heldcnhuch IVclchs aufs ncue corrigirt und 
gehcssert ist, mil shbncn Figuren geziert. Gedruckt 
zu Frankfurt am Mayn, durch Weygand Han mid 
Sygmund Fcyerahcnd, &c. That is to say: 

"The Hero-Book, which is of new corrected 
and improved, adorned with beautiful Figures. 
Printed at Frankfurt on the Mayn, through 
Weygand Han, and Sygmund Feyerabend. 

"Part First saith of Kaiser Ottnit and the 
little King Elberich, how they with great peril, 
over sea, in Heathendom, won from a king 
his daughter, (and how he in lawful marriage 
took her to wife.") 

From which announcement the reader al- 
ready guesses the contents : how this little 
King Elberich was a Dwarf, or Elf, some half- 
span long, yet full of cunning practices, and 
the most helpful activity; nay, stranger still, 
had been Kaiser Ottnit of Lmnparlci, or Lom- 
bardy's father, — having had his own ulterior 
views in that indiscretion. How they sailed 
with Messina ships, into Paynim land; fought 
with that unspeakable Turk, King Machabol, 
in and about his fortress and metropolis of 
Montebur, which was all stuck round with 
Christian heads ; slew from seventy to a hun- 
dred thousand of the Infidels at one heat; saw 
the lady on the battlements; and at length, 
chiefly by Dwarf Elberich's help, carried her 
off in triumph: wedded her in Messina; and 
without difficulty, rooting out the Mohammedan 
prejudice, converted her to the creed of Mother 
Church. The fair runaway seems to have 
been of a gentle, tractable disposition, very 



different from old Machabol ; concerning whom 
it is chiefly to be noted that Dwarf Elberichj 
rendering himself invisible on their first inter- 
view, plucks out a handful of hair from his 
chin ; thereby increasing to a tenfold pitch the 
royal choler; and, what is still more remark- 
able, furnishingthe poet Wieland, six centuries 
afterwards, with the critical incident in hia 
Obcron. As for the young lady herself, we can- 
not but admit that she was well worth sailing 
to Heathendom for; and shall here, as our 
sole specimen of that old German doggerel, 
give the description of her, as she first ap- 
peared on the battlements during the fight; 
subjoining a version as verbal and literal as 
the plainest prose can make it. Considered as 
a detached passage, it is perhaps the finest wfl 
have met with in the Heldcnhuch. 

Ihr hen hrann aluo schone, 
Recht als ein rot rubein, 
Oleicli tlem vollen rnone 
Gahen ihr duglein schein 
Sich hett diemaget reine 
Alit rosen wohl bekleid 
Und auch mit Berlin Kleine, 
M'ieinand da trost die meid. 
Sie war schoii an dem leibe, 
Und zu den Seiten schrnal 
Recht als ein Kcrlze Scheibe 
Wohlgeschaffen iiberall : 
Ihr beyden hand gemeine 
Dars ihr gentz nichts gebrach ,' 
Ihr niiglein schon und reine. 
Das man sich darin bcsach. 

Ihr har war schOn umbfangen 
Mit elder seidcn fein ; 
Das litss sic nieder hangen, 
Das hiibsche Magedlein. 
Sie trug ein kron mit steineH 
Sie war von gold so rot ; 
Elberich dem viel hleinen 
War zu, der Magte not. 

Da vornen in den Kronen 
Lag ein Karfunkelstetn, 
Der in dem Pallast schone 
Jiechl als ein Kertz erschein ; 
Auf jrem haupt das hare 
War tauter und auch fein 
Es leuchtet also klare 
Recht als der Sonnen schein. 

Die Magt die stand alleine. 
Oar trawrig war jr mut ; 
Ihrfarb und die war reine, 
Lieblich we Milch und Bint : 
Her durch jr zopffe reinen 
Schienjr hals als der Schnee 
Elberich dem viel Kleinen 
That der Maget .lanimer weh. 

Her heart burnt (with anxiety) as beautiful 
Just as a red ruby, 
Like the full moon 

Her eyes (eyelings, pretty eyes) gave sheen. 
Herself had the maiden pure 
Well adorned with roses. 
And also with pearls small : 
No one there comforted the maid. 
She was f;ilr of body, 
And in the waist slender ; 
Right as a (golden) candlestick 
Well-f.ishioned everywhere : 
Her two hands proper. 
So that she wanted nought ; 
Her little nails fair and pure, 
That you could see yourself Ihereia. 
Her hair was beautifully girt 
With noble silk (band) fine ; 
X 2 



'346 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



She let it flow down, 

The lovely iiiaidling. 

She wore a crown with jewels, 

It was of gold so red : 

For Elberich the very small 

The maid had need (to console her.) 

There in front of the crown 
Lay a carbuncle-stone, 
Which in the !>alace fair 
Even as a taper seemed ; 
On her head the hair 
Was glossy and also fine, 
It shone as bright 
Even as the sun's sheen. 

The maid she stood alone, 

Right sad was her mind ; 

Her colour it was pure, 

Lovely as milk and blood : 

Out through her pure locks 

Shone her neck like the snow. 

Elberich the very small 

Was touched with the maiden's sorrow. 

Happy man was Kaiser Ottnit, blessed with 
«uch a wife, after all his travail ; — had not the 
Turk Machabol cunningly sent him, in re- 
venge, a box of young Dragons, or Dragon- 
eggs, by the hands of a caitiff Infidel, con- 
triver of mischief; by whom in due course of 
time they were hatched and nursed to the in- 
finite wo of all Lampartie, and ultimately to 
the death of Kaiser Ottnit himself, whom they 
swallowed and attempted to digest, once with- 
out effect, but the next time too fatally, crown 
and all! 

"Part Second announceth (melJet) of Herr 
jHugdietrich and his son Wolfdietrich ; how 
they for justice's sake, oft by their doughty acts 
succoured distressed persons, with other bold 
iieroes that stood by them in extremity." 

Concerning which Hugdietrich, Emperor of 
Greece, and his son Wolfdietrich, one day the 
renowned Dietrich of Bern, we can here say 
little more than that the former trained him- 
self to sempstress work ; and for many weeks, 
plied his needle, before he could get wedded and 
yroduce Wolfdietrich ; who coming into the 
'HTorld in this clandestine manner, was let down 
into the castle-ditch, and like Romulus and 
Heraus nursed by a Wolf, whence his name. 
However, after never-imagined ad ventures, with 
enchanters and enchantresses, pagans, and gi- 
ants, in all quarters of the globe, he finally, with 
utmost effort, slaughtered those Lombardy Dra- 
gons ; then married Kaiser Ottn it's widow, whom 
he had rather flirted with before ; and so lived 
universally respected in his new. empire, per- 
forming yet other notable achievements. One 
Strange property he had, sometimes useful to 
him, sometimes hurtful: that his breath, when 
he became angry, grew flame, red hot, and 
would take the temper out of swords. We 
^nd him again in the Nibdungen, among King 
Jltzel's (Attila's) followers: a staid, cautious, 
yet still invincible man ; on which occasion, 
though with great reluctance, he is forced to 
interfere, and does so with effect. Dietrich is 
the favourite hero of all those Southern Fic- 
tions, and well acknowledged in the Northern 
also, where the chief man, however, as we 
^hall find, is not he, but Siegfried. 

'^ Part Third showeth of the Rose-garden at 



Worms, which was planted by Chrimhilte, 
King Gibrich's daughter; whereby afterwards 
most part of those Heroes and Giants came to 
destruction and were slain." 

In this Third Part the Southern or Lombard 
Heroes come into contact and collision with 
another as notatile. Northern class ; and foi 
us much more important. Chriemhild, whose 
ulterior history makes such a figure in the 
ISibehingen, had, it would seem, near the an- 
cient City of Worms, a Rose-garden, some 
seven English miles in circuit; fenced only 
by a silk thread; wherein, however, she main- 
tained Twelve stout fighting men ; several of 
whom, as Hagen, Volker, her three Brothers, 
above all the gallant Siegfried her betrothed, 
we shall meet with again : these, so unspeaka- 
ble was their prowess, sufficed to defend the 
silk-thread Garden against all mortals. Our 
good antiquary, Von der Hagen, imagines that 
this Rose-garden business (in the primeval 
Tradition) glances obliquely at the Ecliptic 
with its Tweh^e Signs, at Jupiter's fight with 
the Titans, and we know not what confused 
skirmishing in the Utgard, or Asgard, or Mid- 
gard of the Scandinavians. Be this as it may, 
Chriemhild, we are here told, being very beau- 
tiful, and very wilful, boasts in the pride of 
her heart, that no heroes on earth are to be 
compared with hers; and hearing accidentally 
that Dietrich of Bern has a high character in 
this line, forthwith challenges him to visit 
Worms, and with eleven picked men, to do 
battle there against those other Twelve cham- 
pions of Christendom that watch her Rose- 
garden. Dietrich, in a towering passion at the 
style of the message, which was -'surly and 
stout," instantly pitches upon his eleven se- 
conds, who also are to be principals ; and with 
a retinue of other sixty thousand, by quick 
stages, in which obstacles enough are over- 
come, reaches Worms, and declares himself 
ready. Among these eleven Lombard heroes 
of his, are likewise several whom we meet 
with again in the Xibelungen ; besides Dietrich 
himself, we have the old Duke Hildebrand, 
Wolfhart, Ortwin. Notable among them, in 
another way, is Monk Ilsan, a truculent, gray- 
bearded fellow, equal to any Friar Tuck in 
Ptobin Hood. 

The conditions of fight are soon agreed on: 
there are to be twelve successive duels, each 
challenger being expected to find his match; 
and the prize of victory is a Rose-garland from 
Chriemhild, and ein Hetsscn und ein Kiissen, that 
is to say virtually, one kiss from her fair lips, 
to each. But here, as it ever should do. Pride 
gets a fall; for Chriemhild's bully-hectors, are 
in divers ways all successively felled to the 
ground by the Berners ; some of whom, as old 
Hildebrand, will not even take her Kiss when 
it is due : even Siegfried himself, most reluc- 
tantly engaged with by Dietrich, and for a 
while victorious, is at last forced to seek 
shelter in her lap. Nay, Monk Ilsan, after the 
regular fight is over, and his part in it well 
performed, calls out, in succession, fifty-two 
other idle Champions of the Garden, part of 
them Giants, and routs the whole fraternity: 
thereby earning, besides his own regular 
allowance, fifty-two spare Garlands, and fifty- 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



247 



(wo several kisses ; in the course of which 
latter, Chriemhild's cheek, a just punisiiment 
as seemed, was scratched to the drawing of 
blood by his rough beard. It only remains to 
be added that King Gibrich, Chriemhild's 
Father, is now fain to do homage for his king- 
dom to Dietrich; who returns triumphant to 
his own country; where also. Monk Ilsan, ac- 
cording to promise, distributes these fifty-two 
Garlands among his fellow Friars, crushmg a 
garland on the bare crown of each, till " ihe 
red blood ran over their ears." Under which 
hard but not undeserved treatment, they all 
agreed to pray for remission of Ilsan's sins: 
indeed, such as continued refractory he tied 
together by the beards, and hung pair-wise 
over poles ; whereby the stoutest soon gave in. 

So endelh here this ditty 
Of strife from woman's pride : 
God on our griefc take pity, 
And Mary still by us abide. 

"In Part FourtJi is announced (gcmdt) of the 
little King Laurin, the Dwarf, how he encom- 
passed his Rose-garden with so great manhood 
and art-magic, till at last he was vanquished 
by the heroes, and forced to become their Jug- 
gler, with, &c. &c." 

Of which Fourth and happily last part we 
shall here say nothing; inasmuch as, except 
that certain of our old heroes again figure 
there, it has no coherence or connection with 
the rest of the Heldenbuch : and is simply a new 
tale, which by way of episode Heinrich von 
Ofterdingen, as we learn from his own words, 
had subsequently appended thereto. He says: 

Heinrich von Ofterdingen 
This story hath been singing. 
To the joy of Princes bold, 
They gave him silver and gold, 
Moreover pennies and garments rich! 
Here endeth this Book the which 
Dolh sing our noble Heroes' story : 
God help us all to heavenly glory. 

Such is some outline of the famous Helden- 
buch; on which it is not cur business here to 
add any criticism. The fact that it has so 
long been popular betokens a certain worth in 
it; the kind and degree of which is also in 
some measure apparent. In poetry " the rude 
man," it has been said, " requires only to see 
something going on ; the man of more refine- 
ment wishes to feel ; the truly refined man 
must be made to reflect." For the first of 
these classes our Hem-Book, as has been appa- 
rent enough, provides in abundance; for the 
other two scantily, indeed ; for the second not 
not at all. Nevertheless our estimate of this 
work, which as a series of Antique Traditions 
may have considerable meaninjr, is apt rather 
to be too low. Let us remember that this is 
not the origina.1 Heldenbuch. which we now see; 
but only a version of it into the Knight-errant 
dialect of the thirteenth, indeed partly of the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with all the 
fantastic monstrosities, now so trivial, pertain- 
ing to that style ; under which disguises the 
really antique earnest groundw^ork, interesting 
as old Thought, if not as old Poetry, is all biat 
quite obscured from us. But Antiquarian 
diligence is now busy with the Hel.denburk 
also, from which what light is in it will doubt- 



less be elicited, and here and there a deformity 
removed. Ttiough the Ethiop cannot change 
his skin, there is no need that even he should 
go abroad unwashed.* 

Casper von Roen, or whoever was the ulti- 
mate redactor of the Heldenbuch, whom Lessing 
designates as "a highly ill-informed man," 
would have done better had he quite omitted 
that little King Laurin, "and his little Rose- 
garden," which properly is no Rose-garden at 
all ; and instead thereof introduced the Gehomte 
Siegfried, (Behorned Siegfried,) whose history 
lies at the heart of the whole Northern Tradi- 
tions ; and, under a rude prose dress, is to this 
day a real child's-book and people's-book 
among the Germans. Of this Siegfried we 
have already seen somewhat in the Rose-gar- 
den at Worms ; and shall ere long see much 
more elsewhere ; for he is the chief hero of the 
Nibclungen : indeed nowhere can we dip into 
those old Fictions, whether in Scandinavia or 
the Rhine-land, but under one figure or another, 
whether as Dragon-killer and Prince-royal, or 
as Blacksmith and Horse-subduer, as Sigurd, 
Sivrit, Siegfried, we are sure to light on him. 
As his early adventures belong to the strange 
sort, and will afterwards concern us not a 
little, we shall here endeavour to piece together 
some consistent outline of them ; so far indeed 
as that may be possible, for his biographers, 
agreeing in the main points, differ widely in 
the details. 

First, then, let no one from the title Gehomte, 
(Horned, Behorned,) fancy that our brave 
Siegfried, who was the loveliest as well as the 
bravest of men, was actually cornuted, and had 
horns on his brow, though like Michael An- 
gelo's Moses; or even that his skin, to which 
the epithet Behorned refers, was hard like a 
crocodile's, and not softer than the softest 
shamoy: for the truth is, his Hornedness 
means only an Invulnerability, like that of 
Achilles, which he came by in the following 
manner. All men agree that Siegfried was a 
king's son ; he was born, as we here have 
good reason to know, "at Santen in Nether- 
land," of Siegemund and the fair Siegelinde: 
yet by some family misfortune or discord, of 
which the accounts are very various, he came 
into singular straits during boyhood ; having 
passed that happy period of life, not under the 
canopies of costly state, but by the sooty stithy, 
in one Mimer a Blacksmith's shop. Here, 
however, he was nowise in his proper ele- 
ment ; ever quarrelling with his fellow appren- 
tices ; nay, as some say, breaking the hardest 
anvils into shivers by his too stout hammer- 
ing. So that Mimer, otherwise a first-rate 
Smith, could by no means do with him there. 
He sends him, accordingly, to the neighbouring 
forest, to fetch charcoal; well aware that a 
monstrous Dragon, one Regin, the Smith's own 
Brother, would meet him and devour him. 

* Our inconsiderable knowledge of the Heldeviuch is 
derived from various secondary sources; chiefly from 
Lessing's IVcrke [B. XIII.], where the reader will find 
an epilouie of the whole I'oem, with Extracts by Herr 
Fiilleborn, from which the above are taken. A still 
more accessible and larger Abstract, with long specimens 
trunslated into verse, stands in the [Hunt rations of J^orlh- 
ern Antiquities, [p. 45—167] Von der Hagen has since 
been employed specially on the Heldenbuch ; with what 
result we have not vet learned. 



.248 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



But far otherwise it proved : Siegfried by main 
force slew this Dragon, or rather Dragonized 
Smilh's-Brother ; made broth of him; and, 
warned by some significant phenomena, bathed 
therein ; or, as others assert, bathed directly in 
the monster's blood without cookery ; and 
hereby attained that Invulnerability, complete 
in all respects, save that between his shoulders 
where a limetree leaf chanced to settle and 
stick during the process, there was one little 
spot, a fatal spot as afterwards turned out, left 
in its natural state. 

Siegfried, now seeing through the craft of the 
Smith, returned home and slew him ; then set 
forth in search of adventures, the bare cata- 
logue of which were long to recite. We men- 
tion only two, as subsequently of moment 
both for him and for us. He is by some said 
to have courted and then jilted the fair and 
proud Queen Brunhild of Isenland ; nay, to have 
thrown down the seven gates of her Castle; 
and then ridden off with her wild horse Gana, 
having mounted him in the meadow, and in- 
stantly broken him. Some cross passages 
between him and Queen Brunhild, who under- 
stood no jesting, there must clearly have been, 
so angry is her recognition of him in the Nibe- 
lungen ; nay, she bears a lasting grudge against 
him there, as he, and indeed, she also, one day 
too sorely felt. 

His other grand adventure is with the two 
sons of the deceased King Nibelung, in Nibe- 
lungen-land : these two youths, to whom their 
father had bequeathed a Hoard or Treasure, 
beyond all price or computation, Siegfried, 
"riding by alone," found on the side of a 
mountain, in a state of great perplexit3^ They 
had brought out the treasure from the cave 
where it usually lay ; but how to part it was 
the difficulty ; for not to speak of gold, there 
were as many jewels alone " as twelve wagons 
in four days and nights each going three jour- 
neys could carry away ;" nay, " however much 
you took from it there was no diminution;" 
besides, in real property, a Sword, Bahnung, 
of great potency; a Divining-rod " which gave 
power over every one;" and a T'arnkappe, (or 
Cloak of Darkness,) which not only rendered 
the wearer invisible, but also gave him twelve 
men's strength. So that the two Princes Royal, 
without counsel save from their Twelve stupid 
Giants, knew not how to fall upon any amicable 
arrangement; and, seeing Siegfried ride by so 
opportunely, requested him to be arbiter; offer- 
ing also the Sword Balmung for his trouble. 
Siegfried, who readily undertook the impossible 
problem, did his best to accomplish it; but, of 
course, without effect ; nay the two Nibelungen 
Princes, being of choleric temper, grew impa- 
tient, and provoked him; whereupon, with the 
Sword Balmung he slew them both, and their 
Twelve Giants (perhaps originally Signs of 
the Zodiac) to boot. Thus did the famous 
Njbcluns:en Horl, (Hoard,) and indeed the whole 
Nibelungen-land come into his possession; 
"wearing the Sword Balmung, and having slain 
the two Princes and their champions, what 
■was there farther to oppose him 1 Vainly did 
the Dwarf Alberich, our old friend Elberich 
of the Heldciibiich, who had now become special 
keeper of this Hoard, attempt some resistance 



with a Dwarf Army; he was driven back into 
the cave: plundered of his Tarnkappe : and 
obliged with all his myrmidons to swear fealty 
10 the conqueror, whom indeed thenceforth he 
and they punctually obeyed. 

Whereby Siegfried might now farther style 
himself King of the Nibelungen; master of 
the infinite Nibelungen Hoard (collected doubt- 
less by art-magic in the beginning of Time, in 
the deep bowels of the Universe) with the 
Wiinschcirulhe, (Wishing or Divining-rod,) per- 
taining thereto ; owner of the Tnrnkappe, which 
he ever after kept by him, to put on at will ; and 
though last not least, Bearer and Wielder of 
the Sword Balmung,* by the keen edge of which 
all this gain had come to him. To which last 
acquisitions, adding his previously acquired 
Invulnerability, and his natural dignities as 
Prince of Netherland, he might well show him- 
self before the foremost at Worms or else- 
where; and attempt any the highest adventure 
that fortune could cut out for him. However, 
his subsequent history belongs all to the Nibc- 
lungcn Song ; at which fair garden of poesy we 
are now, through all these shaggy wildernesses 
and enchanted woods, finally arrived. 

Apart from its antiquarian value, and not 
only as by far the finest monument of old 
German art, but intrinsically, and as a mere 
detached composition, this Nibelungen has an 
excellence that cannot but surprise us. With 
little preparation, any reader of poetry, even 
in these days, might find it interesting. It is 
not without a certain Unity of interest and 
purport, an internal coherence and complete- 
ness ; it is a Whole, and some spirit of Music 
informs it : these are the highest characteristics 
of a true Poem. Considering farther what in- 
tellectual environment we now lind it in, it is 
doubly to be prized and wondered at ; for it 
differs from those Hero-Books, as molten or 

* By this Sword Balmung also hangs a tale. Doubt- 
less it was one of those invaluable weapons sometimes 
fabricated by the old Northern Smiths, compared with 
which our modern Fo.xes, and Ferraras, and Tole- 
dos are mere leaden tools. Von der Hagen seems to 
think it simply the Sword Mimung under another name ; 
in which case Siegfried's old master. Mimer, had been 
the maker of it. and called it after himself, as if it had 
been his son. In Scandinavian chronicles, veridical or 
not, we have the following account of that transaction. 
Mimer (or as some have it, surely without ground, one 
Veliant, once an apprentice of his) was challenged by 
another Craftsman, named Amilias, who boasted that he 
had made a suit of armour which no stroke could dint, — 
to equal that feat, or own himself the second Smith 
then e.xtant. This last the stout Mimer would in no 
case do, but proceeded to forge the Sword Mimung ; 
with which, when it was finished, he, "in presence of 
the King," cut asunder "a thread of wool floating on 
water." This would have seemed a fair fire-edge to 
most Smiths : not so to Mimer: he sawed the blade in 
pieces, welded it in " a red hot fire for three days," tem- 
pered it with " milk and oatmeal," and by much other 
cunning, brought out a sword that severeil "a ball of 
wool floating on water." But neither would this suffice 
him ; he returned to his smithy ; and by means known 
only 10 himself, produced in the course of seven weeks 
a tliird and final edition of Mimun?, which split asunder 
a whole floating pack of wool. The comparative trial 
now took place forthwith. Amilias, cai^ed in his im- 
penetrable coat of mail, sat down on a bench, in presence 
of assembled thousands, and bade Mimer strike him. 
Mimer fetched of course his best blow, on whi(h Amilias 
observed that there was a strange feeling of cold iron in 
his inwards. "Shake thyself," said Mimer; the luck- 
less wish! did so, and fell in two halves, being cleft sheer 
through from collar to haunch, never more to swing 
hammer in this world. — See Illustrations of J^orthern 
Antiquities, p. 31. 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



249 



carved metal does from rude agglomerated ore ; 
almost as some Shakspe^re from his fellow 
Dramatists, whose Tarnburlaines and hlnnd 
Princesses, themselves not destitute of merit, 
first show us clearly in what pure loftiness and 
loneliness the Hamlets and Tempests reign. 

The unknown Singer of the Nibelungo), 
though no Shakspeare, must have had a deep, 
poetic soul; wherein things discontinuous and 
inanimate shaped themselves together into 
life, and the Universe with its wondrous pur- 
port stood significantly imaged ; overarching, 
as with heavenly firmaments and eternal har- 
monies, the little scene where men strut and 
fret their hour. His Poem, unlike so many 
old and new pretenders to that name, has a 
basis and organic structure, a beginning, mid- 
dle, and end; there is one great principle and 
idea set Yorth in it, round which all its multi- 
farious parts combine in living union. Ke- 
markable it is, moreover, how along with this 
essence and primary condition of all poetic 
virtue, the minor external virtues of what we 
call Taste, and so forth, are, as it were, pre- 
supposed; and the living soul of Poetry being 
there, its body of incidents, its garment of lan- 
guage, come of their own accord. So, too, in 
the case of Shakspeare : his feeling of propriety, 
as compared with that of the Marlowes and 
Fletchers, his quick sure sense of what is fit 
and unfit, either in act or word, might astonish 
us, had he no other superiority. But true In- 
spiration, as it may well do, includes that same 
Taste, or rather a far higher and heartfelt 
Taste, of which that other " elegant" species 
is but an ineffectual, irrational aper}' : let us 
see the herald Mercury actually descend from 
his Heaven, and the bright wings, and the 
graceful movement of these, will not be want- 
ing. 

With an instinctive art, far difllerent from 
acquired artifice, this Poet of the Nibelungen, 
working in the same province with his con- 
temporaries of the Hddenbuch, on the same 
material of tradition, has, in a wonderful de- 
gree, possessed himself of what these could 
only strive after; and with his "clear feeling 
of fictitious truth," avoided as false the errors 
and monstrous perplexities in which they 
vainly struggled. He is of another species 
than they; in language, in purity and depth 
of feeling, in fineness of invention, stands 
quite apart from them. 

The language of the Hcldenbuch, as we saw 
above, was a feeble half-articulate child's- 
speech, the metre nothing better than a misera- 
ble doggerel ; whereas here in the old Frank- 
ish {Ohcrdutsch) dialect of the Nibelungen, we 
have a clear decisive utterance, and in a real 
system of verse, not without essential regu- 
larity, great liveliness, and now and then even 
harmony of rhythm. Doubtless we must often 
call it a difl^use diluted utterance; at the same 
time it is genuine, with a certain antique 
garrulous heartiness, and has a rhythm in the 
thoughts as well as the words. The sim^i^licit)' 
is never silly, even in that perpetual recur- 
rence of epithets, sometimes of rhymes, as 
where two words for instance lib (body, life, 
leib) and wip (woman, wife, n-eip) are indis- 
solubly wedded together, and the one never 
32 



shows itself without the other following, — 
there is something which reminds us not so 
much of poverty, as of trustfulness and child- 
like innocence. Indeed a strange charm lies 
in those old tones, where, in gay dancing melo- 
dies, the sternest tidings are sung tv us; and 
deep floods of Sadness and Strife play lightly 
in little curling billows, like seas in summer. 
It is as a meek smile, in whose still, thought- 
ful depths a whole infinitude of patience, and 
love, and heroic strength lie revealed. But in 
other cases, too, we have seen this outward 
sport and inward earnestness offer grateful 
contrast, and cunning excitement; for example, 
in Tasso ; of whom, though otherwise difl^erent 
enough, this old Northern Singer has more 
than once reminded us. There, too, as here, 
we have a dark solemn meaning in light 
guise; deeds of high temper, harsh self-denial, 
daring, and death, stand embodied in that soft, 
quick-flowing, joyfully-modulated verse. Nay, 
farther, as if the implement, much more than 
we might fancy, had influenced the work done, 
these two Poems, could we trust our individual 
feeling, have in one respect the same poetical 
result for us : in the Nibelungen as in the Ga-u- 
siilemtne, the persons and their story are indeed 
brought vividly before us, yet not near and 
palpably present ; it is rather as if we looked 
on that scene through an inverted telescope, 
whereby the whole was carried far away into 
the distance, the life-large figures comprised into 
brilliant miniatures, so clear, so real, yet tiny, 
elf-like, and beautified as well as lessened, 
their colours being now closer and brighter, 
the shadows and trivial features no longer 
visible. This, as we partly apprehend, comes 
of Singing Epic Poems; most part of which 
only pretend to be sung. Tasso's rich melody 
still lives among the Italian people; the Nibe- 
lungcn also is what it professes to be, a Song. 

No less striking than the verse and language 
is the quality of the invention manifested here. 
Of the Fable, or narrative material of the 
Nibelungen, we should say that it had high, 
almost the highest merit ; so daintily, yet firmly, 
is it put together; with such felicitous selec- 
tion of the beautiful, the essential, and no less 
felicitous rejection of whatever was unbeauti- 
ful or even extraneous. The reader is no 
longer afflicted with that chaotic brood of Fire- 
drakes, Giants, and malicious turbaned Turks, 
so fatally rife in the Heldenbuch : all this is 
swept away, or only hovers in faint shadows 
afar off; and a free field is opened for legiti- 
mate perennial interests. Yet neither is the 
Nibcluvgen without its wonders ; for it is poetry 
and not prose; here too, a supernatural world 
encompasses the natural, and, though at rare 
intervals and in a calm manner, reveals itself 
there. It is truly wonderful with what skill 
our simple, untaught Poet deals with the mar- 
vellous ; admitting it without reluctance or 
criticism, yet precisely in the degree and 
shape that will best avail him. Here, if in no 
other respect, we should say that he has a de- 
cided superiority to Homer himself. The whole 
story of the Nibelungen is fateful, mysterious, 
guided on by unseen influences; yet the 
actual marvels are few, and done in the far 
distance : those Dwarfs, and Cloaks of Dark- 



250 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ness, and charmed Treasure-caves, are heard 
of rather than beheld, the tidings of them seem 
to issue from unknown space. Vain were it 
to inquire where that Nibelungen land special))- 
is: its very name is Nebel-hmd or Nijl-hmd, the 
land of Darkness, of Invisibility. 'I'he " Nibe- 
lungen Heroes," that muster in thousands and 
tens of thousands, though they march to the 
Rhine or Danube, and we see their strong 
limbs and shining armour, we could almost 
fancy to be children of the air. Far beyond 
the firm horizon, that wonder-bearing region 
swims on the infinite waters ; unseen by 
bodily eye, or at most discerned as a faint 
streak, hanging in the blue depths, uncertain 
whether island or cloud. And thus the Nibc- 
lungen Song, though based on the bottomless 
foundation of Spirit, and not unvisited of skyey 
messengers, is a real, rounded, habitable Earth, 
where we find firm footing, and the wondrous 
and the common live amicably together. Per- 
haps it would be difficult to find any Poet of 
ancient or modern times, who in this trying 
problem has steered his wa}^ with greater 
delicacy and success. 

To any of our readers, who may have per- 
sonally studied the Nibelungen, these high 
praises of ours will not seem exaggerated: the 
rest, who are the vast majority, must endeavour 
to accept them with some degree of faith, at 
least, of curiosity ; to vindicate, and judicially 
substantiate them would far exceed our pre- 
sent opportunities. Nay, in any case, the 
criticisms, the alleged Characteristics of a 
Poem are so many Theorems, which are in- 
deed enunciated, truly or falsely, but the 
Demonstration of v\:hich must be sought for in 
the reader's own study and experience. Nearly 
all that can be attempted here, is some hasty 
epitome of the mere Narrative; no substantial 
image of the work, but a feeble outline and 
shadow. To which task, as the personages 
and their environment have already been in 
some degree illustrated, we can now proceed 
without obstacle. 

The Nibelungen has been called the Northern 
Epos ; yet it has, in great part, a Dramatic 
character: those thirty-nine Jlvcn'.mren (Adven- 
tures) which it consists of, might be so many 
scenes in a Tragedy. The catastrophe is dimly 
prophesied from the beginning; and, at every 
fresh step, rises more and more clearly into 
view. A shadow of coming Fate, as it were, 
a low inarticulate voice of Doom falls from the 
first, out of that charmed Nibelungen-land : the 
■discord of two women, is as a little spark of 
evil passion, that ere long enlarges itself into a 
crime; foul murder is done; and now the Sin 
rolls on like a devouring fire, till the guilty and 
the innocent are alike encircled with it, and a 
whole land is ashes, and a whole race is swept 
away. 

Vns ist in alten mmren Wunders vil geseit. 
Von helden lobebceren Von groier ckuonheit. 
Von vrouden ji.nd hoch-g-eziten Von weinenundvon chlagcn, 
Von chuner rechen striten Miiget ir nu wunder hoi-en 
sagen. 

We find in ancient story, Wonders many toUl, 
Of heroes in great glory. With spirit free and bold. 
Of joyaDces, and high-tides. Of weeping and of wo, 
Of noble Recken striving, Mole ye now wonders know. 



This is the brief artless Proem; and the pro- 
mise contained in it proceeds directly towards 
fulfilment. In the very second stanza we 
learn : — 

Es wuhs in Burgonden FAn vil edel magedin. 
Das in alien landen JVi^it schoners mokte sin, 
Chriemhilt v:as si gchein Si wart ein schonc icip, 
I'Jarumhc milsen degene Vil verliesen den lip. 

A right noble niaidin Did srow in Burgundy, 
That in all lands of earth Nought fairer mote there be ; 
Chrieinhild of Worms she bight, She was a fairest wife: 
For the which must warriors A many lose their life.* 

Chriemhild, this world's-wonder, a king's 
daughter and king's sister, and no less coy and 
proud than fair, dreams one night that "she 
had petted a falcon, strong, beautiful, and wild; 
which two eagles snatched away from her: 
this she was forced to see ; greater sojrow felt 
she never in the world." Her mother, Ute, to 
whom she relates the vision, soon redes it for 
her; the falcon is a noble husband, whom, God 
keep him, she must suddenly lose. Chriemhild 
declares warmly for the single state ; as indeed, 
living there at the Court of Worms, with her 
brothers, Gunther, Gemot, Geiselher, "three 
kings noble and rich," in such pomp and re- 
nown, the pride of Burgunden-land and Earth, 
she might readily enough have changed for 
the worse. However, dame Ute bids her not be 
too emphatical ; for " if ever she have heart-felt 
joy in life, it will be from man's love, and she 
shall be a fair wife, {wi])), when God sends her 
a right worthy Hitter's lip." Chriemhild is more 
in earnest than maidens usually are when they 
talk thus ; it appears, she guarded against love 
"for many a lief-long day;" nevertheless, she 
too must yield to destin)'. " Honourably she 
was to become a most noble Hitter's wife." 
"This," adds the old Singer, "was that same 
falcon she dreamed of: how sorely she since 
revenged him on her nearest kindred ! For that 
one death died full many a mother's son." 

It may be observed that the Poet, here, 
and all times, shows a marked partiality for 
Chriemhild; ever striving, unlike his fellow 
singers, to magnify her worth, her faithfulness, 
and loveliness ; and softening, as much as may 
be, whatever makes against her. No less a 
favourite with him is Siegfried, the prompt, 
gay, peaceably fearless hero ; to whom, in the 
Second Jlveutiure, we are here suddenly intro- 
duced, at Santen (Xanten) the Court of Neth- 
erland ; whither, to his glad parents, after 
achievements (to us partially known) "of 
which one might sing and tell for ever," that 
noble prince has returned. Much as he has done 
and conquered, he is but just arrived at man's 



♦ This is the first of a thousand instances, in which 
the two inseparables, fVip and Lip, or in modern tongue, 
li'eib and Leib, as mentioned above, appear together. 
From these two opening stanzas of the j^ibelungen Lied, 
in its purest form, the reader may obtain some idea of 
the versification ; it runs on in more or less reguhir Al- 
e.xandrines, with a ca?sural pause in each, where the 
capital letter occurs; indeed, the lines seem originally 
to have been divided into two at that point, for some- 
times, as in Stanza First, the middle words {ina-ren, lobe- 
ba-ren ; gezilen. striten) also rhyme ; but this is rather a 
rare case. The word Rechen or Recken, used in the First 
Stanza, is the constant designation for hold fishters, and 
has the same root with rich, (thus in old French, hommes 
riches ; in Spanish, ricos hombres,) which last is here also 
synonymotis with powerful, and is applied to kings, and 
even to tlie Almighty, Oot dein richen. 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



551 



years : it is on occasion of this joyful event, 
that a high-tide {hochgczit) is now held there, 
•with infinite jou.^lings, minstrelsy, largesses, 
and other chivalrous doings, all which is sung 
with utmost heartiness. The old King Siege- 
mund offers to resign his crown to him; but 
Siegfried has other game a-field : the iin- 
paraileJed beauty of Chriemhild has reached his 
ear and his fancy; and now he will to Worms, 
and woo her, at least "see how it stands with 
her." Fruitless is it for Siegemund and the 
mother Siegelinde to represent the perils of that 
enterprise, the pride of those Burgundiaii 
Gunthers and Gemots, the fierce temper of their 
uncle Hagen ; Siegfried is as obstinate as young 
men are in these cases, and can hear no coun- 
sel. Nay, he will not accept the much more 
liberal proposition, to take an army with him, 
and conquer the country, if it must be so; he 
will ride forth, like himself, with twelve cham- 
pions only, and so defy the future. Where- 
upon, the old people finding that there is no 
other course, proceed to make him clothes ;* — 
at least, the good queen with " her fair women 
sitting night and day," and sewing, does so, the 
father furnishing noblest battle and riding gear; 
— and so dismiss him with many blessings and 
lamentations. "For him wept sore the king 
and his wife, but he comforted both their bodies 
(lip); he said, 'ye must not weep, for my 
body ever shall ye be without care.' " 

Sad was it to the Rccken, Stood weeping many a maid, 
I ween, their heart had them The tidings true furesaid 
That of their friends fo many Death thereby should find ; 
Cause had Ihey of lamenting Such liodinj: in their mind. 

Nevertheless, on the seventh morning, that 
adventurous company " ride up the sand," (on 
the Rhine beach to Worms,) in high temper, 
in dress and trappings, aspect and bearing, 
more than kingly. 

Siegfried's reception at King Gunther's court, 
and his brave sayings and doings there for 
some time, we must omit. One fine trait of 
his chivalrous delicacy it is that, for a whole 
year, he never hints at his errand; never once 
sees or speaks of Chriemhild, whom, neverthe- 
less, he is longing day and night to meet. She, 
on her side, has often through her lattices 
noticed the gallant stranger victorious in all 
tiltings and knightly exercises; whereby it 
would seem, in spite of her rigorous predeter- 
minations, some kindness for him is already 
gliding in. Meanwhile, mighty wars and 
threats of invasion arise, and Siegfried does 
the state good service. Returning victorious, 
both as general and soldier, from Hessen, 
(Hessia,) where, by help of his own courage 
and the sword Balmung, he has captured a 
Danish King, and utterly discomfited a Saxon 
one; he can now show himself before Chriem- 
hild without other blushes than those of timid 
love. Nay, the maiden has herself inquired 
pointedly of the messengers, touching his ex- 
ploits ; and "her fair face grew rose-red when 
she heard them." A gay High-tide, by way of 
triumph, is appointed; several kings, and two- 
and-thirty princes, and knights enough with 

* This is a never-faitinc preparative for all expedi- 
tions, and always specified and insisted on with a simple, 
loving, almost female impressiveuess. 



'■gold-red saddles," come to joust; and better 
than whole infinities of kings and princes with 
their saddles, the fair Chriemhild herself, under 
guidance of her mother, chiefly too in honour 
of the victor, is to grace that sport. " Ute the 
full rich" fails not to set her needle-women to 
work, and " clothes of price are taken from 
their presses," for the love of her child, " where- 
with to deck many women and maids." And 
now, " on the Whitsun-morning," all is ready, 
and glorious as heart could desire it: brave 
Ritters " five thousand or more," all glancing 
in the lists; but grander still, Chriemhild her- 
self is advancing beside her mother, with a 
hundred body-guards, all sword-in-hand and 
many a noble maid " wearing rich raiment," in 
her train ! 

" Now issued forth the lovely one, (minnech- 
lirhe,) as the red morning doth from troubled 
clouds ; much care fled away from him, who 
bore her in his heart, and long had done ; he 
saw the lovely one stand in her beauty. 

"There glanced from her garments full 
many precious stones, her rose-red colour 
shone full lovely; try what he might, each 
man must confess that in this world he had 
not seen aught so fair. 

" Like as the light moon stands before the 
stars, and its sheen so clear goes ov^er the 
clouds, even so stood she now bef to many 
fair women ; whereat cheered was the mind 
of the hero. 

"The rich chamberlains you saw go before 
her, the high spirited Recken would not for- 
bear, but pressed on where they saw the lovely 
maiden. Siegfried the lord was both glad and 
sad. 

"He thought in his mind, how could this be 
that I should woo thee 1 That was a foolish 
dream ; yet must I for ever be a stranger, I 
were rather (sanfier, softer) dead. He became 
from these thoughts, in quick changes, pale 
and red. 

"Thus stood so lovely the child of Siege- 
linde, as if he were limned on parchment by 
a master's art; for all granted that hero so 
beautiful they had never seen." 

In this passage, which we have rendered, 
from the Fifth Jiventiurc, into the closest prose, 
it is to be remarked, among other singular- 
ities, that there are two similes: in which 
figure of speech our old Singer deals very 
sparingly. The first, that comparison of 
Chriemhild to the moon among stars with its 
sheen going over the clouds, has now for 
many centuries had little novelty or merit; 
but the second, that of Siegfried to a Figure 
in some illuminated Manuscript, is graceful in 
itself; and unspeakably so to antiquaries, sel- 
dom honoured, in their Black-letter stubbing 
and grubbing, with such a poetic windfall. 

A prince and a princess of this quality are 
clearly made for one another. Nay, on the 
motion of young Herr Gemot, fair Chriemhild 
is bid specially to salute Siegfried, she who 
had never before saluted man : which unpa- 
ralleled grace the lovely one, in all courtliness, 
openly does him. "Be welcome," said she, 
"Herr Siegfried, a noble Ritter good;" from 
which salute, for this seems to have been all, 
" much raised was his mind." He bowed 



252 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■with graceful reverence, as his manner was 
with women; she took him by the hand, and 
with fond stolen glances, they looked at each 
other. Whether in that ceremonial joining of 
hands there might not be some soft, slight 
pressure, of far deeper import, is what our 
Singer will not take upon him to say ; how- 
ever, he thinks the affirmative more probable. 
Henceforth, in that bright May weather, the 
two were seen constantly together: nothing 
but felicity around and before them. — In these 
days, truly, it must have been that the famous 
Prize-fight with Dietrich of Bern and his ele- 
ven Lombardy champions, took place, little to 
the profit of the two Lovers ; were it not ra- 
ther that the whole of that Rose-garden trans- 
action, as given in the Heldcnbvrh, might be 
falsified and even imaginary; for no mention 
or hint of it occurs here. War or battle is 
not heard of; Siegfried, the peerless, walks 
wooingly by the side of Chriemhild the peer- 
less : matters, it is evident, are in the best 
possible course. 

But now comes a new side-wind, which, 
however, in the long run also forwards the 
voyage. Tidings, namely, reached over the 
Rhine, not so surprising we might hope, " that 
there was many a fair maiden ; " M'hereupon 
Gunther the King "thought with himself to 
win one of them." It was an honest purpose 
in King Gunther, only his choice was not the 
discreetest. For no fair maiden will content 
him but Queen Brunhild, a lady who rules in 
Isenland, far over sea, famed indeed for her 
beauty, yet no less for her caprices. Fables 
we have met with of this Brunhild being pro- 
perly a Valkyr, or Scandinavian Houri, such 
as were wont to lead old northern warriors 
from their last battle field, into Valhalla; and 
that her castle of Isenstein stood amidst a lake 
of fire ; but this, as we said, is fable and 
groundless calumny, of which there is not so 
much as notice taken here. Brunhild, it is 
plain enough, was a flesh-and-blood maiden, 
glorious in look and faculty, only with some 
preternatural talents given her, and the strang- 
est, wayward habits. It appears, for example, 
that any suitor proposing for her has this brief 
condition to proceed upon : he must try the 
adorable in the three several games of hurling 
the Spear (at one another). Leaping, and 
throwing the Stone; if victorious, he gains 
her hand ; if vanquished, he loses his own 
head ; which latter issue, such is the fair 
Amazon's strength, frequent fatal experiment 
has shown to be the only probable one. 

Siegfried, who knows something of Burn- 
hild and her ways, votes clearlv against the 
whole enterprise ; however, Gunther has once 
for all got the whim in him, and must see it 
out. The prudent Hagen von Toneg, uncle to 
love-sick Gunther, and ever true to him, then 
advises that Siegfried be requested to take 
part in the adventure; to which request Sieg- 
fried readily accedes on one condition ; that 
should they prove fortunate he himself is to 
have Chriemhild to wife, M-hen they return. 
This readily settled, he now takes charge of 
the business, and throws a little light on it for 
the others. They must lead no army thither, 
only two, Hagen and Dankwart, besides the 



king and himself, shall go. The grand sub- 
ject of wade* (clothes) is next hinted at, and 
in general terms elucidated; whereupon a so- 
lemn consultation with Chriemhild ensues; 
and a great cutting out, on her part, of white 
silk from Araby, of green silk from Zazemang, 
of strange fish-skins covered with morocco 
silk; a great sewing thereof for seven weeks, 
on the part of her maids ; lastly a fitting-on 
of the three suits by each hero, for each had 
three ; and heartiest thanks in return, seeing 
all fitted perfectly, and was of grace and price 
unutterable. What is still more to the point, 
Siegfried takes his Cloak of Darkness with 
him, fancying he may need it there. The 
good old Singer, who has hitherto alluded only 
in the faintest way to Siegfried's prior adven- 
tures and miraculous possessions, introduces 
this of the Tarnkappc with great frankness 
and simplicity. "Of wild dwarfs, (getwargen,y' 
says he, "I have heard tell, they are in hollow 
mountains, and for defence wear somewhat 
called Tarnknppe, of wondrous sort : " the 
qualities of which garment, that it renders in- 
visible, and gives twelve inen's strength, are 
already known to us. 

The voyage to Isenstein, Siegfried steering 
the ship thither, is happily accomplished ia 
twenty days. Gunther admires to a high de- 
gree the fine masonry of the place ; as indeed 
he well might, there being some eighty-six 
towers, three immense palaces, and one im- 
mense hall, the whole built of " marble green 
as grass;" farther he sees many fair women 
looking from the windows down on the bark, 
and thinks the loveliest is she in the snow- 
white dress; which, Siegfried informs him, is 
a worthy choice; the snow-white maiden being 
no other than Brunhild. It is also to be kept 
in mind that Siegfried, for reasons known best 
to himself, had previously stipulated that, 
though a free king, they should all treat him 
as vassal of Gunther; for whom accordingly 
he holds the stirrup, as they mount on the 
beach; thereby giving rise to a misconception, 
which in the end led to saddest consequences. 

Queen Brunhild, who had called back hep 
maidens from the windows, being a strict dis- 
ciplinarian, and retired into the interior of her 
green marble Isenstein, to dress still better, 
now inquires of some attendant. Who these 
strangers of such lordly aspect are, and what 
brings them. The attendant professes himself 
at a loss to say; one of them looks like Sieg- 
fried, the other is evidently by his port a noble 
king. His notice of Von Troneg Hagen is 
peculiarly vivid. 

The third of those companions. He is of aspect stern, 

And yet with lovely body, Rich queen, as ye might dis- 
cern ; 

From those his rapid glances. For the eyes nought rest 
in hiin, 

Meseems this foreign Recke Is of temper fierce and 
grim. 

This is one of those little graphic touches» 
scattered all over our Poem, which do more 
for picturing out an object, especially a man, 
than whole pages of enumeration and mensura- 
tion. Never after do we hear of this stout, in- 

* Hence our English weeds, and Scotch wad (pledge) j 
and, say tlic etymologists, wadding, and even weddings. 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



253 



domitaWe Hagen, in all the wild deeds and 
sufferings he passes through, but those sirinden 
blicken of his come before us, with the rest- 
less, deep, dauntless spirit thai looks through 
them. 

Brunhild's reception of Siegfried is not with- 
out tartness; which, however, he, with polished 
courtesy, and the nimblest address, ever at his 
command, softens down, or hurries over: he 
is here, without will of his own, and so forth, 
only as attendant on his master, the renowned 
King Gunther, who comes to sue for her hand, 
as the summit and keystone of all earthly 
blessings. Brunhild, who had determined on 
fighting Siegfried himself, if he so willed it, 
makes small accoimt of this King Gunther, or 
his prowess; and instantly clears the ground, 
and equips her for battle. The royal wooer 
must have looked a little blank when he saw a 
shield brought in for his fair one's handling, 
" three spans thick with gold and iron," which 
four chamberlains could hardly bear, and a 
spear or javelin she meant to shoot or hurl, 
which was a burden for three. Hagen, in angry 
apprehension for his king and nephew, ex- 
claims that they shall all lose their life, {Up,) 
and that she is the tiuvcls imp, or Devil's wife. 
•Nevertheless Siegfried is already there in his 
Cloak of Darkness, twelve men strong, and 
privily whispers in the ear of royalty to be of 
comfort ; takes the shield to himself, Gunther 
only affecting to hold it, and so fronts the edge 
of battle. Brunhild performs prodigies of 
spear-hurling, of leaping, and stone-pitching; 
but Gunther, or rather Siegfried, " who does 
the work, he only acting the gestures," nay, 
who even snatches him up into the air and 
leaps carrying him, — gains a decided victory, 
and the lovely Amazon must own with sur- 
prise and shame, that she is fairly won. 
Siegfried presently appears v.n{hout Tnrnkappc, 
and asks with a grave face, When the games 
then are to begin 1 

So far well; yet somewhat still remains to 
be done. Brunhild will not sail for Worms, 
to be wedded, till she have assembled a fit 
train of warriors: wherein the Burgundians, 
being here without retinue, see svmptoms or 
possibilities of mischief. The deft Siegfried, 
ablest of men, again knows a resource. In 
his Tarnkuppe he steps on board the bark, 
which, seen from the shore, appears to drift off 
of its own accord ; and therein, stoutly steering 
towards Ndelungev-land, he reaches that mys- 
terious country and the mountain where his 
Hoard lies, before the second morning; finds 
Dwarf Alberich and all his giant sentinels at 
their post, and faithful almost to the death ; 
these soon rouse him thirty thousand Nibelun- 
gen Recken, from whom he has only to choose 
one thousand of the best; equip them splen- 
didly enough ; and therewith return to Gunther, 
simply as if they were that sovereign's own 
body-guard, that had been delayed a little by 
stress of weather. 

The final arrival at Worms; the bridal 
feasts, for there are two, Siegfried also receiv- 
ing his reward; and the joyance and splendour 
of man and maid, at this lordliest of hightides; 
and the joustings, greater than those at Aspra- 
monl or Montauban — every reader can fancy 



for himself. Remarkable only is the evil eye 
with which queen Brunhild still continues to 
regard the noble Siegfried. She cannot under- 
stand how Guniher, the Landlord of the Rhine,* 
should have bestowed his sister on a vassal: 
the assurance that Siegfried also is a prince 
and heir-apparent, the prince namely of Ne- 
therland, and little inferior to Burgundiaa 
majesty itself, yields no complete satisfaction; 
and Brunhild hints plainly that, unless the 
truth be told her, unpleasant consequences 
may follow. Thus is there ever a ravelled 
thread in the web of life ! But for this little 
cloud of spleen, these bridal feasts had been 
all bright and balmy as the month of June. 
Unluckily, too, the cloud is an electric one; 
spreads itself in time into a general earth- 
quake; nay, that very night becomes a thun- 
der-storm, or tornado, unparalleled we may 
hope in the annals of connubial happiness. 

The Singer of the Nibclungcn, unlike the Au- 
thor of Rvderick Random, cares little for inter- 
meddling with " the chaste mysteries of 
hymen." Could we, in the corrupt, ambigu- 
ous, modern tongue, hope to exhibit any sha- 
dow of the old, simple, true-hearted, merely 
historical spirit, with which, in perfect purity 
of soul, he describes things unattempted yet in 
prose or rhyme, — we could a tale unfold! 
Suffice it to say. King Gunther, Landlord of 
the Rhine, falling sheer down from the third 
heaven of hope, finds his spouse the most 
athletic and intractable of women ; and him- 
self, at the close of the adventure,, nowise 
encircled in her arms, but tied hard and fast, 
hand and foot, in her girdle, and hung thereby, 
at considerable elevation, on a nail in the wall. 
Let any reader of sensibility figure the emo- 
tions of the royal breast, there as he vibrates 
suspended on his peg, and his inexorable bride 
sleeping sound in her bed below! Towards 
morning he capitulates; engaging to observe 
the prescribed line of conduct with utmost 
strictness, so he may but avoid becoming a 
laughing-stock to all men. 

No wonder the dread king looked rather 
grave next morning, and received the con- 
gratulations of mankind in a cold manner. 
He confesses to Siegfried, who partly suspects 
how^ it may be, that he has brought the "evil 
devil" home to his house in the shape of wife, 
whereby he is wretched enough. However, 
there are remedies for all things but death. 
The ever-serviceable Siegfried undertakes 
even here to make the crooked straight. What 
may not an honest friend with Tarnkappe and 
twelve men's strength perform? Proud Brun- 
hild, next night, after a fierce contest, owns 
herself again vanquished; Gunther is there to 
reap the fruits of another's victory; the noble 
Siegfried withdraws, taking nothing with him 
but the luxury of doing good, and the proud 
queen's Ring and Girdle gained from her in 
that struggle; which small trophies he, with 
the last infirmity of a noble mind, presents to 
his own fond wife, little dreaming that they 
would one day cost him and her, and all of 



* Der fVirt font Rive : singular enniish the word Wirth, 
often applied tii royalty in iliat old dialect, is now also 
the title of innkeepers. To such base uses may we 
come. 



254 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



them, so dear. Such readers as take any in- 
terest in poorGunther will be gratified to learn, 
that from this hour Brunhild's preternatural 
faculties quite left her, being all dependent on 
her maidhood; so that any more spear-hurling, 
or other the like extraordinary work, is not to 
be apprehended from her. 

If we add that Siegfried formally made over 
to his dear Chriemhild the Nibelungen Hoard, 
byway oit Morgcngabc, (or, as we may say, Join- 
ture ;) and the high-tide, though not the honey- 
moon being past, returned to Netherland with 
his spouse, to be welcomed there with infinite 
rejoicings, — we have gone through as it were 
the First Act of this Tragedy, and may here 
pause to look round us for a moment. The 
main characters are now introduced on the 
scene, the relations that bind them together are 
dimly sketched out: there is the prompt, cheer- 
fully heroic, invulnerable, and invincible Sieg- 
fried, now happiest of men; the high Chriem- 
hild, fitly-mated, and if a moon, revolving glo- 
rious round her sun, or2''/-i'c'/(/(joy and darling); 
not without pride and female aspirings, yet not 
prouder than one so gifted and placed is 
pardonable for being. On the other hand, we 
have King Gunther, or rather let us say king's- 
mantle Gunther, for never except in that one 
enterprise of courting Brunhild, in which too, 
without help, he would have cut so poor a 
figure, does the worthy sovereign show will 
of his own, or character other than that of 
good potter's clay; farther, the suspicious, fore- 
casting, yet stout and reckless Hagen, him 
with the rapiil glances, and these turned not too 
kindly on Siegfried, whose prowess he has 
used yet dreads, whose Nibelungen Hoard he 
perhaps already covets ; lastly, the rigorous and 
vigorous Brunhild, of whom also more is to be 
feared than hoped. Considering the fierce 
nature of these now mingled ingredients, and 
how, except perhaps in the case of Gunther 
there is no menstruum of placid stupidity to 
soften them, except in Siegfried, no element of 
heroic truth to master them and bind them to- 
gether, — unquiet fermentation may readily be 
apprehended. 

Meanwhile, for a season all is peace and 
sunshine. Siegfried reigns in Netherland, of 
which his father has surrendered him the 
crown ; Chriemhild brings him a son, whom 
in honour of the uncle he christens Gunther, 
which courtesy the uncle and Brunhild repay 
in kind. The Nibelungen Hoard is still open 
and inexhaustible; Dwarf Alberich and all the 
Recken there still loyal ; outward relations 
friendly, internal supremely prosperous: these 
are halcyon days. I3ut, alas, they cannot last. 
Queen Brunhild, retaining with true female 
tenacity her first notion, right or wrong, re- 
flects one day that Siegfried, who is and shall 
be nothing but her husband's vassal, has for a 
long while paid him no service; and, deter- 
mined on a remedy, manages that Siegfried 
and his queen shall be invited to a high-tide 
at Worms, where opportunity may chance for 
enforcing that claim. Thither accordingly, 
after ten years' absence, we find these illustri- 
ous guests returning; Siegfried escorted by a 
thousand Nibelungen Ritters, and farther by 
his father Siegemund, who leads a train of 



Netherlanders. Here for eleven days, amid 
infinite joustiugs, there is a true heaven on 
earth: but the apple of Discord is already 
lying in the knightly ring, and two Women, 
the proudest and keenest-tempered of the 
world, simultaneously sloop to lift it. Aventiure 
Fourteenth is entitled " How the two queens 
rated one another." Never was courtlier 
Billingsgate uttered, or which came more 
directly home to the business and bosoms of 
women. The subject is that old story of Pre- 
cedence, which indeed, from the time of Caiu 
and Abel downwards, has wrought such effu- 
sion of blood and bile both among men and wo- 
men; lying at the bottom of all armaments and 
battle-fields, whether Blenheims and Water- 
loos, or any plate-displays, and tongue-and 
eye skirmishes, in the circle of domestic Tea: 
nay, the very animals have it; and horses, 
were they but the miserablest Shelties and 
Welsh ponies, will not graze together till it has 
been ascertained, by clear fight, who is master 
of whom, and a proper drawing-room etiquette 
established. 

Brunhild and Chriemhild take to arguing 
about the merits of their husbands: the latter 
fondly expatiating on the pre-eminence of her 
Friedel, how he walks " like the moon among 
stars" before all other men, is reminded by 
her sister that one man at least must be ex- 
cepted, the mighty king Gunther of Worms, to 
whom, by his own confession long ago at 
Isenstein, he is vassal and servant. Chriemhild 
will sooner admit that clay is above sunbeams, 
than any such proposition ; which therefore 
she, in all politeness, requests of her sister 
never more to touch upon while she lives. 
The result may be foreseen : rejoinder follows 
reply, statement grows assertion ; flint-sparks 
have fallen on the dry flax, which from smoke 
bursts into conflagration. The two queens part 
in hottest, though still clear-flaming anger- 
Not, however, to let their anger burn out, only 
to feed it vvith more solid fuel. Chriemhild 
dresses her forty maids in finer than royal ap- 
parel; orders out all her husband's Recken; 
and so attended, walks foremost to the Minster, 
where mass is to be said; thus practically assert- 
ing that she is not only a true queen, but the 
worthier of the two. Brunhild, quite outdone 
in splendour, and enraged beyond all patience, 
overtakes her at the door of the Minster, with 
peremptory order to stop : " before king's wife 
shall vassal's never go." 

Then said the fair Chrieinhilde, Right angry was her 

ninod : 
"Coiildest thnu but hold thy peace. It were surely for 

thy good, 
Thyself hast all polluted With shame thy fair bodye ; 
How can a Concubine By right a King's vvif« be V 

"Whom hast thou Concubinedr' The King's wife 

qiiii kly spnke ; 
" That do I thee," said Chrienihilde ; " For thy pride and 

vaiinliiig's sake ; 
Who first had ihy fair body Was Siegfried my beloved 

Man ; 
My brother was it itotThat thy maidhood from thee wan." 

In proof of which outrageous saying, she pro- 
duces that Ring and Girdle; the innocent con- 
quest of which, as we well know, had a far other 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



255 



origin. Brunhild bursts into tears ; " sadder 
day she never saw." Nay, perhaps a new light 
now rose on her over much that had been 
dark in her late history; "she rued full sore 
that ever she was born." 

Here, then, is the black injury, which only 
blood will wash away. The evil fiend has 
begun his work ; and the issue of it lies be- 
yond man's control. Siegfried may protest 
his innocence of that calumny, and chastise 
his indiscreet spouse for uttering it even in 
the heat of anger: the female heart is wounded 
beyond healing; the old springs of bitterness 
against this hero unite into a fell flood of hate; 
while he sees the sunlight, she cannot know a 
joyful hour. Vengeance is soon offered her : 
Hagen, who lives only for his prince, under- 
takes this bad service ; by treacherous profes- 
sions of attachment, and an,xiety to guard 
Siegfried's life, he gains from Chriemhild the 
secret of his vulnerability ; Siegfried is carried 
out to hunt ; and in the hour of frankest gayety 
is stabbed through the fatal spot; and, falling 
the murderer to the ground, dies upbraiding 
his false kindred, yet, with a touching sim- 
plicity, recommending his child and wife to 
their protection. " Let her feel that she is your 
sister; was there ever virtue in princes, be 
true to her : for me my Father and my men 
shall long wait." " The flowers all round 
were wetted with blood, then he struggled with 
death ; not long did he this, the weapon cut 
him too keen ; so he could speak nought more, 
the Recke bold and noble." 

At this point, we might say, ends the Third 
Act of our Tragedy ; the whole story hence- 
forth takes a darker character; it is as if a 
tone of sorrow and fateful boding became more 
and more audible in its free, light music. Evil 
has produced new evil in fatal augmentation: 
injury is abolished ; but in its stead there is 
guilt and despair. Chriemhild, an hour ago so 
rich, is now robbed of all: her grief is bound- 
less as her love has been. No glad thought 
can ever more dwell in her; darkness, ulter 
night, has come over her, as she looked into 
the red of morning. The spoiler too walks 
abroad unpunished; the bleeding corpse wit- 
nesses against Hagen, nay he himself cares 
not to hide the deed. But who is there to 
avenge the friendless ? Siegfried's father has 
returned in haste to his own land ; Chriemhild 
is now alone on the earth, her husband's grave 
is all that remains to her; there only can she 
sit, as if waiting at the threshold of her own 
dark home; and in prayers and tears, pour out 
the sorrow and love that have no end. Still 
farther injuries are heaped on her: by advice 
of the crafty Hagen, Gunther, who had not 
planned the murder, yet permitted and wit- 
nessed it, now comes with whining professions 
of repentance and good-will ; persuades her to 
send for the Nibelungen Hoard to Worms ; 
■where no sooner is it arrived, than Hagen and 
the rest forcibly take it from her; and her last 
trust in affection or truth from mortal is rudely 
cut away. Bent to the earth, she weeps only 
for her lost Siegfried, knows no comfort, but 
"will weep for ever. 

One lurid gleam of hope, after long years of 
darkness, breaks in on her, in the prospect of 



revenge. King Etzel sends from his far country 
to solicit her hand: the embassy she hears at 
first, as a woman of ice might do; the good 
Rudiger, Etzel's spokesman, pleads in vain 
that his king is the richest of all eaithly kings; 
that he is so lonely "since Frau Helke died;" 
that though a Heathen he has Christians about 
him, and may one day be converted: till, at 
length, when he hints distantly at the power of 
Etzel to avenge her injuries, she on a sudden 
becomes all attention. Hagen, foreseeing such 
possibilities, protests against the match; but 
is overruled: Chriemhild departs with Rudiger 
for the land of the Huns; taking cold leave of 
her relations ; only two of whom, her brothers 
Gemot and Geiselher, innocent of that murder, 
does she admit near her as convoy to the 
Donau. 

The Nibelungen Hoard has hitherto been 
fatal to all its possessors ; to the two sons of 
Nibelung; to Siegfried its conqueror: neither 
does the Burgundian Royal House fare better 
with it. Already, discords threatening to 
arise, Hagen sees prudent to sink it in the 
Rhine; first taking oath of Gunther and his 
brothers, that none of them shall reveal the 
hiding-place, M'hile any of the rest is alive. 
But the curse that clave to it could not be 
sunk there. The Nibelungen-land is now 
theirs : they themselves are henceforth called 
Nibelungen ; and this history of their fate is 
the Nibelungen Song, or Nibelungen Noth, 
(Nibelungen's Need, extreme need, or final 
V reck and abolition.) 

The Fifth Act of our strange eventful history 
now draws on. Chriemhild has a kind husband, 
of hospitable disposition, who troubles himself 
little about her secret feelings and intents. 
With his permission, she sends two minstrels, 
inviting the Burgundian Court to a high-tide, 
at Etzel's: she has charged the messengers to 
say that she is happy, and to bring all Gun- 
ther's champions with them. Her eye was on 
Hagen, but she could not single him from the 
rest. After seven days' deliberation, Gunther 
answers that he will come. Hagen has loudly 
dissuaded the journey, but again been over- 
ruled. " It is his fate," says a commentator, 
"like Cassandra's, ever to foresee the evil, 
and ever to be disregarded. He himself shut 
his ear against ihe inward voice; and now his 
warnings are uttered to the deaf." He argues 
long, but in vain: nay, young Gemot hints at 
last that this aversion originates in personal 
fear : 
Then spake Vnn Troneg Ilagen : "Nowise is it through 

fear ; 
So yon command it. Heroes, Then up, gird on your gear; 
I ride with ynii the fnrpmnst Into King Etzel's land." 
Siince th(;n full many a helm W^as shivered by his hand. 

Frau IJte's dreams and omens are now una- 
vailing with him; "whoso heedeth dreams," 
said Hagen, "of the right story wottelh not:" 
he has computed the worst issue, and defied it. 
Many a little touch of pathos, and even 
solemn beauty lies carelessly scattered in these 
rhymes, had we space to exhibit such here. 
As specimen, of a strange, winding, diffuse, 
yet innocently graceful style of narrative, we 
had translated some considerable portion of 
this Twenty-fifth Jventiure, " How the Nibelun- 



256 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



gen marched (fared) to the Huns," into verses 
as literal as might be; which now, alas, look 
mournfully different from the original ; almost 
like Scriblerus's shield when the barbarian 
housemaid had scoured it. Nevertheless, to 
do for the reader what we can, let somewhat 
of that modernized ware, such as it is, be .set 
before him. The brave Nibelungen are on the 
eve of departure ; and about ferrying over the 
Rhine ; and here it may be noted that Worms,* 
with our old Singer, lies not in its true posi- 
tion, but at some distance from the river; a 
proof at least that he was never there, and 
probably sang and lived in some very distant 
region : 

The boats were floating ready, And many men there 

were ; 
What clothes of price they had They took and stow'd 

theni there, 
Was never a rest from toiling Until the even tide, 
Then they took the flood right gaily, Would longer not 

abide. 

Brave tents and hutches You saw raised on the grass. 
Other side the Rhine-stream That camp it pitched was : 
The king to stay a while Was besought of his fair 

wife ; 
That night she saw him with her, And never more in life. 

Trumpets and flutes spoke out, At dawning of the day, 
That time was come for parting. So they rose to march 

away : 
Who loved-one had in arms Did kiss that same, I ween ; 
And fond farewells were bidden By cause of Etzel's 

Queen. 

Frau Ute's noble sons They had a serving man, 
A brave one and a true : Or ever the march began, 
He speaketh to King Gunther, What for his ear was fit, 
He said: "Wo for this journey, I grieve because of it." 



* This City of Worms, had we a right imagination, 
oueht to be as venerable to us Moderns, as any Thebes 
or Troy was to the Ancients. Whether founded by the 
Gods or not, it is of quite unknown antiquity, and has 
witnessed the most wonderful thin'js. Within aiuhentic 
times, the Romans were here, and if tradition may be 
credited, \tiila also; it was the seal of the Anstrasian 
kings ; the frequent residence of Charlemagne himself; 
innumerahle Festivals, Hi^htides, Tournaments, and 
Imperial Diets were held in it, of whi. h latter, one at 
least, that where Luther appeared in IS2l.wiII be for 
ever reuiemhered by all mankind Nor is Worms more 
famous in hisiorv than, as indeed we may see here, it is 
in romance; whereof tiiany monuments and vestiges 
remain to this dan. " A pie isant meadow there," says 
Von der Ha/en, " i>! still called Chrienihild's Roseng-artev. 
The name Worvis itself is derived (by I,eirpn<lary Etymo- 
logy) from the Dragon, or Worm, which Sieiifried slew, 
the fieure of which once formed the City Anns; in past 
times, there was also to be seen here an ancient strong 
,Riesen-Haii.'', (Giant's house,) and many a memorial of 
Siegfried : his I.ance, e6 feet Ions, (almost 60 English 
feet ) in the Cathedral ; his Statue, of yisaiitic size on 
the J^etie Tliurm (New Tower) on the Rhine ;" fee. fee. 
"And lastly the Sie<'fried's Cha[)el. in primeval I're- 
Gothic architecture, not Ions since pulled down. In the 
time of the Meislerx 'an <rcrs, loo, the Sladlralh was 
bound lo give everv Master, who san'/ the I,ay of Sieg- 
fried (MMsterlied van Sie<rfrieden,\\\e. purport of which is 
now unknown) without mistake, a certain gratuity."— 
Olossary to the J^iheliiv(r<^v, } IVorvis. 

One is sorry to learn that this famed Imperial City is 
no l(m''er Imperial, but mtich fallen in everv way from 
its palmy stale ; the .^0,000 inhabitants (to be f.uind there 
in (Justavus Adol|)hus's time) h iviiig now declined into 
some fi.SOO — " who maintain themselves by wine-grow- 
init, Rhine boats, tobacco-manufacture, and. making 
Bugar-of-lead." So hard has war. which rerpects no- 
thini. pressed on Worms, ill-placed for safety, on the 
hostile border: I.ouvois, or Louis XIV. , in 1689, had it 
utterly devastated; whereby in th-- interior, "spaces 
that werf once covert-d with buildings are now gar- 
diens." — See Cvnv. Lexicon, { fVorms. 



He Rumold bight, the Sewer, Was known as hero true ; 
He spake : " Whom shall his people And ^nd be trusted 

to ■> 
Wo on't, will nought persuade ye, Brave Recken, from 

this road ! 
Frau Cbrienibild's flattering message No good doth seem 

to bode." 

" The land lo thee be trusted, And my fair boy also, 
Aiul serve tliou well the women, I tell thee ere I ao, 
Whomso thou findest weeping Her hpart give comfort to : 
No harm lo one of us King Etzel's wife will do." 

The steeds were standing ready, For the Kings and for 

their men ; 
With kisses tenderest. Took leave full many then, 
Who, in gallant cheer and hope. To march were nought 

afraid ! 
Them since that day bewaileth Many a noble wife and 

maid. 

But when the rapid Recken Took horse and prickt away. 
The women sheiil in sorrow You saw behind them stay; 
Of parting all too long Their hearts to them did tell ; 
When grief so great is coming. The mind forebodes not 
well. 

Nathless the brisk Burgonden All on their way did go, 
Then rose the country over A mickle dole and wo ; 
On both sides of the hills. Woman and man did weep : 
Let their folk do how they list, These gay their course 
did keep. 

The Nibelungen Recken* Did march with them as well> 
In a tho\isand glittering hauberks, Who at home had 

ta'en farewell 
Of many a fair woman Should see them never more : 
The wound (if her brave Siegfried Did grieve Chriem- 

hilde sore. 

Then 'gan they shape their journey Towards the River 

Maine, 
All on through East-Franconia, King Gunther and his 

train : 
Ilagen he was their leader. Of old did know the way, 
Dankwart did keep, as marshal, their ranks in good 

array. 

As they, from East-Franconia, The Salfield rode along. 
Might you have seen them prancing, A bright and lordly 

throng. 
The Princes and their vassals. All heroes of great fame : 
The twelfth morn brave king Gunther Unto the Doaau 

came. 

There rode Von Troneg Ilagen, The foremost of that 

host. 
He was to the Nibelungen The guide they loved the most : 
The Rilti-r keen dismounted. Set foot on the sandy ground, 
His steed to a tree he tied, Look'd wistful all around. 

"Much scaiih," Von Troneg said, "May lightly chance 
to thee. 

King Gunther, bv this tide. As thou with eyes mayst see : 
I The river is overflowing. Full strong runs here its stream. 

For crossing of this Donau Some counsel might well be- 
seem." 

" What counsel hast thou, brave Ilagen," King Gunther 

then did say, 
Of thv own wit and cunning ■? Dishearten me not I pray: 
ThysHlf the ford will find ns. If knightly skill it can. 
That >afe to yonder shore We may pass both horse and 

man." 



♦ These are the Nibelungen proper who had come to 
Worms with Siegfried, on the famed bridal journey 
from Isensteiii, long ago. 0!)>'erve, at the same time, 
that ever since rhe JsTibelnvg-en Hounf wan transferred 
to Rhineland, the whole subjects of King Gunther are 
often called Nibelungen, and their subsequent history 
is this J^ibduvgen Song. 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



257 



^ To me I trow," spake Hagen, " Life hath not grown so 

chea|), 
To " wilh will and drown me In riding these waters 

deep ; 
But first, of men some few By this hand of mine shall 

die, 
In great King Etzel's country, As best good will have I. 

" But bide ye here by the River, Ye Ritters brisk and 

sound, 
Myself will seek some boatman, If boatman, here be 

found. 
To row us at his ferry, Across to Gelfrat's land :" 
The Troneger grasped his buckler, Fared forth along the 

strand. 

He was full bravely harness'd, Himself the knightly 

bore, 
With buckler and with helmet. Which bright enough he 

wore : 
And, bound above his hauberk, A weapon bfoad was 

seen, 
That cut with both its edges, Was never sword so keen. 

Then hither he and thither Search'd for the Ferryman, 
He heard a splashing of waters. To watch the same he 

'gan; 
It was the white Mer-women, That in a Fountain clear. 
To cool their fair bodyes, Were merrily bathing here. 

From these Mer-women, who "skimmed 
aloof like white cygnets, at sight of him," Ha- 
gen snatches up "their wondrous raiment;" 
on condition of returning which, they rede 
him his fortune; how this expedition is to 
speed. At first favourably : 

She said : " To Elzel's country, Of a truth ye well may 

hie, 
For here I pledge my hand, Now kill me if I lie ; 
That heroes seeking honour Did never arrive thereat 
So richly as ye shall do. Believe thou surely that." 

Bi;t no sooner is the wondrous raiment 
restored them, than they change their tale; 
for in spite of that matchless honour, it ap- 
pears, evefy one of the adventurous Recken 
is to perish. 

Outspake the wild Mer-woman : " I tell thee it will ar- 
rive, 

Of all your gallant host No man shall be left alive. 

Except king Gunther's chaplain, As we full well do 
know ; 

He only, home returning. To the Rhine-land back shall 
go." 

Then spake Von Troneg Hagen, His wroth did fiercely 

swell : 
" Such tidings to my master I were right wroth to tell, 
That in king Etzel's country We all must lose our life : 
Yet show me over the water, Thou wise all-knowing 

wife " 

Thereupon, seeing him bent on ruin, she 
gives directions how to find the ferry, but 
withal counsels him to deal warily: the ferry- 
house stands on the other side of the river; 
the boatman, too, is not only the h.ottest-tem- 
pered of men, but rich and indolent; never- 
theless, if nolhing else will serve, let Hagen 
call himself Amelrich, and that name will 
bring him. All happens as predicted: the 
boatman, heedless of all shouting and oflTers 
of gold clasps, bestir.s him>elf lustily at the 
name of Amelrich ; but the more indignant 
is he, on taking in his fare, to find it a coun- 
terfeit. He orders Hagen, if he loves his life, 
to leap out. , 

33 



"Now say not that," spake Hagen; "Right hard ami 

bested. 
Take from me for good friendship This clasp of gold so 

red ; 
And low our thousand heroes And steeds across this 

river :" 
Then spake l he wrathful boatman, "That will I surely 

never." 

Then one of his oars he lifted, Right broad it was and 

long. 
He struck it down on Hagen, Did the heromickle wrong, 
lliit ill the boat he staggered, and alifilited on his knee; 
Other such wrathful boatman Uid never the Troneger 

see. 

His proud unbidden guest He would now provoke still 

more. 
He struck his head so stoutly That it broke in twain the 

oar. 
With strokes on head of Hagen ; He was a sturdy wight : 
Nalliless had Gelfrat's boatman Small profit of that fight. 

With fiercely raging spirit, the Troneger turn'd him 

round, 
Clutcli'd quick enough his scabbard, And a weapon there 

he f unri ; 
He smote his head from off him, And cast it on the sand. 
Thus had that wrathful boatman His death from Hagen's 

hand. 

Even as Von Troneg Hagen The wrathful boatmen slew, 
The boat whirl'd round to the river, He had work enough 

to do; 
Or ever he turn'd it shorewards. To weary he besan, 
But kept full stoutly rowing. The bold king Gunther's 

man. 

He wheel'd it back bravo Hagen, With many a lusty 

stroke. 
The strong oar, with such rowing. In his hand asunder 

broke ; 
He fain would reach the Recken, All waiting on the 

shore. 
No tackle now he had; Ilei,* how deftly he spliced the 

oar. 

With Ihrons from off his buckler I It was a slender band; 
Right over against a forest He drove the boat tn l.md ; 
Where Gutither's Recken waited. In crowds alimg the 

beach; 
Full many a goodly hero Moved down his boat to reach. 

Hagen ferries them over himself "into the 
unknown land," like a right yare steersman; 
yet ever brooding fiercely on that predictiem 
of the wild Mer-woman, which had outdone 
even his own dark forebodings. Seeiner tlie 
Chaplain, who alone of them all was to reuirn, 
standing in the boat beside his eh ppcldimc, 
(pyxes and other sacred furniture,) he deter- 
raines to belie at least this part of the pro- 
phecy, and on a sudden hurls the chaplain 
overboard. Nay, as the poor priest s«ims 
after the boat, he pushes him down, regardless 
of all remonstrance, resolved that he shall die. 
Nevertheless it proved not so: the chaplain 
itiade fur the other side; when his strength 
(ailed, " then God's hand helped him." mid at 
length he reached the siiore. Thus dnes the 
>tern truth stand revealed to Hagen by the very 

* These apparently insignificant rirciimstancMs. down 
even to nietiding tlin oar IVoni his shield are ))rp-i'rv.'(l 
wilh a singular fidi-lity. in the most distorted ediiions <'f 
ihe tale: see, for example the Danish hnllid. /,«,/?/ 
Griiiilii/irs IVraek (translated in the J^Torlhem .ftriiqui- 
lies, p. 2r.'>, by Mr. .Jiniieson.) This '' tfci!" is a brisk 
interjection, whereby the vvorlhy old Sini'er now ;ind 
then introduces his own person, when any thing very 
eminent is going forward. 

t2 



»58 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



means he took for eluding it: "he thought 
with himself these Recken must all lose their 
lives." From this time, a grim reckless spirit 
takes possession of him; a courage, an auda- 
city, waxing more and more into the fixed 
strength of desperation. The passage once 
finished, he dashes (he boat in pieces, and casts 
it in the stream, greatly as the others wonder 
at him. 

" Why rio ye tliis, good brother ?" Said the Ritter Dank- 

warl ttien, 
"How sliall wi! cross this river, When the road we conio 

again 1 
Returning home from Ilunlaiid, Here nmst we lingering 

stny I" 
Not then did Hagen tell him That return no more could 

they. 

In this shipment "into the unknown land" 
there lies, for the more penetrating sort of 
commentators, some hidden meaning and 
allusion. The destruction of the unreturning 
Ship, as of the Ship Argo, of jEneas's Ships, 
and the like, is a constant feature of such 
traditions: it is thought, this ferrying of the 
Nibelungen has a reference to old Scandina- 
vian Mytlmses; nay, to the oldest, most uni- 
versal emblems shaped out by man's Imagina- 
tion ; Hasten the ferryman being, in some sort, 
a type of Death, who ferries over his thousands 
and tens of thousands into a Land still more 
unknown.* 

But leaving these considerations, let us re- 
mark the deep fearful interest, which, in ga- 
thering strength, rises to a really tragical 
height in the close of this Poem. Strangely 
has the old Singer, in these his loose melodies, 
modulated the wild narrative into a poetic 
whole, witli what we might call true art, were 
it not rather an instinct of genius still more 
unerring. A fateful gloom now hangs over the 
fortunes of the Nibehingen, which deepens and 
deepens as they march onwards to the judg- 
ment-bar, till all are engulphed in utter night. 

Hngen himself rises in tragic greatness ; so 
helpful, so prompt and strong is he, and true 
to the death, though without hope. If sin can 
ever be pardoned, then that one act of his is 
pardonable; by loyal faith, by free daring, and 
heroic constancy, he has made amends for it. 
Well does he know what is coming; yet he 
goes f Tth to meet it, offers to Ruin his sullen 
welcome. Warnings thicken on him, which 
he treats lightly, as things now superfluous. 
Spite of our love for Siegfried, we must pity 
and almost respect the lost Hagen, now in his 
extreme need, and fronting it so nobly- " Mixed 
was his hair with a gray colour, his limbs 
strong, and threatening his look." Nay, his 
sterner qualities are beautifully tempered by 
another feeling, of which till now we under- 
stood not that he was capable, — the feeling of 
friendship. There is a certain Volker of 
Alsace here introduced, not for the first time, 
yet first in decided energy, who is more to 
Hagen than a brother. This Volker, a courtier 
and noble, is also a Spielmann, (minstrel,) a 
Firlelere ^«', (fiddler good ;) and surely the 
prince of all Fi Meres : in truth a very phoenix, 
melodious as the soA nightingale, yet strong 

• See Von der Hagen's Jfibtlungen ihre Bedtutung, &c. 



as the royal eagle : for also in the brunt of 
battle he can play tunes; and with a Sleel Fid- 
dlebnw, beats strange mu^ic from the cleft hel- 
mets of his enemies. There is, in this con- 
tinual allusion to Volker's Sckwerifi lelbogen, 
(Sword-fi<ldlebow,) as rude as it sounds to tis, 
a barbaric greatness and depth ; the light 
minstrel of kingly and queenly halls is gay 
also in the storm of Fate, its dire rushing pipes 
and whistles, to him : is he not the image of 
every brave man fighting with Necessity, be 
that duel when and where it may; smiting the 
fiend with giant strokes, yet every stroke 
viufiral? — This Volker and Hagen are united 
inseparably, and defy death together. " What- 
pver Volker said pleased Hagen; whatever 
HaE:en did pleased Volker." 

But into these last Ten .^ventiures, almost 
like ihe* image of a Doomsday, we must hardly 
glance at present. Seldom, perhaps, in the 
poetry of that or any other age, has a grander 
scene of pity and terror been exhibited than 
here, could we look into it clearl3\ At every 
new step new shapes of fear arise. Dietrich 
of Bern meets the Nibelungen on their way, 
with ominous warnings: but warnings, as we 
said, are now superfluous, when the evil itself' 
is apparent and inevitable. Chriemhild, wasted 
and exasperated here into a frightful Medea, 
openly threatens Hagen, but is openly defied 
by him; he and Volker retire to a seat before 
her palace, and sit there, while she advances 
in angry tears, with a crowd of armed Huns to 
destroy them. But Hagen has Siegfried's 
Balmung lying naked on his knee, the Minstrel 
also has drawn his keen Fiddlebow, and the 
Huns dare not provoke the battle. Chriemhild 
would fain single out Hagen for vengeance ; 
but Hagen, like other men, stands not alone: 
and sin is an infection which will not rest with 
one victim. Partakers or not of his crime, the 
others also must share his punishment. Sin- 
gularly touching, in the meanwhile, is king 
Eizel's ignorance of what every one else un- 
derstands too well ; and how, in peaceful hos- 
pitable spirit, he exerts himself to testify his 
joy over these royal guests of his, who are 
bidden hither for far other ends. That night 
the wayworn Nibelungen are sumptuously 
lodged; yet Hasen and Volker see good to 
keep watch: Volker plays them to sleep: 
" under the door of the house he sat on the 
stone: bolder fiddler was there never any; 
when the tones flowed so sweetly they all g'ave 
him thanks. Then sounded his strings till all 
the house rang; his strength and the art were 
great, sweeter and sweeter he began to play, 
till flitted forth from him into sleep full many 
a care-worn soul." It was their last lullaby; 
ihey were to sleep no more. Armed men 
appear, but suddenly vanish, in the night; 
assassins sent by Chriemhild, expecting no 
sentinel : it is plain that the last hour draws 
nigh. 

In the morning the Nibelungen are for the 
Minster to hear mass; they are putting on 
gay raiment; but Hagen tells them a diflerent 
tale: "Ye must take other garments. Recken ;" 
"instead of silk shirts, hauberks; for rich 
mantles your good shields;" "and, beloved 
master.s, moreover squires and men, ye shall 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



25^ 



full earnestly go to the church, and plain to 
God the powerful (Got dem rvhcn) of your sor- 
row and utmost need; and know of a surety 
that death for us is nigh." In Etzel's Hall, 
where the Nibelungen appear at the royal 
feast in complete armour, the Strife, incited by 
Chriemhild, begins : the first answer to her 
provocation is from Hagen, who hews olf the 
head of her own and Etzel's son, making it 
bound into the mother's bosom :" " then began 
among the Recken a murder grim and great." 
Dietrich, with a voice of preternatural power, 
commands pause; retires with Etzel and 
Chriemhild ; and now the bloody work has 
free course. We have heard of battles, and 
massacres, and deadly struggles in siege and 
storm ; but seldom has even the poet's imagina- 
tion pictured any thing so fierce and terrible as 
this. Host after host, as they enter that huge 
vaulted Hall, perish in the conflict with the 
doomed Nibelungen ; and even after the terrific 
uproar, ensues a still more territic silence. All 
night, and through morning it lasts. They 
throw the dead from the windows; blood runs 
like water; the Hall is set fire to, they quench 
it with blood, their own burning thirst they 
slake with blood. It is a tumult like the Crack 
of Doom, a thousand voiced, wild stunning 
hubbub : and, frightful like a Trump of Doom, 
the Sword-fiddlebow of Volker, who guards the 
door, makes music to that death-dance. Nor 
are traits of heroism wanting, and thrilling 
tones of pity and love ; as in that act of Rudi- 
ger, Etzel's and Chriemhild's champion, who, 
bound by oath, "lays his soul in God's hand," 
and enters that Golgotha to die fighting against 
his friends ; yet first changes shields with 
Hagen, whose own, also given him by Rudiger 
in a far other hour, had been shattered in the 
fight. "When he so lovingly bade give him 
the shield, there were eyes enough red with 
hot tears; it was the last gift which Rudiger 
of Bechelaren gave to any Recke. As grim 
as Hagen was, and as hard of mind, he wept 
at this gift which the hero good, so near his last 
times, had given him; full many a noble Rit- 
ter began to weep." 

At last Volker is slain ; they are all slain, save 
only Hagen and Gunther, faint and wounded, 
yet still unconquered among the bodies of the 
dead. Dietrich the wary, though strong and 
invincible, whose Recken too, except old Hilde- 
brand, he now finds are all killed, though he 
had charged them strictly not to mix in the 
quarrel, at last arms himself to finish it. He 
subdues the two wearied Nibelungen, binds 
them, delivers them to Chriemhild; "and Herr 
Dietrich went away with weeping eyes, worthily 
from the heroes." These never saw each other 
more. Chriemhild demands of Hagen, Where 
the Nibelungen Hoard is 1 But he answers her 
that he has sworn never to disclose it, while 
any of her brothers live. "I bring it to an 
end," said the infuriated woman ; orders her 
brother's head to be struck off, and holds it up 
to Hagen. "Thou hast it now according to 
thy v/ilj," said Hagen ; " of the Hoard knoweth 
none but God and I; from thee, she-devil, 
{Videvr'inf.c,) shall it for ever be hid." She 
kills him with his own sword, once her hus- 
band's; and is herself struck dead by Hilde- 



brand, indignant at the w^o she has wrought; 
King Etzel, there present, not opposing the 
deed. Whereupon the curtain drops over that 
wild scene, "the full highly honoured were 
lying dead ; the people, all had sorrow and 
lamentation, in grief had the king's feast ended, 
as all love is wont to do ; 

Ine chart iu nicht bescheiden Waz sider da geschach, 
IVan ritter unde jcrovv n Weinen man do sack 
Dar-iuo die edeln chnechte Ir lieben vrivnde tot : 
Da hat das mwre ein ende ; Dii ist der JVtbeluTige not. 

I cannot say you now What hath befallen since. 

The women all were weoping, And the Ritters and the 

prince, 
Also the noble squires. Their dear friends lying dead : 
Here hath tho story ending ; This is the JVibeivngen^s 

JVced. 

We have now finished our slight analysis 
of this Poem ; and hope that readers, who are 
curious in this matter, and ask themselves. 
What is the Nibehmgen .^ may have here found 
some outlines of an answer, some help towards 
farther researches of their own. To such 
readers another question will suggest itself: 
Whence this singular production comes to us. 
When and How it originated"? On which 
point also, what little light our investigation 
has yielded may be summarily given. 

The worthy Von der Hagen, who may well 
understand the Nibelungen better than any other 
man, having rendered it into the modern 
tongue, and twice edited it in the original, not 
without collating some eleven manuscripts, and 
travelling several thousands of miles to make 
the last edition perfect, — writes a Book some 
years ago, rather boldly denominated The Nibe- 
lungen, its meaning for the present and for ever ; 
wherein, not content with any measurable 
antiquity of centuries, he would fain claim an 
antiquity beyond all bounds of dated time. 
Working his way with feeble mine-lamps of 
etymology and the like, he traces back the 
rudiments of his beloved Nibelungen, " to which 
the flower of his whole life has been conse- 
crated," into the thick darkness of the Scandi- 
navian Nif.heim und Muspclheim, and the Hindoo 
Cosmogony ; connecting it farther (as already 
in part we have incidentally pointed out) with 
the Ship Argo, with Jupiter's goat^kin .^Egis, 
the fire-creed of Zerdusht, and even with the 
heavenly Constellations. His reasoning is 
somewhat abstruse; yet an honest zeal, very 
considerable learning and intellectual force 
bring him tolerably through. So much he 
renders plausible or probable: that in the 
Nibelungen, under more or less defacement, I'e 
fragments, scattered like mysterious Runes, yet 
still in part decipherable, of the earliest 
Thoughts of men ; that the fiction of the Nibe- 
lungen was at first a religious or philosophical 
Mythus; and only in later ages, incorporating 
Itself more or less completely with vague 
traditions of real events, took the form of a 
story, or mere Narrative of earthly transac- 
tions; in which last form, moreover, our 
actual Nibelungen Lied is nowise the original 
Narrative, but the second, or even third redac- 
tion of one much earlier. 

At what particular era the primeval fiction 



SCO 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of the Nibelungen passed from its Mythological 
into its Historical shape; and the obscure 
spiritual elements of it wedded themselves 
to the obscure remembrances of the Northern 
Immigrations; and the Twelve Signs of the 
Zr'diac became Twelve Champions of Attila's 
Wife, — there is no fixing with the smallest 
certainty. It is known from history that Egin- 
hart, the secretary of Charlemagne, compiled, 
by order of that monarch, a collection of the 
ancient German Songs; among which, it is 
fondly believed by antiquaries, this Nibelungen, 
(not indeed our actual Nibelungen Lied, yet an 
older one of similar purport,) and the main 
traditions of the HeUJenburh connected there- 
with, may have had honourable place. Un- 
luckily Eginhart's Collection has quite per- 
ished; and only his Life of the Great Charles, 
in which this circumstance stands noted, sur- 
vives to provoke curiosity. One thing is cer- 
tain, Fulco, Archbishop of Rheims, in the 
year 885, is introduced as " citing certain 
German books," to enforce some argument of 
his by instance of" King Ermerich's crime 
towards his relations;" which Kmg Ermerich 
and his crime are at this day part and parcel 
of the " Cycle of German Fiction," and pre- 
supposed in the Nibelungen.* Later notices, 
of a more decisive sort, occur in abundance. 
Saxo Grammaticus, who flourished in the 
twelfth century, relates that about the year 
11.30, a Saxon minstrel being sent to Seefand, 
with a treacherous invitation from one royal 
Dane to another; and not daring to violate his 
oath, yet compassionating the victim, sang to 
him by way of indirect warning "the Song of 
Chriemhild's Treachery to her Brothers ;" "that 
is to say, the latter portion of the Story which 
we still read at greater length in the existing 
N.belungen Lied. To which direct evidence, 
that these traditions were universally known 
in the twelfth century, nay, had been in some 
shape committed to writing, as "German 
Books," in the ninth or rather'in the eighth, — 
we have still to add the probability of their 
feeing "ancient songs," even at that earliest 
date; all which may perhaps carry us back 
into the seventh or even sixth century ; yet not 
farther, inasmuch as certain of the poetic per- 
sonages that figure in them belong historically 
to the fifth. 

Other and more open proof of antiquity lies 
in the fact, that these Traditions are so univer- 
sally diffused. There are Danish and Icelandic 
versions of them, externally more or less 
altered and distorted, yet substantially real 
copies, professing indeed to be borrowed 
from the German ; in particular we have the 
Nflingn and the Wdkin i Saga, composed in the 
thirteenth centurv, which still in many ways 
illustrate the German original. Innumerable 
other songs and sagas point more remotely in 
the same direction. Nay, as Von der Hagen 
informs us, certain rhymed tales, founded on 
these old adventures, have been recovered 
from popular recitation, in the Faroe Islands, 
within these few years. 

If we ask now, what lineaments of Fact still 
exist in these Traditions ; what are the Histori- 

» Von (ter Hagen'a JVibelung-en, Einleitunj, J vii. 



cal events and persons which our primeval 
Mythuses have here united with, and so 
strangely metamorphosed 1 the answer is un- 
satisfactory enough. The great Northern Im- 
migrations, unspeakably momentous and glori- 
ous as they were for the Germans, have well 
nigh faded away utterly from all vernacular 
records. Some traces, nevertheless, some 
names, and dim shadows of occurrences in 
that grand movement, still linger here: which, 
in such circumstances, we gather with avidity. 
There can be no doubt, for example, but this 
" Etzel, king of Hunland," is the Altila of 
history; several of whose real achievements 
and relations are faintly, yet still recognisably 
pictured forth in these Poems. Thus his first 
queen is named Halke, and in the Scandinavian 
versions, Herka ; which last (Erca) is also the 
name that Priscus gives her, in the well-known 
Account of his embassy to Attila. Moreover, 
itis on his second marriage, which had in fact 
so mysterious and tragical a character, that the 
whole catastrophe of the Nibelungen turns. It 
is true, the " Scourge of God" plays but a tame 
part here ; however, his great acts, though all 
past, are still visible in their fruits: besides, it 
is on the Northern or German personages that 
the tradition chiefly dwells. 

Taking farther into account the general 
"Cycle" or System of Northern Tradition, 
whereof this Nibelungen is the centre and key- 
stone, there is, as indeed we saw in the Helden- 
buch, a certain Kaiser Ottnit and a Dietrich of 
Bern; to whom also it seems unreasonable to 
deny historical existence. This Bern, (Verona,) 
as well as ihe Rabenschlncht , (Battle of Ravenna,) 
is continually figuring in these Fictions ; though 
whether underOttnit we are to understand Odo- 
acer the vanquished, and under Dietrich of Bern, 
Theodoricus Veronensis, the victor both at Ve- 
rona and Ravenna, is by no means so indubita- 
ble. Chronological difficulties stand much in the 
way. For our Dietrich of Bern, as we saw in 
the Nibelungen, is represented as one of Etzei's 
Champions: now Attila died abuut the year 
450; and this Osirogoth Theodoric did not 
fight his great Battle at Verona till 489; that 
of Ravenna, which was followed by a three 
years' siege, beginning next year. So that 
before Dietrich could become Dietrich of Bern, 
Etzel had been gone almost half a century 
from the scene. Startled by this anachronism, 
some commentators have fished out another 
Theodoric, eighty years prior to him of Verona, 
and who actually served in Attila's hosts, with 
a retinue of Goths and Germans; with which 
New Theodoric, however, tlie old Oitnit, or 
Odoacer, of the Heldoibueh, must, in his turn, 
part company ; whereby the case is in no whit 
mended. Certain it seems, in the mean time, 
that Dietrich, which signifips Rirh in I'eapSe, is 
the same name which in Greek become> Theo- 
doricus ; for, at first, (as in Procopius,) this 
very Theodoricus is always written fofe/Js^/;^, 
which almost exactly crresponds with liie 
German sound. But such are the inconsis- 
tencies involved in both hypotheses, that we 
are forced to conclude one of two things: 
either that the singers of those old lays were 
little versed in the niceties of History, and un- 
ambitious of passing for authorities therein, 



THE NIBELUNGEN LIED. 



2Si 



■which seems a remarkably easy conclusion ; 
or else, with Lessing, that they meant some 
quite other series of persons and transactions, 
some Kaiser Otto, and his two Anti-Kaisers, 
(in the twelfth century:) which, from what has 
come to light since Lessing's day, seems now 
an utitenable position. 

However, as concerns the Nibelungen, the 
most remarkable coincidence, if genuine, re- 
mains yet to be mentioned. "Thwortz," a 
Hungarian .Chronicler, (or perhaps chronicle,) 
of we know not what authority, relates, " that 
Aitila left his kingdom to his two sons Chaba 
and Aladar, the former by a Grecian mother, 
the latter by Kremheilch, (Chriemhild,) a 
German ; that Theodonc, one of his followers, 
sowed dissension between ihem; and along 
with the Teutonic hosts took part with his 
half-countryman, the younger son; whereupon 
rose a great slaughter, which lasted for fifteen 
days, and terminated in the defeat of Chaba, 
(the Greek,) and his flight into Asia."* Could 
we but put faith in this Thwortz, we might 
fancy that some vague rumour of that Krem- 
heilch tragedy, swoln by the way, had reached 
the German ear and imagination ; M'here, 
gathering round older Ideas and Mythuses, as 
Matter round its Spirit, the first rude form of 
Chricmhildc's Revenge and ilie Wixck of the Nibe- 
lungen bodied itself forth in Song. 

Thus any historical light, emitted by these 
old Fictions, is little better than darkness visi- 
ble; suflicient at most to indicate that great 
Northern Immigrations, and wars and rumours 
of wars, have been ; but nowise how and what 
they have been. Scarcely clearer is the special 
history of the Fictions themselves : where they 
were first put together, who have been their 
successive redactors and new-modellers. Von 
der Hagen, as we said, supposes that there 
may have been three several series of such. 
Two, at all events, are clearly indicated. In 
their present shape, we have internal evidence 
that none of these Poems can be older than the 
twelfth century ; indeed great part of the Hero- 
Book can be proved to be considerably later. 
With this last it is understood that Wolfram 
von Eschenbach and Heinrich von Ofterdingen, 
two singers, otherwise noted in that era, were 
largely concerned ; but neither is there any 
demonstration of this vague belief: while 
again, m regard to the Author of our actual 
Nibelungen not so much as a plausible con- 
jecture can be formed. 

Some vote for a certain Conrad von Wiirz- 
burg; others for the above-named Eschenbach 
and Ofterdingen ; others again for Klingsohr 
of Ungerland, a minstrel who once passed for 
a magician. Against all and each of which 
hypotheses there are objections; and for none 
of them the smallest conclusive evidence. 
Who this gifted Singer may have been, only in 
so far as his Work itself proves that there 
was but One, and the style points to the latter 
half of the twelfth century, — remains altogether 
dark: the unwearied Von der Hagen himself, 
after fullest investigation, gives for verdict, 
" we know it not." Considering the high 
worth of the Nibclnngeu, and how many feeble 

• Weber, (Illustrations of JVnrthern Antiquities, p. 39,) 
Tvlio cites Gorres (Ztilungf'dr Einsiedler) as his authority. 



ballad-mongers of that Swabian Era hav<? 
transmitted us their names, so total an oblivioij/ 
in this infinitely more important case, ma/ 
seem surprising. But those Mmnelieder (Love- 
songs) and Provengal Madrigals were the 
Court Poetry of that time, and gained honour 
in high places; while the old National Tradi-' 
lions were common property and plebeian, and 
to sing them an unrewarded labour. 

Whoever he may be, let him have our grati- 
tude, our love. Looking back with a farewell 
glance, over that wondrous old Tale, with its 
many-coloured texture " of joyances and high- 
tides, of weeping and of wo," so skilfully 
yet artlessly knit up into a whole, we cannot 
but repeat that a true epic spirit lives in it; 
that in many ways, it has meaning and charms 
for us. Not only as the oldest Tradition of 
Modern Europe, does it possess a high anti- 
quarian interest; but farther, and even in the 
shape we now see it under, unless the " Epics 
of the Son of Fingal" had some sort of au' 
thenticity, it is our oldest Poem also ; the ear-* 
liest product of these New Ages, which on its 
own merits, both in form and essence, can be 
named Poetical. Considering its chivalrous^ 
romantic tone, it may rank as a piece of liie-- 
rary composition, perhaps considerably higher 
than the Spanish Cid ; taking in its historical 
significance, and deep ramifications into the 
remote Time, it ranks indubitably and greatly 
higher. 

It has been called a Northern Iliad; buS 
except in the fact that both poems have a nar- 
rative character, and both sing "the destruc-' 
tive rage" of men, the two have scarcely any 
similarity. The Singer of the Nibelungen is a 
far diiferent person from Homer; far inferiof 
both in culture and in genius. Nothing of the' 
glowing imagery, of the fierce bursting ener-' 
gy, of the mingled fire and gloom, that dwell 
in the old Greek, makes its appearance here* 
The German Singer is comparatively a simple 
nature; has never penetrated deep into life; 
never "questioned Fate," or struggled -with 
fearful mysteries; of all which we find traces 
in Homer, still more in Shakspeare ; but with 
meek believing submission, has taken the Uni- 
verse as he found it represented to him; ancS 
rejoices with a fine childlike gladness in the 
mere outward shows of things. He has litilo 
power of delineating character; perhaps he 
had no decisive vision thereof. His persons- 
are superficially distinguished, and not alto-* 
gether without generic difference ; but the por- 
traiture is imperfectly brought out; there lay 
no true living original within him. He has 
little Fancy; we find scarcely one or two simi- 
litudes in his whole Poem; and these one or 
two, which, moreover, are repeated, betoken 
no special faculty that way. He speaks of the 
" moon among stars ;" says often, of sparks 
struck from steel armour in battle, and so forth^ 
that they were irie cs weli.le der ti-ind, " as if the 
wind were blowing them." W"e have men- 
tioned Tasso along with him; yet neither in 
this case is there any close resemblance; the 
light playful grace, still more, the Italian pomp 
and sunny luxuriance of Tasso are wanting 
in the other. His are humble, wood-notes 
wild ; and no nightingale's, but yet a swec? 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



«ky-hidden lark's. In all the rhetorical gifts, 
to say nothing of rhetorical attainments, we 
should pronounce him even poor. 

Nevertheless, a noble soul he must have 
been, and furnished with far more essential 
requisites for Poetry, than these are: namely, 
wiih the heart and feeling of a Poet. He has 
a clear eye for the Beautiful and True; all 
unites itself gracefully and compactly in his 
imagination : it is strange with what careless 
felicity he winds his way in that complex nar- 
rative, and be the subject what it will, comes 
through it unsullied, and with a smile. His 
great strength is an unconscious instinctive 
strength ; wherein truly lies its highest merit. 
The whole spirit of Chivalry, of Love, and 
heroic Valour, must have lived in him, and in- 
spired him. Everywhere he shows a noble 
Sensibility; the sad accents of parting friends, 
the lamentings of women, the high daring of 
men, all that is worthy and lovely prolongs it- 
self in melodious echoes through his heart. A 
true old Singer, and taught of Nature herself! 
Neither let us call him an inglorious Milton, 
since now he is no longer a mute one. What 
good were it that the four or five Letters com- 
posing his Name could be printed, and pro- 
nounced, with absolute certainty] All that 
was mortal in him is gone utterly; of his life, 
^Jid its environment, as of the bodily taberna- 



cle he dwelt in, the very ashes remain not: 
like a fair heavenly Apparition, which indeed 
he was, he has melted into air, and only the 
Voice he uttered, in virtue of its inspired gift, 
yet lives and will live. 

To the Germans this Nibclungcn Song is na- 
turally an object of no common love ; neither 
if they sometimes overvalue it, and vague an- 
tiquarian wonder is more common than just 
criticism, should the fault be too heavily visit- 
ed. After long ages of concealment, they 
have found it in the remote wilderness, still 
standing like the trunk of some almost antedi- 
luvian oak; nay with boughs on it still green, 
after all the wind and weather of twelve hun- 
dred years. To many a patriotic feeling, which 
lingers fondly in solitary places of the Past, it 
may well be a rallying-point, and "Lovers' 
Trysling-Trec." 

For us also it has its worth. A creation 
from the old ages, still bright and balmy, if we 
visit it ; and opening into the first History of 
Europe, of Mankind. Thus all is not oblivion; 
but on the edge of the abyss, that separates the 
Old world from the New, there hangs a fair 
rainbow-land; which also in (three) curious 
repetitions, as it were, in a secondary, and 
even a ternary reflex, sheds some feeble 
twilight far into the deeps of the primeval 
1 Time. 



GEEMAN LITERATUEE OF THE FOURTEENTH 
AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.* 



[Foreign Quaktekly Review, 1831.] 



It is not with Herr Soltau's work, and its 
merits or demerits, that we here purpose to 
concern ourselves. The old Low-German 
Apologue was already familiar under many 
shapes ; its versions into Latin, English, and 
all modern tongues : if it now comes before 
(Our German friends under a new shape, and 
they can read it not only inGottsched's prosaic 
Prose, and Goethe's poetic Hexameters, but 
also " in the metre of the original," namely, in 
Doggerel ; and this, as would appear, not with- 
out comfort, for it is " the second edition ;" — 
doubtless the Germans themselves will look to 
it, will direct Herr Soltau aright in his praise- 
worthy labours, and, with all suitable speed, 
forward him from his second edition into a 
third. To us strangers the fact is chiefly in- 
teresting, as another little memento of the in- 
destructible vitality there is in worth, however 
rude; and to stranger Reviewers, as it brings 
that wondrous old Fiction, with so much else 
that holds of it, once more specifically into 
view. 

The Apologue of Reynard ihe Fox ranks un- 



* Reineckeder Fuchs,uhersetzt von D. W. Sultan. (Rey- 
jBard the Fox, translated by D. W. Soltau.) 2d edition, 
§VO. Liineburg, 1830. 



doubtedly among the most remarkable Books, 
not only as a German, but, in all senses, as a 
European one ; and yet for us perhaps its ex- 
trinsic, historical character, is even more note- 
worthy than its intrinsic. In Literary History 
it forms, so to speak, the culminating point, or 
highest manifestation of a Tendency which 
had ruled the two prior centuries: ever down- 
wards from the last of the Hohenstauffen Em- 
perors, and the end of their Swabian Era, to 
the borders of the Reformation, rudiments and 
fibres of this singular Fable are seen, among 
innumerable kindred things, fashioning them- 
selves together; and now, after three other 
centuries of actual existence, it still stands 
visible and entire, venerable in itself, and the 
enduring memorial of much that has proved 
more perishable. Thus, naturally enough, it 
figures as the representative of a whole group 
that historically cluster round it; in studying its 
significance, we study that of a whole in- 
tellectual period. 

As this section of German Literature closely 
connects itself with the corresponding section 
of European Literature, and indeed ofl^ers an 
expressive, characteristic epitome thereof, some 
insight into it, were such easilv procurable. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



263^ 



might not be without profit. No Literary His- 
torian thai we know of, least of ail any in 
England, having looked much in this direction, 
either as concerned Germany or other coun- 
tries, whereby a lung space of lime, once busy 
enough, and full of life, now lies barren and 
void in men's memories, — we shall here en- 
deavour to present, in such clearness as first 
attempts may admit, the result of some slight 
researches of our own in regard to it. 

The Troubadour Period in general Literature, 
to which the Swabian Era in German answers, 
has, especially within the last generation, at- 
tracted inquiry enough ; the French have their 
Raynouards, we our Webers, the Germans 
their Haugs, Graters. Langs, and numerous 
other Collectors and Translators of Mimtelieder ,• 
among whom Ludwig Tieck, the foremost in 
far other provinces, has not disdained to take 
the lead. We shall suppose that this Literary 
Period is partially known to all readers. Let 
each recall whatever he has learned or figured 
regarding it; represent to himself that brave 
young heyday of Chivalry and Minstrelsy, 
when a stern Barbarossa, a stern Lion-heart, 
sang sirien'es, and with the -hand that could 
•wield the sword and sceptre twanged the melo- 
dious strings; when knights-errant tilted, and 
ladies' eyes rained bright influences; and 
suddenly, as at some sunrise, the whole Earth 
had grown vocal and musical. Then truly was 
the time of singing come ; for princes and pre- 
lates, emperors and squires, the wise and the 
simple, men, women, and children, all sang 
and rhymed, or delighted in hearing it done. 
It was a universal noise of Song; as if the 
Spring of Manhood had arrived, andwarblings 
from every spray, not indeed without infinite 
twitterings also, which, except their gladness, 
had no music, were bidding it welcome. This 
was the Su-ubian Era; justly reckoned not 
only superior to all preceding eras, but pro- 
perly the First Era of German Literature. 
Poetry had at length found a home in the life 
of men ; and every pure soul was inspired by 
it; and in words, or still belter, in actions, 
strove to give it utterance. 

"Believers," says Tieck, "sang of Faith; 
Lovers of Love; Knights described knightly 
actions and battles; and loving believing 
knights were their chief audience. The Spring, 
Beauty, Gayety, were objects that could never 
tire ; great duels and deeds of arms carried 
away every hearer, the more surely the stronger 
they were painted ; and as the pillars and dome 
of the Church encircled the flock, so did Re- 
ligion, as the Highest, encircle Poetry and 
Reality; and every heart, in equal love hum- 
bled itself before her."* 

Let the reader, we say, fancy all this, and 
moreover that, as earthly things do, it is all 
passing away. And now, from this extreme 
verge of the Swabian Era, let us look forward 
into the inane of the next two centuries, and 
see whether there also some shadows and dim 
forms, significant in their kind, may not begin 
to grow visible. Already, as above indicated, 
Reinecke de Fos rises clear in the distance, as 
the goal of our survey : let us now, restricting 

* Minnelieder aus dem Schwiibischen Zeilalter. (for- 
rede, x.) 



ourselves to the German aspects of the matter, 
examine what may lie between. 

Conrad the Fourth, who died in 1254, was 
the last of the Swahian Emperors: and Ccm- 
radin his son, grasping loo early at a Souihern 
Crown, perished on the scafl^old at Naples in 
1268; with which stripling, more foitunate in 
song than in wHr,and whose death, or murder, 
with fourteen years of other cruelty, the iict/ia?! 
Vespers so frightfully avenged, the imperial 
line of the HohenstauflTen came to an end. 
Their House, as we have seen, gives name to 
a Literary Era; and truly, if dales alone were 
regarded, we might reckon ii much more than 
a name. For with this change of dynasty, a 
great change in German Literature begins to 
indicate itself; the fall of the Hohenstauff'en is 
close followed by the decay of Poetry; as if 
that fair flowerage and umbrage, which blos- 
somed far and wide round the Swabian Family, 
had in very deed depended on it for growth 
and life ; and now, the stem being felled, the 
leaves also were languishing, and soon to 
wither and drop away. Conradin, as his father 
and his grandfather had been, was a singer; 
some lines of his, though he died in his six- 
teenth year, have even come down to us ; but 
henceforth no crowned poet, except, long after- 
wards, some few with cheap laurel crowns, is 
to be met with : the Gay Science was visibly 
declining. In such times as now came, the 
court and the great could no longer patronize 
it; the polity of the Empire was, by one con- 
vulsion after another, all but utterly dismem- 
bered ; ambitious nobles, a sovereign without 
power ; contention, violence, distress, every- 
where prevailing. Richard of Cornwall, who 
could not so much as keep hold of his sceptre, 
not to speak of swaying it wisely ; or even the 
brave Rudolf of Hapsburg, who manfully ac- 
complished both these duties, had other Avork 
to do than sweet singing. Gay ll'urs of the 
IVurtbur^ were now changed to stern Batiks of 
the Marehfield ; in his leisure hours, a good Em- 
peror, instead of twanging harps, must hammer 
from his helmet the dints it had got in his 
working and fighting hours.* Amid such rude 
tumults the Minne-Song could not but change 
its scene and tone; if, indeed, it continued at 
all.which.however, it scarcely did; for now, no 
longer united in courtly choir, it seemed to lose 
both its sweetness and its force, gradually be- 
came mute, or in remote obscure corners lived 
on, feeble and inaudible, till afier several cen- 
turies, when, under a new title, and with far 
inferior claims, it again solicits some notice 
from us. 

Doubtless, in this posture of afl^airs political, 
the progress of Literature could be little for- 
warded from without; in some directions, as in 
that of Court-Poetry, we may admit that it was 



* It was on this famous plain of the Marchfield that 
Ottiicar, King of Bohemia, conriiiered Bela of Hungary, 
in 1200; and was himself, in 1278, conquered and slain 
by Rudolf of Hapsburg, at that time nnnh left to his own 
resources ; whose talent for mending helmets, however, 
is perhaps hut a poetical tradition. Curious, moreover: 
it was here again, after more than ^ve centuries, that 
the House of Hapsburg received its worst overthrow, 
and from a new and greater Rudolf, namely, from Na- 
poleon, at Wacrain, which lies in the middle of this 
same Marchfield. 



264 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



obslrncted or altogether stopped. But why not 
only Court-Poetry, but Poetry of all sorts should 
have declined, and as it were gone out, is quite 
another question ; to which, indeed, as men 
must have their theory on every thing, answer 
has often been attempted, but only wiih par- 
tial success. To most of the German Literary 
Historians this so ungenial condiiion of the 
Court and Government appears enough: by the 
warlike, altogether practical character of Ru- 
dolf, by the imbecile ambition of his success- 
ors, by the general prevalence of feuds and 
lawless disorder, the death of Poetry seems fully 
accounted for. In which conclusion of theirs, 
allowing all force to the grounds it rests on, we 
cannot but perceive that there lurks some fal- 
lacy; the fallacy, namely, so common in these 
times, of deducing the inward and spiritual ex- 
clusively from the outward and material ; of 
tacitly, perhaps unconsciously, denying all 
independent force, or even life, to the former, 
and looking out for the secret of its vicissitudes 
solely in some circumstance belonging to the 
latter. Now it cannot be too often repeated, 
where it continues still unknown or forgotten, 
that man has a soul as certainly as he has a 
body; nay, much more certainly; that properly 
it is the course of his unseen, spiritual life, 
which informs and rules his external visible 
life, rather thjn receives rule from it; in which 
spiritual life, indeed, and not in any outward 
action or condition arising from it, the true 
secret of his history lies, and is to be sought 
after, and indefinitely approached. Poetry, 
above all, we should have known long ago, is 
one of those mysterious things whose origin 
and developments never can be what we call 
explained ; often it seems to us like the wind, 
blowing where it lists, coming and departing 
with little or no regard to any the most cunning 
theory that has yet been devised of it. Least 
of all does it seem to depend on court patron- 
age, the form of government, or any modifica- 
tion of politics or economics, catholic as these 
influences have now become in ourphilosophy : 
it lives in a snow-clad, sulphureous Iceland, and 
not in a sunny, wine-growing France ; flour- 
ishes under an arbitrary Elizabeth, and dies 
out under a constitutional George; Philip II. 
has his Cervantes, and in prison ; Washington 
and Jackson have only their Coopers and 
Browns. Why did poetry appear so brightly 
after the Battles of Thermopylffi and Salamis, 
and quite turn away her face and wings from 
those of Lexington and Bunker's Hill T We 
answer, the Greeks M'ere a poetical people, the 
Americans are not; that is to say, it appeared 
because it did appear ! On the whole, we could 
desire that one of two things should happen : 
Either that our theories and genetic histories 
of Poetry should henceforth cease, and man- 
kind rest satisfied, once for all, with Dr. Ca- 
banis's theory, which seems to be the simplest, 
that " Poetry is a product of the smaller intes- 
tines," and must be cultivated medically by the 
exhibition of castor-oil : Or else that, in future 
speculations of this kind, we should endeavour 
to start with some recognition of the fact, once 
well known, and still in words admitted, that 
Pnetrv is Inspiration; has in it a certain spi- 
rituality and divinity which no dissecting-knife 



will discover; arises in the most secret and 
most sacred region of man's soul, as it were ia 
our Holy of Holies ; and as for external things, 
depends only on such as can operate in that 
region ; among which it will be found that Acts 
of Parliament, and the stale of the Smithfield 
markets, nowise play the chief parts. 

With regard to this change in German Lite- 
rature, especially, it is to be remarked, that the 
phenomenon was not a German, but a Euro- 
pean one ; whereby we easiiy infer, so much at 
least, that the roots of it must have lain deeper 
than in any change from Hohenstaufl"en Empe- 
rors to Hapsburg ones. For now the Trouba- 
dours and Trouveres, as well as the Minnesin- 
gers, weresinking into silence; the world seemed 
to have rhymed itself out ; those chivalrous 
roundelays, heroic tales, mythologies, and quaint 
love-sicknesses, had grown unprofitable to the 
ear. In fact. Chivalry itself was in the wane ; 
and with it that gay melody, like its other pomp. 
More earnest business, not sportfully, but with 
harsh endeavour, was now to be done. The 
graceful minuet-dance of Fancy must give 
place to the toilsome thorny pilgrimage of Un- 
derstanding. Life and its appurtenances and 
possessions, which had been so admired and 
besung, now disclosed, the more they came to 
be investigated, the more contradictions. The 
Church no longer rose with its pillars " like a 
venerable dome over the united flock ;" but, 
more accurately seen into, was a straight pri- 
son, full of unclean creeping things ; against 
which thraldom all better spirits could not but 
murmur and struggle. Everywhere greatness 
and littleness seemed so inexplicably blended: 
Nature, like the Sphinx, her emblem, with her 
fair woman's face and neck, showed also the 
claws of a Lioness. Now too her Riddle had 
been propounded; and thousands of subtle, 
disputatious School-men were striving earnest- 
ly to read it, that they might live, morally live, 
that the monster might not devour them. These, 
like strong swimmers, in boundless bottomless, 
vortices of Logic, swam manfully, but could not 
get to land. 

On a better course, yet with the like aim. Phy- 
sical Science was also unfolding itself. A 
Roger Bacon, an Albert the Great, are cheer- 
ing apf)earances in this era: not blind to the 
greatness of Nature, yet no longer with poetic 
reverence of her, but venturing fearlessly into 
her recesses, and extorting from her many a 
secret; the first victories of that long series 
which is tamake man more and more her King. 
Thus everywhere we have the image of con- 
test, of eflx)rt. The spirit of man, which once, 
in peaceful, loving communion with the Uni- 
verse, had uttered forth its gladness in Song, 
now feels hampered and hemmed in, and strug- 
gles vehemently to make itself room. Power 
is the one thing needful, and that Knowledge 
which is Power: thus also Intellect becomes 
the grand faculty, in v.'hich all the others are 
well nish absorbed. 

Poetry, which has been defined as " the har- 
monious unison of Man with Nature," could 
not flourish in this temper of the times. The 
number of poets, or rather versifiers, hence- 
forth greatly diminishes ; their style also, and 
topics, are different and less poetical. Men 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



265 



wish to be practically instructed rather than 
poetically amused : Poetry itself must assume 
a preceptorial character, and leach whole- 
some saws and moral maxims, or it will not 
be listened to. Singing for the Song's sake 
is now nowhere practised ; but in its stead 
there is everywhere the jar and bustle of ar- 
gument, investigation, contentious activity. 
Such throughout the fourteenth century is the 
general aspect of mind over Europe. In Italy 
alone is there a splendid exception : the mys- 
tic song of Dante, with its sterne, indignant 
moral, is followed by the light love-rhymes of 
Petrarch, the Troubadour of Italy, when this 
class was extinct elsewhere : the master minds 
of that country, peculiar in its social and 
moral condition, still more in its relations to 
classical Antiquity, pursue a course of their 
own. But only the master minds ; for Italy too 
hasits Dialecticians, and projectors, and reform- 
ers; nay, after Petrarch, these take the lead; and 
there, as elsewhere, in their discords and loud 
assiduous toil, the voice of Poetry dies away. 
To search out the causes of this great revo- 
lution, which lie not in Politics nor Statistics, 
would lead us far beyond our depth. Mean- 
while let us remark that the change is nowise 
to be considered as a relapse, or fall from a 
higher state of spiritual culture to a lower; 
but rather, so far as M'e have objects to com- 
pare it with, as a quite natural progress and 
higher development of culture. In the history 
of the universal mind, there is a certain ana- 
logy to that of the individual. Our first self- 
consciousness is the first revelation to us of a 
whole universe, wondrous and altogether good: 
it is a feeling of joy and new-found strength, 
of mysterious infinite hope and capability; 
and in all men, either by word or act, ex 
presses itself poeticall3^ The world without 
us and within us, beshone by the young light 
of Love, and all instinct with a divinity, is 
beautiful and great : it seems for us a bound- 
less happiness that we are privileged to live. 
This is the season of generous deeds and 
feelings ; which also, on the lips of the gifted, 
form themselves into musical utterance, and 
give spoken poetry as well as acted. Nothing 
is calculated and measured, but all is loved, 
believed, appropriated. All action is sponta- 
neous ; high sentiment, a sure, imperishable 
good: and thus the youth stands, like the First 
Man, in his fair Garden, giving Names to the 
bright Appearances of this Universe which he 
has inherited, and rejoicing in it as glorious 
and divine. Ere long, however, comes a 
harsher time. Under the first beauty of man's 
life appears an infinite, earnest rigour; high 
sentiment will not avail, unless it can con- 
tinue to be translated into noble action ; which 
problem, in the destiny appointed for man 
born to toil, is difficult, interminable, capable 
of only approximate solution. What flowed 
softly in melodious coherence when seen and 
sung from a distance, proves rugged and un- 
manageable when practically handled. The 
fervid, lyrical gladness of past years gives 
place to a collected thonghtfulness and energy; 
nay often — so painful, so unexpected are the 
contradictions everywhere met with — to gloom, 
sadness, and anger ; and not till after long 
34 



struggles and hard-contested victories is the 
youth changed into a man. 

Without pushing the comparison too far, 
we may say that in the culture of the Euro- 
pean mind, or in Literature, which is the sym- 
bol and product of this, a certain similarity 
of progress is manifested. That tuneful Chi- 
valry, that high cheerful devotion to the God- 
like in heaven, and to Women, its emblems 
on earth; those Crusades and vernal Love- 
songs were the heroic doings of the world's 
youth ; to which also a corresponding man- 
hood succeeded. Poetic recognition is fol- 
lowed by scientific examination : the reign of 
Fancy, with its gay images, and graceful, ca- 
pricious sports, has ended ; and now Under- 
standing, which, when reunited to Poetry, will 
one day become Reason and a nobler Poetry, 
has to do its part. Meantime, while there is 
no such union, but a more and more widening 
controversy, prosaic discord and the unmusi- 
cal sounds of labour and effort are alone au- 
dible. 

The era of the Troubadours, who in Ger- 
many are the Minnesingers, gave place in 
that country, as in all others, to a period which 
we might naine the Didactic ; for Literature 
now ceased to be a festal melody, and address 
ing itself rather to the intellect than to the 
heart, became as it were a school lesson. In- 
stead of that cheerful, warbling Song of Love 
and Devotion, wherein nothing was taught, 
but all was believed and worshipped, we have 
henceforth only wise Apologues, Fables, Sa- 
tires, Exhortations, and all manner of edifying 
Moralities. Poetry, indeed, continued still to 
be the form of composition for all that can be 
named Literature, except Chroniclers, and 
others of that genus, valuable not as doers of 
the work, but as witnesses of the work done, 
these Teachers all wrote in verse: neverthe- 
less, in general there are few elements of 
Poetry in their performances : the internal 
structure has nothing poetical, it is a mere 
business-like prose: in the rhyme alone, at 
most in the occasional graces of expression, 
could we discover that it reckoned itself po- 
etical. In fact we may say that Poetry, in the 
old sense, had now altogether gone out of 
sight: instead of her heavenly vesture and 
Ariel-harp, she had put on earthly weeds, and 
walked abroad with ferula and horn-book. It 
was long before this new guise would sit well 
on her; only in late centuries that she could 
fashion it into beauty, and learn to move with 
it, and mount with it gracefully as of old. 

Looking now more specially to our histori- 
cal task, if we inquire how far into the subse- 
quent time this Didactic Period extended, no 
precise answer can well be given. On this 
side there seem no positive limits to it; with 
many superficial modifications, the same fun- 
damental element pervades all spiritual efl^orts 
of mankind through the following centuries. 
We may say that it is felt even in the Poetry 
of our own time; nay, must be felt through 
all time; inasmuch as Inquiry once awakened 
cannot fall asleep, or exhaust itself; thus 
Literature must continue to have a didactic 
character; and the Poet of these days is he 
who, not indeed by mechanical but by poetical 



266 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



methods, can instruct us, can more and more 
evolve for us the mystery of our Life. How- 
ever, after a certain .space, this Didactic Spirit 
in Literature cannot, as an historical partition 
and landmark, be available here. At the era 
of the Reformation, it reaches its acme ; and, 
in singular shapes, steps forth on the high 
places of Public Business, and amid storms 
and ihnnder.not wiihout brightness and true fire 
from Heaven, conclusively renovates the world. 
This is, as it were, the apotheosis of the Didac- 
tic Spirit, where it first attains a really poetical 
concentration, and stimulates mankind into he- 
roism of word and of action also. Of the lat- 
ter, indeed, still more than of the former; for 
not till a much more recent time, almost till our 
own time, has Inquiry in some measure again 
reconciled itself to Belief; and Poetry, though 
in detached tones, arisen on us, as a true mu- 
sical Wisdom. Thus is the deed, in certain 
■circumstances, readier and greater than the 
word : Action strikes fiery light from the 
rocks it has to hew through ; Poetry reposes 
in the skyey splendour which that rough pas- 
sage has led to. But after Luther's day, this 
Didactic Tendency again sinks to a lower 
level; mingles with manifold other tenden- 
cies ; among which, admitting that it still 
forms the main stream, it is no longer so pre- 
eminent, positive, and universal, as properly 
to characterize the whole. For minor Periods 
and subdivisions in Literary History, other 
more superficial characteristics must, from 
time to time, be fixed on. 

Neither, examining the other limit of this 
Period, can we say specially where it begins ; 
for, as usual in these things, it begins not at 
once, but by degrees; Kings' reigns and 
changes in the form of Government have their 
day and date; not so changes in the spiritual 
condition of a people. The Minnesinger Pe- 
riod and the Didactic may be said to commin- 
gle, as it were, to overlap each other, for above 
a century: some writers partially belonging 
to the latter class occur even prior to the 
times of Friedrich II.; and a certain echo of 
the Minne-Song had continued down to Ma- 
nesse's day, under Ludwig the Bavarian. 

Thus from the Minnesingers to the Church 
Reformers, we have a wide space of between 
two and three centuries ; in which, of course, 
it is impossible for us to do more than point 
out one or two of the leading appearances ; a 
minute survey and exposition being foreign 
from our object. 

Among the Minnesingers themselves, as al- 
ready hinted, there are not wanting some with 
an occasionally didactic character; Gottfried 
of Strasburg, known also as a translator of 
Sir Trintrem, and two other Singers, Reinmar 
von Zweter, and Walter von der Vogelweide, are 
noted in this respect ; the last two especially, 
for their oblique glances at the Pope and his 
Monks, the unsound condition of which body 
could not escape even a Love-minstrel's eye.* 

* Reinmar Von Zweter, for example, says once : 
Jfar and bart vach Klostersittcn gesnitten 
Des vind ich gemiog^ 

Ick vinde aher der nit vil dies rehte tragen ; 
Hall) visrh lialb man ist visck noch man. 
Oar visch isl, visch, gar man ist man, 
Ala ich erkennen Kan : 



But perhaps the special step of transition may 
be still better marked in the works of a rhymer 
named the Siri<kcr, v.'hose province was the 
epic, or narrative; into which he seems to 
have introduced this new character in unusual 
measure. As the Strieker still retains some 
shadow of a place in Literary Historv, the 
following notice of him maybe borrowed here. 
Of his personal history, it may be premised, 
nothing whatever is known ; not even why he 
bears this title; unless it be, as some have 
fancied, that S'.ricker, which now signifies 
KnitterAn those days meant Schriber, (Writer:) 
"In truth," says Bouterwek, "this pains- 
taking man was more a writer than a Poet, yet 
not altogether without talent in that latter way. 
A'^oluminous enough, at least, is his redaction 
of an older epic work on the War of Charlc- 
nuii^ne (('?,7i the Sai'acens in Spaiv, \he old German 
original of which is perhaps nothing more 
than a translation from the Latin or French. 
Of a Poet in the Strieker's day, when the ro- 
mantic Epos had attained such polish among 
the Germans, one might have expected that 
this ancient Fiction, since he was pleased to 
remodel it, would have served as the material 
to a new poetic creation; or at least, that he 
would have breathed into it some new and more 
poetic spirit. But such a development of these 
Charlemagne Fables was reserved for the 
Italian Poets. The Strieker has not only left 
the matter of the old Tale almost unaltered, 
but has even brought out its unpoetical linea- 
ments in stronger light. The fanatical piety 
with which it is overloaded probably appeared 
to him its chief merit. To convert these cast- 
away Heathens, or failing this, to annihilate 
them, Charlemagne takes the field. Next to 
him, the hero Roland plays a main part there. 
Consultations are held, ambassadors negotiate ; 
war breaks out with all its terrors : the Hea- 
then fought stoutly: at length comes the well 
known defeat of the Franks at Ronceval, or 
Roncevaux ; where, however, the Saracens 
also lose so many men, that their King Mar- 
silies dies of grief. The Narrative is divided 
into chapters, each chapter again into sections, 

Von hofmunchen und von Klosterrittern 

Knn ich viht gesagen ; 

Hofinvncliev, Klosterrittern, diesen beiden 

I Volt ich reht le rehte wol beschciden, 

Ob sie sich wolten lassen vinden. 

Da sie ze rehte soltcn wesen ; 

Jii Kloster munche solten geneseit, 

So svhi des hofs Mch ritter untericinden. 

Hair and beard cut in the cloister fashion 

Of tliis find 1 enough. 

But of those that wear it well I find not many ; 

Half-fish half-man is neither fish nor man, 

Whole fish is fish, whole man is man. 

As I discover can : 

Of court-monks and of cloister-knights 

Can 1 not speak : 

Court-monks, iloister-knights, these both 

Would I rightly put to rights. 

Whether they would let themselves be found 

Where they by right should be ; 

In their cloister monks should flourish, 

And knights obey at court. 

See also in Flogel, (Oeschichte der Romischtn Litteiu 
^a?-. b. iii. s. 11,) immediately following this Extract, a 
formidable dinner-course of Lies, — boiled lies, roasted 
lies, lies with saffron, forced-meat lies, and other va- 
rieties, arranged by this same artist j— fan her. (in page 
9.) a rather gallant onslaught from Walter von der Vo- 
gelweide, on the Babest (Pope, Pnpst) himself. AU 
this was before the middle of the thirteenth century. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



267 



an epitome of which is always given at the 
outset. Miracles occur in the story, but for 
most part only such as tend to evince how God 
himself inspirited the Christians against the 
Heathen. Of any thing like free, bold flights 
of imagination there is little to be met with: 
the higher features of the genuine romantic 
epos are altogether wanting. In return, it has 
a certain didactic temper, which, indeed, an- 
nounces itself even in the Introduction. The 
latter, it should be added, prepossesses us in 
the Poet's favour; testifying with what warm 
interest the noble and great in man's life affect- 
ed him."* 

The Wuhche Cast (Italian Guest) of Zirkler 
or Tirkeler, who professes, truly or not, to be 
from Friuli, and, as a benevolent stranger, or 
Guest, tells the Germans hard truths somewhat 
in the spirit of Juvenal ; even the famous 
Meister Freidank, (Master Freethought,) with 
his wise Book of rhymed Maxims, entitled 
Die Bescheidcnheit, (Modesty ;) still more the 
sagacious Tyro, King of Scots, quite omitted in 
history, but who teaches Friedchrand, his Son, 
with some discrimination, how to choose a 
good priest ; — all these, with others of still 
thinner substance, rise before us only as faint 
shadows, and must not linger in our field of 
vision. Greatly the most important figure in 
the earlier part of this era is Hugo von Trim- 
berg, to whom we must now turn ; author of 
various poetico-preceptorial works, one of 
which, named the Renner, (Runner,) has long 
been known not only to antiquarians, but, in 
some small degree, even to the general reader. 
Of Hugo's Biography he has himself inciden- 
tally communicated somewhat. His surname 
he derives from Trimberg, his birth-place, a 
village on the Saale, not far from Wiirzburg, 
in Franconia. By profession he appears to 
have been a Schoolmaster : in the conclusion 
of his Renner, he announces that "he kept 
school for forty years at Thiirstadt, near Bam- 
berg ;" farther, that his Book was finished in 
1300, which date he confirms by other local 
circumstances. 

Der dies Buch gedichtet hat, 

Der pjiag der schlen lu Thiirsiat. 

Vieriig jar vor Babenberg, 

Und heiss Hugo von Trymberg. 

Es ward folUnbracht das ist tcahr. 

Da tausent und dreyhundert jar 

M'ach Christus Oeburt vergangen waren, 

Drithalbs jar gleich vor den jaren 

Da die Juden in Franken warden enchlagen. 

Bey der zeit und in den tagen. 

Da bischnff Leopolt bischoff was 

Zu Babenberg. 

Some have supposed that the Schoolmaster 
dignity, claimed here, refers not to actual 
wielding of the birch, but to a Mastership and 
practice of instructing in the art of Poetry, 
which about this time began to have its scho- 
lars and even guild-brethren, as the feeble rem- 
nants of Minne-Song gradually took the new 



♦Bouterwek, ix. 245. Other versified Narratives by 
this worthy Strieker sl\\\ exist, but for the most part only 
in manuscript. Of these the History of H'ilhebn von 
Blumethal, a Round-table adventurer, appears to be the 
principal. The Poem on Charlemagne stands printed in 
Schiller's Thesaurus ; its exact date is matter only of 
conjecture. 



shape, in which we afterwards see it, of Meisttr- 
gesarig, (Master-song:) but for this hypothesis, 
so plain are Hugo's own words, there seems 
little foundation. It is uncertain vhether he 
was a clerical personage, certain enough that 
he was not a monk; at all events, he must 
have been a man of reading and knowledge; 
industrious in study, and superior in literary 
acquirement to most in that time. By a col- 
lateral account, we find that he had gathered a 
library of two hundred Books; among which 
were a whole dozen by himself, five in Latin, 
seven in German, hoping that by means of 
these, and the furtherance they would )'ield ia 
the pedagogic craft, he might live at ease in 
his old days ; in which hope, however, he had 
been disappointed : seeing, as himself rather 
feelingly complains," no one now cares to study 
knowledge, (Kunst,) which, nevertheless, de- 
serves honour and favour." What these twelve 
Books of Hugo's own writing were, can, for 
most part, only be conjectured. Of one, en- 
titled the Sanimkr, (Collector,) he himself 
makes mention in the Renner .- he had begun it 
about thirty years before this latter: but hav- 
ing by ill accident lost great part of his manu- 
script, abandoned it in anger. Of another 
work Flogel has discovered the following notice 
in Johann Wolf: 

"About this time (1.599) did that virtuous 
and learned nobleman, Conrad von Liebenstein, 
present to me a manuscript of Hugo von Trim- 
berg, who flouri,shed about the year 1300. It 
sets forth the short-comings of all ranks, and 
especially complains of the clergy. It is en- 
titled Ren ins Land, (Repentance to the Land ;) 
and now lies with the Lord of Zillhart."* 

The other ten appear to have vanished even 
to the last vestige. 

Such is the whole sum-total of information 
which the assiduity of commentators has col- 
lected touching worthy Hugo's life and for- 
tunes. Pleasant it were to see him face to 
face; gladly would we penetrate through that 
long vista of five hundred years, and peep into 
his book-presses, his frugal fireside, his noisy 
mansion with its disobedient urchins, now that 
it has all grown so silent; but the distance is 
too far, the intervening medium intercepts our 
light; only in uncertain, fluctuating dusk, will 
Hugo and his environment appear to us. Ne- 
vertheless Hugo, as he had in Nature, has in 
Historjs an immortal part; as to his inward 
man, we can still see that he was no mere book- 
worm, or simple Parson Adams; but of most 
observant eye ; shrewd, inquiring, considerate, 
who from his Thiirstadt school-chair, as from 
his sedes exploratorio, had looked abroad into the 
world's business, and formed his own theory 
about many things. A cheerful, gentle heart 
had been given him; a quiet, sly humcur; 
light to see beyond the garments and outer 
hulls of Life into Life itself: the long-necked 
purse, the threadbare gabardine, the languidly- 
simmering pot of his pedagogic household 
establishment were a small matter to him : he 
was a man to look on these things with a 
meek smile; to nestle down quietly, as the 



» Flogel, (ili. 15,) who quotes for it, JVolfii Lexicon, 
Memorab. t. ii. p. 1061. 



263 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



lark, in the lowest furrow ; nay, to mount 
therefrom singing, and soar above all mere 
earthly heights. How many potentates, and 
principalities, and proud belligerents have 
evaporated into utter oblivion, while the poor 
Thiirstadt Schoolmaster still holds together ! 

This Rciivci; which seems to be his final 
work, probably comprises the essence of all 
those lost Volumes : and indeed a synopsis of 
Hugo's whole Philosophy of Life, such as his 
two hundred books and long decades of quiet 
observation and reflection had taught him. 
Why it has been named the Rinner, whether 
by Hugo himself, or by some witty editor and 
Transcriber, there are two guesses forthcom- 
ing, and no certain reason. One guess is that 
this Book was to run after the lost Tomes, and 
make good to mankind the deficiency occa- 
sioned by want of them ; which happy thought, 
hidebound though it be, might have seemed 
sprightly enough to Hugo and that age. The se- 
cond guess is that our author, in the same style 
of easy wit, meant to say this book must 
hasten and run out into the world, and do him 
a good turn quickly, while it was yet time, he 
being so very old. But leaving this, we may 
remark, with certainty enough, that what we 
have left of Hugo was first printed under this 
title of Renncr, at Frankfort on the Mayn, in 
1549 ; and quite incorrectly, being modernized 
to all lengths, and often without understanding 
of the sense ; the Edition moreover is now 
rare, and Lessing's project of a new one did 
not take effect; so that, except in Manuscripts, 
of which there are many, and in printed Ex- 
tracts, which also are numerous, the Eenncr 
is to most readers a sealed book. 

In regard to its literary merit opinions seem 
to be nearly unanimous. The highest merit, 
that of poetical unity, or even the lower merit 
of logical unity, is not ascribed to it by the 
warmest panegyrist. Apparently this work 
had been a kind of store-chest, wherein the 
good Hugo had, from time to time, deposited 
the fruits of his meditation as they chanced 
to ripen for him ; here a little, and there a little, 
in all varieties of kind; till the chest being 
filled, or the fruits nearly exhausted, it was 
sent forth and published to the world, by the 
easy process of turning up the bottom. 

" No theme,'' says Bouterwek, " leads with 
certainty to the other; satirical descriptions, 
proverbs, fables, jests, and other narratives all 
huddled together at random, to teach us in a 
poetical way a series of moral lessons. A 
strained and frosty Allegory opens the work : 
then follows the chapter of Mcydcn, (Maids ;) 
of Wicked Masters ; of Pages ; of Priests, 
Monks, and Friars, with great minuteness : 
then of a j^oung Minx with an Old Man ; then 
of Bad Landlords, and of Robbers. Next come 
divers Virtues and Vices, all painted out, and 
judged of. Towards the end, there follows a 
sort of Moral Natural History ; Considerations 
on the dispositions of various Animals ; a little 
Botany and Physiology ; then again all manner 
of didactic Narratives; and finally a Medita- 
tion on the Last Day." 

Whereby it would appear clearly, as hinted, 
that Hugo's Runner pursues no straightcourse; 
and onlv through the most labyrinthic mazes, 



here wandering in deep thickets, or even 
sinking in moist bogs, there panting over 
mountain-tops by narrow sheep tracks ; but 
for most part jigging lightly on sunny greens, 
accomplishes his wonderful journey. 

Nevertheless, as we ourselves can testify, 
there is a certain charm in the worthy man ; 
his work, such as it is, seems to flow direct 
from the heart, in natural, spontaneous abun- 
dance ; is at once cheerful and earnest; his 
own simple, honest, mildly-decided character 
is everywhere visible. Besides, Hugo, as we 
said, is a person of understanding; has looked 
over many provinces of Life, not without in- 
sight ; in his quiet, sly way, can speak forth a 
shrewd word on occasion. There is a genuine 
though slender vein of Humour in him; nor 
in his satire does he ever lose temper, but re- 
bukes sportfully; not indeed laughing aloud, 
scarcely even sardonically smiling, yet with a 
certain subdued roguery, and patriarchal know- 
ingness. His fancy too, if not brilliant, is 
copious almost beyond measure ; no end to his 
crotchets, suppositions, minute specifications. 
Withal he is original ; his maxims, even when 
professedly borrowed, have passed through the 
test of his own experience ; all carries in it 
some stamp of his personality. Thus the 
Rcnner, though in its whole extent perhaps too 
boundless and planless for ordinary nerves, 
makes, in the fragmentary state, no unpleasant 
reading: that old doggerel is not without sig- 
nificance ; often in its straggling, broken, en- 
tangled strokes some vivid antique picture is 
strangely brought out for us. 

As a specimen of Hugo's general manner, 
we select a small portion of his Chapter on 
The Maidens: that passage where he treats of 
the highest enterprise a maiden can engage in, 
the choosing of a husband. It will be seen at 
once that Hugo is no Minnesinger, glozing his 
fair audience with madrigals and hypocritical 
gallantry; but a quiet Natural Historian, re- 
porting such facts as he finds, in perfect good 
nature, it is true, yet not without an under-cur- 
rent of satirical humour. His quaint style of 
thought, his garrulous minuteness of detail, are 
partly apparent here. The first few lines we 
may give in the original also; not as they 
stand in the Frankfort edition, but as professing 
to derive themselves from a genuine ancient 
source : 

Korlzyn viut und lavge haar 

lian die meyde sunderbar 

dy zi( yrenjaren kommensyitt 

dy wal machen yn daz liertie blynt 

dy avchgn wyren yn den weg 

von den avchgn get eyn steg 

tzu devi liertzen nit gar lang 

vff deme stege ist vyl mannig gedang 

icen sy woln memen oder nit.* 

Short of sense and long of hair. 
Strange enough the maidens are ; 
Once they to their teens have got, 
Siicli a choosing, this or tliat : 
Eyes they have that ever spy. 
From the Eyes a Path riuth lie 
To the Heart, and is not long, 
Hereon travel thonghts a throng, 
Whoniso they will have or not. 

* Horn, Oeschichte, und Kritik der deutschen Poeaie, 
s. 44. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



269 



" Wo's me," continues Hugo, "how often 
this same is repeated; till they grow all con- 
fused how to choose, from so many, whom 
they have brought in without number. Firsi 
they bethink them so : This one is short, that 
one is long; he is courtly and old, the other 
young and ill-favoured : this is lean, that is 
bald, here is one fat, there one thin ; this is 
noble, that is weak ; he never yet broke a 
spear: one is white, another black; that other is 
named Master Hack, (hnriz ,) this is pale, that 
again is red ; he seldom eateth cheerful bread ;" 
and so on, through endless other varieties, in 
new streams of soft-murmuring doggerel, 
whereon, as on the Path il would represent, do 
travel thoughts a throng, whomso these fair 
irresolutes will have or not. 

Thus, for Hugo, the age of Minstrelsy is 
gone: not soft Love-ditties, and Hymns of 
Lady-worship, but a skeptical criticism, im- 
portunate animadversion, not without a shade 
of mockery, will he indite. The age of Chivalry 
is gone also. To a Schoolmaster, with empty 
larder, the pomp of tournaments could never 
have been specially interesting; but now such 
passages of arms, how free and gallant soever, 
appear to him no other than the probable pro- 
duct of delirium. "God might well laugh, 
could it be," says he, " to see his mannikms 
live so wondrously on this Earth : two of 
them will lake to fighting, and nowise let it 
alone ; nothing serves but with two long spears 
they must ride and stick at one another 
greatly to their hurt; when one is by the other 
skewered through the bowels or through the 
weasand, he hath small profit thereby. But 
who forced them to such straits?" The an- 
swer is too plain : some modification of In- 
sanit)'. Nay, so contemptuous is Hugo of all 
chivalrous things, that he openly grudges 
any time spent in reading of them. In Don 
<^uixote's Library he would have made short 
work : 

How Master Dietrich fniiptit with Ecken, 
And hmv of old thi; Stalwart Reckeii 
Were rill by women's craft betrayed : 
Such things you ofi hear sung and said, 
And wept at, like a case of sorrow ; — 
Of our own sins we'll think to-morrow. 

This last is one of Hugo's darker strokes; 
for commonly, though moral perfection is 
ever the one thing needful with him, he 
preaches in a quite cheerful tone ; nay, ever 
and anon, enlivens us with some timely joke. 
Considerable part, and apparently much the 
best part, of his work is occupied with satirical 
Fables, and Sclmwike (jests, comic tales;) of 
which latter classes we have seen some pos- 
sessing true humour, and the simplicity which 
is their next merit. These, however, we must 
wholly omit; and indeed, without farther par- 
leying, here part company with Hugo. We 
leave him, not without esteem, ;ind a touch of 
affection due to one so true-hearted, and, under 
that old humble guise, so gifted with intellectual 
taleni. Safely enough may be conceded him 
the dignity of chief moral Poet of his time; 
nay, perhaps, for his solid character, and 
modest manly ways, a much higher dignity. 
Though his Book can no longer be considered, 



what the Frankfort Editor describes il in his 
interminable title-page, as a universal vade- 
mecum for mankind, it is still so adorned with 
many fine sayings, and in itself of so curious 
a texture, that it seems well worth preserving. 
A proper Edition of the Remier will one driy 
doubtless make its appearance among the 
Germans. Hugo is further remarkable as the 
precursor and prototype of Sebastian Brandt, 
whose Nor rev sell iff (Ship of Fools) has, with 
perhaps less merit, had infinitely better fortune 
than the Renncr. 

Some half century later in date, and no less 
didactic in character than Hugo's Renner, 
another work, still rising visible above the 
level of those times, demands some notice 
from us. This is the Eddstein (Gem) of Bone- 
rius, or Boner, which at one time, to judge 
by the number of Manuscripts, whereof fcmr- 
teen are still in existence, must have enjoyed 
great popularity; and indeed, after long years 
of oblivion, it has, by recent critics and redac- 
tors, been again brought into some circulation. 
Boner's Gem is a collection of a Hundred 
Fables done into German rhyme; and derives 
its proud designation not more perhaps from 
the supposed excellence of the work, than 
from a witty allusion to the title of Fable First, 
which, in the chief Manuscript, chances to be 
that well-known one of the Cock scraping for 
Barleycorns, and finding instead there a pre- 
cious stone (Edehlcin) or Gem: Von einem 
Haven und dcm Edelcn sleine; whereupon the 
author, or some kind friend, remarks in a sort 
of Prologue: 

Dies Bur.liUin mng der Edelstein 

IVol heiszen wavd es in treit {in sick Irilgt) 

Bischaft (Bei:fpiel) manner kluvgheit. 

"This Bookling may well be called the 
Gem, sith it includes examples of many a pru- 
dence:" — which name, accordingly, as we see, 
it bears even to this day. 

Boner and his Fables have given rise to 
much discussion among the Germans: scat- 
tered at short distances throughout the last 
hundred years, there is a series of Selections, 
Editions, Translations, Critical Disquisitions, 
some of them in the shape of Academic Pro- 
gram ; among the labourers in which enter- 
prise we find such men as Gellert and Les- 
sing. A T oiiern (jemma,ov Latin version of the 
work, was published by Oberlin, in 1782; Es- 
chenburg sent forth an Edition in modern 
German, in 1810; Benecke a reprint of the 
antique original, in 1816. So that now a 
faithful duty has been done to Boner; and 
what with Bibliographical Inquiries, what 
with vocabularies and learned collations of 
Texts, he that runs may read whatever stands 
written in the Ge/>i. 

Of these diligent lucubrations, with which 
we strangers are only in a remote degree con- 
cerned, it will be sufficient here to report in 
few words the main results, — not indeed very 
difficult to report. First then, with regard to 
Boner himself, we have to say that nothing 
whatever has been discovered: who, when, or 
what that worthy moralist was, remains, and 
may always remain, entirely uncertain. It is 
z 2 



270 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



merely conjectured, from the dialect, and other 
more minute indications, that his place of 
abode was the north-west quarter of Switzer- 
land ; with still higher probabiiit)' that he 
lived about the middle of the fourteenth cen- 
tury; from his learning and devout pacific 
temper, some have inferred that he was a 
monk or priest; however, in one Manuscript 
of his Gem, he is designated, apparently by 
some ignorant Transcriber, a knight, ein Jiilter 
go'z ulsus : from all which, as above said, our 
only conclusion is. that nothing can be con- 
cluded. 

Johann Scherz, about the year 1710, in 
•what lie called Philosophic moralis Gcrnian- 
orum merlii tevi Sperimm, sent forth certain of 
these Fables, with expositions, but appa- 
rently without naming the Author; to which 
Spciinien Gellert in his Dixserlalio de poesi apolo- 
gorvm had again, some forty years afterwards, 
invited attention. Nevertheless, so total was 
the obscurity which Boner had fallen into, that 
Bodmer, already known as the resuscitator of 
the Nibelungea Lied, in printing the Eitehlein 
from an old Manuscript, in 1752, mistook its 
probable date by about a century, and gave 
his work the title of Fables from the Minne- 
singer Period* without naming the Fabulist, or 
guessing whether there were one or many. 
In this condition stood the matter, when se- 
veral years afterwards, Lessing, pursuing an- 
other inquiry, came across the track of this 
Boner; was allured into it; proceeded to clear 
it; and moving briskly forward with a sure 
eye, and sharp critical axe, hewed away innu- 
merable entanglements ; and so opened out a 
free avenue and vista, where strangely, in re- 
mote depth of antiquarian woods, the whole 
ancien' Fable-manufactory, with Boner and 
many others working in it, becomes visible, 
in all the light which probably will ever be 
admitted to it. He who has perplexed him- 
self with Romulus and Rimicius, and Nevelet's 
Annnymux, and Avianna, and still more, with 
the false guidance of their many commenta- 
tors, will find help and deliverance in this 
light, thorough-going Inquiry of Lessing's.f 

Now, therefore, it became apparent: first, 
that those supposed Fables from the Minnesinger 
Period, of Bodmer, were in truth written by 
one Boner, in quite another Period; secondly, 
that Boner was not properly the author of 
them, but the borrower and free versifier from 
certain Latin originals; farther, that the real 
title was Edclstcin ,- and strangest of all, that 
the work had been printed three centuries be- 
fore Bodmer's time, namely, at Bamberg, in 
1461 ; of which Edition, indeed, a tattered 
copy, typographically curious, lay, and pro- 
bably lies, in the Wolfenbuttel Library, where 
Lessing then waited and wrote. The other 
discoveries, touching Boner's personality, and 
locality, are but conjectures, due also to Les- 
sing, and have been stated already. 

As to the Gem itself, about which there has 
been such scrambling, we may say, now when 

*Koch afso, witli a stran^p dPviTtion frnin his uoual 
arriiracy, rlatps Bonpr. in nnp nlire, WIO ; and in an- 
other, "low.irrls the laltpr hilf "f Ihe fimrtppti'h cen- 
turv." Sen his Ctmipevdivrn, p. 23, and p. 200, vol. !. 

i SamiuUiche Schriften, B. 8. 



it is cleaned and laid out before us, that 
though but a small seed-pearl, it has a genu- 
ine value. To us Boner is interesting by his 
antiquity, as the speaking witness of many 
long-past things ; to his contemporaries again 
he must have been still more interesting as 
the reporter of so many new things. These 
Fables of his, then for the first time rendered 
out of inaccessible Latin* into German metre, 
contain no little edifying matter, had we not 
known it before : our old friends, the Fox 
with the musical Raven ; the Man and Boy 
taking their Ass to market, and so inadequate 
to please the public in their method of trans- 
porting him : the Bishop that gave his Ne- 
phew a Cure of Souls, but durst not trust him 
with a Basket of Pears; all these and many 
more figure here. But apart from the mate- 
rial of his Fables, Boner's style and manner 
has an abiding merit. He is not so much a 
Translator as a free Imitator: he tells the 
story in his own way; appends his own moral, 
and except that in the latter department he is 
apt to be a little prolix, acquits himself to high 
satisfaction. His narrative, in those old limp- 
ing rhymes, is cunningly enough brought out: 
artless, lively, graphic, with a spicing of inno- 
cent humour, a certain childlike archness, 
which is the chief merit of a Fable. Such is 
the German ^^sop ; a character whom, in the 
North-west district of Switzerland, at that 
time of day, we should hardly have looked 
for. 

Could we hope that to many of our read -rs 
the old rough dialect of Boner would be intel- 
ligible, it were easy to vindicate these praises. 
As matters stand, we can only venture on one 
translated specimen, which in this shape 
claims much allowance; the Fable, also, is 
nowise the best, or perhaps the worst, but 
simply one of the shortest. For the rest, we 
have rendered the old doggerel into new, with 
all possible fidelity : 

THE FROG AND THE STEEB. 

Of him that strivclh after more honour than he 

should. 

A Froj wilh Frr'alins by his side 
Came liopjiitir ihrouijh iho plain, one tide : 
Thcrrf he an Ox at graes did spy, 
Mu h anger'il wa.<! the Frog thereby ; 
He said : ' Lord Gud, whit was my sin 
Thi'U niado^t me so small and thin 1 
Likewise T have no Iriiidsome feature. 
And all dishonoured is my nature, 



♦The two originals to whom Lessine has traced all 

his Fables are Amanvs and Nevelet's jSnovyvivs ; con- 
cerning which per.'sonaires the following brief notice by 
.lorden (Lexicon, i. 161) may be inserted here: "Fla- 
vius Avianns (who must not he confounded wilh an- 
other Latin Poet, jivievus) lived, as is believed, under 
the two Anionines in the second century : he has left us 
forty-two Fables in elet'iac measure, the best Editiong 
of which are that by Kanneiiesser, (Amsterdam, 1731,) 
that liy," &c., &c. Wilh respect to the Jlnnnvmus 
again : "under this desirn-ition is understood the half- 
harharous Latin Poet, whose sixty Fables, in elegiac 
in-asiire. stand in the collection, which Nevelet, under 
the tille JUiitlioluiria JEsnpka, pulilished at Frankfort in 
1610, and nhiih directly follow those of Avianus in that 
work They are noihing else than versified transla- 
tions of the Fables written in prose by Riimulu.i. a noted 
Fahii'i-t. whose era cannot he fixed nor men his name 
made out to coniplete satisfaction." — The reader who 
wants deeper insight into these matters may consult. 
Lessing, as cited above. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



271 



To other creatures far and near. 

For instance, this same grazing Steer." 

The Fro2 would fain with Bullock cope, 

"Gan brisk oiithlow himself in hope. 

Then spake his Frogling : " Father o' me, 

It boots not, let Ihy blowing be ; 

Thy nature hath forbid this battle, 

Thou canst, not vie with the black-cattle."' 

Nathless let be the Frog wonld not, 

Such pridi'fiil noiinn liiid lit- got ; 

Again to blow right sore 'gan he, 

And said : " Like Ox conld I but he 

In size, within this world there were 

No Frog so glad, to thee I swear." 

The Son spake: "Father, me is wo 

Thou should'st ti^rment thy body so, 

I fear thou art to lose thy life, 

Come follow me and leave this strife ; 

Good father, take advice of me 

And let thy boastful blowing be." 

Frog said : " Thou need'st not beck and nod, 

1 will not do 't, so help me God ; 

Big as this Ox is, I must turn, 

Mine honour now it doth concern." 

He blew himself, and burst in twain, 

Such of that blowing was his gain. 

The like hath ot't been seen of such 
Who grasp at honour overmuch ; 
They must with none at all be doing. 
But sink full soon and come to ruin. 
He that, with wind of Pride accursed. 
Much puffs himself, will surely burst; 
He men miswishes and misjudges, 
Inf-riors scorns, Superiors grudges. 
Of all his equals is a hater, 
Much grieved he is at any better ; 
Wherefore it were a sentence wise 
Were his whole body set wiih eyes, 
Who envy hnth, to see so well 
What lucky hap each man befel, 
That so he filled were with fury, 
And burst asunder in a hurry ; 
And so full soon betid him this 
Which to the Frog betided is. 

Readers to whom such stinted twanging of 
the true Poetic I^yre, such cheerful fingering, 
though only of one and its lowest string, has 
any melody, may find enough of it in Benecke's 
loner, a reproduction, as above stated, of the 
original Edehlein; which Edition we are au- 
thorized to recommend as furnished with all 
helps for such a study: less adventurous 
readers may still, from Eschenburg's half- 
modernized Edition, derive some contentment 
and insight. 

Hugo von Trimberg and Boner, who stand 
out here as our chief Literary representatives 
of the Fourteenth Century, could play no such 
part in their own day, when the great men, 
who shone in the world's eye, were Theologians 
and Jurists, Politicians at the Imperial Diet; 
at best, Professors in the new Universities; of 
■whom all memory has long since perished. 
So difl!'erent is universal from temporary im- 
portance, and worth belonging to our manhood 
from that merely of our station or calling. 
Nevertheless, as every writer, of any true gifts, 
is " citizen both of his time and of his country," 
and the more completely the greater his gifts ; 
so in the works of these two secluded in- 
dividuals, the characteristic tendencies and 
spirit of their age may best be discerned. 

Accordingly, ill studying their commentators, 
one fact, that cannot but strike us, is ihe great 
prevalence and currency which this species 



of Literature, cultivated by them, had obtained 
in that era. Of Fable Literature, especially, 
this was the summer tide and highest efflores- 
cence. The Latin originals which Boner partly 
drew from, descending, with manifold trans- 
fonnations and additions, out of classical times, 
were in the hands of the learned ; in the living 
memories of the people, were numerous frag- 
ments of primeval Oriental Fable, derived 
perhaps thi-ough Palestine; from which two 
sources, curiously intermingled, a Avhole stream 
of Fables evolved itself; whereat the morally 
athirst, such was the genius of that time, were 
not slow to drink. Boner, as we have seen, 
worked in a field then zealously cultivated : 
nay was not .■Esop himself what we have for 
^sop, a contemporary of his; the Greek .Monk 
Planudes and the Swiss Monk Boner might be 
chanting their Psalter at one and the same 
hour! 

Fable, indeed, may he regarded as the earli- 
est and simplest product of Didactic Poetry, 
the first attempt of Instruction clothing itself 
in Fancy: hence the antiquity of Fables, their 
universal diffusion in the childhood of nations, 
so that they have become a common property 
of all : hence also their acceptance and diligent 
culture among the Germans, among the Eu- 
ropeans, in this the first stage of an era when 
the whole bent of Literature was Didactic. But 
the Fourteenth Century was the age of Fable 
in a still wider sense : it was the age when 
whatever Poetry there remained took the shape 
of Apolosue and moral Fiction: the higher 
spirit of Imagination had died away, or with- 
drawn itself into Religion; the lower and 
feebler not only took continual counsel of Un- 
derstanding, but was content to walk in its 
leading-strings. Now was the time when hu- 
man life and its relations were looked at with 
an earnest practical eye ; and the moral per- 
plexities that occur there, when man, hemmed 
in between the Would and the Should, or the 
Must, painfully hesitates, or altogether sinks 
in that rollisicm, were not only set forth in the 
way of precept, but irabodied, for still clearer 
instruction, in Examples and edifying Fictions. 
The Monks themselves, such of them as had 
any talent, mediiated and taught in ihis fashion: 
witness that strange Gcstn Ei.m mr.rwn, still 
extant, and once familiar over all Europe; — a 
Colleciion of Moral Tales, expressly devised 
for the use of Preachers, though only the 
Shakspeares, and in subsequent times, turned 
it to right purpose.* These and the like old 
Gcsf.s with most of which the Bonwns had so 
little to do, were the staple Literature of that 
period: cultivated with great assiduity, and so 
far as mere invention, or compilation, of in- 
cident goes, with no little merit; for already 
almost all the grand destinies, and funda- 
mental, ever-recurring entanglements of hu- 
man life, are laid hold of and depicted here; 
so that, from the first, our modern Novelists 
and Dramatists could find nothing new under 
the sun, but everywhere, in contrivance of iheir 
Story, saw themselves forestalled. Thehound- 
I less abundance of Narratives then current, 
the singular derivations and transmigrations 

♦ See an acrouTit of this curious Hook in Uouce'e 
learned and ingenious Illustrations vf Shaksjicare. 



272 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of these, surprise antiquarian commentators: 
but, indeed, it was in this same century that 
Boccaccio, refining the gold from that so copi- 
ous dross, produced his jJecinuerrnc, •n'hich still 
indicates the same fact in more pleasant fash- 
ion, to all readers. That in these universal 
tend€ncies ofthe time the Germans participated 
and co-operated, Boner's Fables, and Hugo's 
many Narrations, serious and comic, may, 
like two specimens from a great multitude, 
point out to us. The Madrigal had passed into 
the Apologue ; the Heroic Poem, with its super- 
natural machinery and sentiinent, into the Fic- 
tion of practical Life: in which latter species 
a prophetic eye might have discerned the 
coming Tom Joneses and Wilhchn Mcisters ; and 
with still more astonishment, the Minerva Presses 
of all nations, and this their huge transit-trade 
in Rags, all lifted from the dunghill, printed on, 
and returned thither, to the comfort of parties 
interested. 

The Drama, as is well known, had an equally 
Didactic origin ; namely, in those Mysteries 
contrived by the clergy for bringing home 
religious truth, with new force, to the univer- 
sal comprehension. That this cunning device 
had already found its way into Germany, we 
have proof in a document too curious to be 
omitted here: 

"In the year 1322, there was a play shown 
at Eisenach, which had a tragical enough 
effect. Markgraf Friedrich of Misnia, Land- 
graf also of Thuringia, having brought his 
tedious warfares to a conclusion, and the 
country beginning now to revive under peace, 
his subjects were busy repaying themselves 
for the past distresses by all manner of diver- 
sions ; to which end, apparently by the Sove- 
i^eign's order, a dramatic representation of the 
Ten Virgws was schemed, and at Eisenach, in 
his presence, duly executed. This happened 
fifteen days after Easter, by indulgence of the 
Preaching Friars. In Ihe Chronicnn Sampelrinvm, 
stands recorded that the play was enacted in 
the Bear-garden, (in horio fer<.rum,) by the Clergy 
and their Scholars. But now, when it came to 
pass that the Wise Virgins would give the 
Foolish no oil, and these latter were shut out 
from the Bridegroom, they began to weep bit- 
terly, and called on the Saints to intercede for 
them; who, however, even with Mary at their 
head, could effect nothing from God; but the 
Foolish Virgins were all sentenced to damna- 
tion. Which things the Landgraf seeing and 
hearing, he fell into a doubt, and was very 
angry; and said, ' What then is the Christian 
Faith, if God will not take pity on us, for in- 
tercession of Mary and all the Saints?' In 
this anger he continued five days; and the 
learned men could hardly enlighten him to un- 
derstand the Gospel. Thereupon he was struck 
with apoplexy, and became speechless and 
powerless ; in which sad state he continued, 
bedrid, two years and seven months, and so 
^ died, being then fifty-five."* 

Surely a serious warning, would they but 
take it, to Dramatic Critics, not to v^enture be- 
yond their depth ! Had this fiery old Land- 

* Floeel, (Gescliichte dcr Romisrfien Literal vr, iv. 287.) 
who founds on lli;it olil Chronkon Sawpetrinum Erfur- 
tense, contained in Menke's Collection. 



graf given up the reins of his imagination into 
his author's hands, he might have been pleased 
he knew not why; whereas tlie meshes of 
Theology, in which he kicks and struggles, 
here strangle the life out of him ; and the Ten 
Virgins at Eisenach are more fatal to warlike 
men, than ^schylus' Furies at Athens were to 
weak women. 

Neither were the unlearned People without 
their Literature, their Narrative Poelry; though 
how, in an age without printing and bookstalls, 
it was circulated among them; whether by 
strolling Fietkkrs, (Minstrels.) who might re- 
cite as well as fiddle, or by other methods, we- 
have not learned. However, its existence and 
abundance in this era is sufficiently evinced 
by the multitude of Volkshiicher (People's- 
Books) which issued from the Press, next 
century, almost as soon as there was a Press. 
Several of these, which still languidly survive 
among the people, or at least the children, of 
all countries, were of German composition ; of 
most, so strangely had they been sifted and 
winnowed to and fro, it was impossible to fix 
the origin. But borrowed or domestic, they 
nowhere wanted admirers in Germany: the 
Patient Helena, the Fair Mugelonc, Blue-Beard, 
Fortunalus ; these, and afterwards the Seven 
Wise Musters, with other more directly vEsopic 
ware, to which the introduction of the old In- 
dian Stock, or Fook of Wis(lo7n, translated from 
John of Capua's Latin,* one day formed a 
rich accession, were in all memories, and on 
all tongues. 

Beautiful traits of Imagination and a pure 
genuine feeling, though under the rudest forms, 
shine forth in some of these old Tales: for in- 
stance, in Magelone and Fortnnatus; which two, 
indeed, with others of a different stamp, Lud- 
wig Tieck has, with singular talent, ventured, 
not unsuccessfully, to reproduce in our own 
time and dialect. A second class distinguish 
themselves by a homel}', honest-hearted Wis- 
dom, full of character and quaint devices; of 
which class the Seven Wise Musters, extracted 
chiefly from that Gesta Romanorum above men- 
tioned, and containing "proverb-philosophy, 
anecdotes, fables, and jests, the seeds of which, 
on the fertile German soil, spread luxuriantly 
through several generations," is perhaps the 
best example. Lastly, in a third class, we find 
in full play that spirit of broad drollery, of 
rough, saturnine Humour, which the Germans 
claim as a special characteristic ; among these, 
we must not omit to mention the Schiltbilrger, 
correspondent to our own Wise Men of Gotham; 
still less, the far-famed TijU Eulenspiegel, (Tyll 
Owlglass,) whose rogueries and waggeries 
belong, in the fullest sense, to this era. 

This last is a true German work ; for both 
the man Tyll Eulenspiegel, and the Book 
which is his history, were produced there. 
Nevertheless, Tyll's fame has gone abroad 
into all lands: this, the narrative of his ex- 
ploits, has been published in innumerable 
editions, even with all manner of learned 
glosses, and translated into Latin, English, 
French, Dutch, Polish; nay, in several lan- 

* In 1483, by command of a certain Et)prhar(l, Duke of 
Wijrtemberg. What relation this old Book of Wisdom 
bears to our actual Pilpay, we have not learned. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



27S 



guages, as in his own, an EuJenspicgdern, an 
Esp'tei^hrie, or dog's trick, so named after him, 
still, by consent of lexicographers, keeps his 
memory alive. We may say, that to few mor- 
tals has it been granted to earn such a place 
in Universal History as Tyll : for now after 
five centuries, when Wallace's birth-place is 
unknown even to the Scots ; and the admirable 
Crichion still more rapidly is grown a shadow; 
and Edward Longshanks sleeps unregarded 
save by a few Antiquarian English, — Tyll's 
native village is pointed out with pride to the 
traveller, and his tombstone, with a sculptured 
pun on his name, an Owl, namely, and a Glass, 
still stands, or pretends to stand, " at Mullen, 
near Lubeck," where, since 1350, his once 
nimble bones have been at rest. Tyll, in the 
calling he had chosen, naturally led a wan- 
dering life, as place after place became too 
hot for him; by which means he saw into 
many things with his own eyes: having been 
not only over all Westphalia and Saxony, but 
even in Poland, and as far as Rome. That in 
his old days, like other great men, he became 
an Aulobiographer, and in trustful winter 
evening, not on paper, but on air, and to the 
laughter-lovers of Mullen, composed this work 
himself, is purely an hypothesis; certain only 
that it came forth originally in the dialect of 
this region, namely, the Platt-Deulsch; and was 
therefrom translated, probably about a century 
afterwards, into its present High German, as 
Lessing conjectures, by one Thomas Murner, 
who on other grounds is not unknown to anti- 
quarians. For the rest, write it who might, 
the Book is here, "abounding," as a wise 
Critic remarks, " in inventive humour, in 
rough merriment and broad drollery, not with- 
out a keen rugged shrewdness of insight; 
which properties must have made it irresistibly 
captivating to the popular sense; and, with 
all its fantastic extravagancies and roguish 
crotchets, in many points ins'ructive." 

From Tyll's so captivating achievements, 
we shall here select one to insert some account 
of; the rather as the tale is soon told, and by 
means of it, we catch a little trait of manners, 
and, through Tyll's spectacles, may peep into 
the interior of a Household, even of a Parson- 
age, in those old days. 

" It chanced after so many adventures, that 
Eulenspiegel came to a Parson, who promoted 
him to be his Sacristan, or as we now sa}'. 
Sexton. Of this Parson it is recorded that he 
kept a Concubine, who had but one eye; she 
also had a spile at Tyll, and was wont.to speak 
evil of him to his master, and report his 
rogueries. Now while Eulenspiegel held this 
Sextoncy, the Easter-season came, and there 
was to be a play set forth of the Resurrection 
of Our Lord. And as the people were not 
learned, and could not read, the Parson took 
his Concubine and stationed her in the holy 
Sepulchre by way of Angel. Which thing 
Eulenspiegel seeing, he took to him three of 
tiie simplest persons that could be found there, 
to enact the Three Marys; and the Parson 
himself, with a flag in his hand, represented 
Christ. Thereupon spake Eulenspiegel to the 
simple persons : 'When the Angel asks you, 
whom ye seek, ye must answer, The Parson's 
35 



one-eyed Concubine.' Now it came to pass 
that the time arrived when they were to act, 
and the Angel asked them : ' Whom seek ye 
here 1' and they answered, as Eulenspiegel 
had taught and bidden them, and said: 'We 
seek the Parson's one-eyed Concubine.' 
Whereby did the Parson observe that he was 
made a mock of And when the Parson's 
Concubine heard the same, she started out of 
the Grave, and aimed a box at Eulenspiegel's 
face, but missed him, and hit one of the simple 
persons, who were representing the Three 
Marys. This latter then returned her a slap 
on the mouth, whereupon she caught him by 
the hair. But his M'ife seeing this, came run- 
ning thither, and fell upon the Parson's Harlot. 
Which thing the Parson discerning, he threw 
down his flag, and sprang forward to his Har- 
lot's assistance. Thus gave they one another 
hearty thwacking and basting, and there was 
great uproar in the Church. But when Eulen- 
spiegel perceived that they all had one another 
by the ears in the Church, he went his ways, 
and came no more back."* 

These and the like pleasant narratives were 
the People's Comedy in those days. Neither 
was their Tragedy wanting; as indeed both 
spring up spontaneously in all regions of hu- 
man Life ; however, their chief work of this 
latter class, the wild, deep, and now world-re- 
nowned. Legend of Faust, belongs to a somewhat 
later date.j 

Thus, though the Poetry which spoke in 
rhyme was feeble enough, the spirit of Poetry 
could nowise be regarded as extinct ; while 
Fancy, Imagination, and all the intellectual 
faculties necessary for that art, were in active 
exercise. Neither had the Enthusiasm of 



* Fliijrel, iv. 290. For more of Eulenspifigel, see 
GOrres's Ueher die VulksbVcher. 

f To Itie fifteenth century, say some who fix it on 
.Toliann Faust, the Goldsmitii and partial Inventor of 
Printinj;: tothesixIeenthcenTMry,say.'!lhers,reff rringil to 
.Iiihann Fanst, Doctor in Phihsopliy; which iiidiviriual 
did actually, as the Tradition also hears, study first at 
VVittenherir (where he iniL'ht be one of I-uther'-^ pnpils.) 
then at Iiijolstadt. where also he tauKlit, and had a Famu- 
lus named Wajiner, son of a cler.'yinaii at Wasserber^. 
Melanclhon. Trilheim. and other credible witnesses, 
some of whom had seen the man, votich sntiii ienlly for 
these ficts. The rest of the Doctor's history is ihuch more 
obscure. He seems to have been of a vehement, unqii el 
temper; sliilled in Natural Philosophy, and perhaps in 
the occult science of Conjurins, by aid of which two 
•iifis, a mucli shallower man, wanderine in Need and 
Pride over the world in those days, mifhi, without any 
MephistophelfS, have worthed wonders enough. Never- 
llieless, that he rode off through the air on a wine-cisk, 
from Auerbach's Keller at Leipy.i.g, in l.'iS.I, seems ques- 
tionable ; thouiih an old carvine, in that veneralije Ta- 
vern, still mutely asserts it to the toper of this day. 
About 1560, his term of Thaurii.uur<jy beimi over, t.e 
disappeared : whether, under feisned name, by the rope 
of some hangman ; or ■• friihtfulty torn in pieces t)y the 
Devil, near the villace of Rimlich, between Twelve 
and One in the nioriiini;," let each reader jud^'e for 
himself The latter was clearly Ceorfe Ifudolf 
Weidman's opinion, whose Ver.tahle Itislnnj of Ihe 
abuinivable Shis of Dr. Joliavv Faust canw out at 11am- 
bura in l.'j'jy ; aiul is no les.s circumstantially announced 
in the old " People's-Book, That even.wlirre^iifamoos 
Arch-Rluck-JirHst. avd Covjurer. Dr. Fuin't's Cowpart 
Willi tlte Devil, IVonderf III- H'lilk ami Oovnersaliov, and 
/erri;;?e £n</, printed, seemingly without date, at KGIn 
(Cologne) and Niirnherg ; read by every one; wriiti-n 
by we know not whom." See again, for farther insi ht, 
Oiirres's Ueher die deutsc/icn l^„lksb clier. Another 
Work, (I.iepzig, 1821.) e.xpressly "On Faust and the 
Wandering Jew," which latter, in those times, wander- 
ed much in Germany, U also referred lo.— Conv. Leii 
con, $ Faust. 



274 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



heart, on which it still more intimately de- 
pends, died out ; but only taken another form. 
In lower degrees it expressed itself as an ardent 
zeal for Knowledge, and Improvement; lor spiri- 
tual excellence such as the time held out and 
prescribed. This was no languid, low-minded 
age, but of earnest busy effort; in all pro- 
vinces of culture, resolutely struggling for- 
ward. Classical Literature, after long hin- 
drances, had now found its way into Germany 
also: old Rome was open, with all its wealth, 
to the intelligent eye; scholars of Chrj^soloras 
were fast unfolding the treasures of Greece. 
School Philosophy, which had never obtained 
firm footing among the Germans, was in all 
countries drawing to a close; but the subtile, 
piercing vision, which it had fostered and 
called into activity, was henceforth to employ 
itself with new profit on more substantial in- 
terests. In such manifold praiseworthy en- 
deavours the most ardent mind had ample 
arena. 

A higher, purer enthusiasm, again, which no 
longer found its place in chivalrous Minstrel- 
sy, might still retire to meditate and worship 
in religious Cloisters, where, amid all the cor- 
ruption of monkish manners, there were not 
wanting men who aimed at, and accomplish- 
ed, the highest problem of manhood, a life of 
spiritual Truth. Among the Germans, espe- 
cially, that deep-feeling, deep-thinking, devout 
temper, now degenerating into abstruse theoso- 
phy, now purifying itself into holy eloquence, 
and clear apostolic light, was awake in this 
era; a temper which had long dwelt, and still 
dwells there; which ere long was to render 
that people worthy the honour of giving Eu- 
rope a new Reformation, a new Religion. As 
an example of monkish diligence and zeal, if 
of nothing more, we here mention the German 
Bible of Mathias von Behaim, which, in his 
Hermitage at Halle, he rendered from the Vul- 
gate, in 1343 ; the Manuscript of which is still 
to be seen in Leipzig. Much more conspicu- 
ous stand two other German Priests of this 
Period ; to whom, as connected with Literature 
also, a few words must now be devoted. 

Johann Tauler is a name which fails in no 
]/iterary History of Germany: he was a man 
iamous in his own day as the most eloquent of 
jireachers; is still noted by critics for his in- 
tellectual deserts ; by pious persons, especially 
of the class called Mystics, is still studied as a 
practical instructor ; and by all true inquirers 
prized as a person of high talent and moral 
worth. Tauler was a Dominican Monk ; 
seems to have lived and preached at Stras- 
hurg; where, as his grave-stone still testifies, 
lie died in 136L His devotional works have 
been often edited : one of his modern admirers 
has written his biography ; wherein perhaps 
this is the strangest fact, if it be one, that once 
in the pulpit "he grew suddenly dumb, and 
did nothing but weep ; in which despondent 
state he continued for two whole years." Then, 
however, he again lifted up his voice, with 
new energy and new potency. We learn far- 
ther, that he "renounced the dialect of Philo- 
sophy, and spoke direct to the heart in language 
of the heart." His Sermons, composed in 
Latin and delivered in German, in which lan- 



guage, after repeated renovations and changes 
of dialect, they are still read, have, with 
his other writings, been characterized, by 
a native critic worthy of confidence, in these 
terms : 

" They contain a treasure of meditations, 
hints, indications full of heartfelt piety, which 
still speak to the inmost longings and noblest 
wants of man's Mind. His style is abrupt, 
compressed, significant in its conciseness ; the 
nameless depth of feelings struggles with the 
phraseology. He was the first that wrested 
from our German speech the fit expression for 
ideas of moral Reason and Emotion, and has 
left us riches in that kind, such as the zeal for 
purity and fulness of language in our own 
days cannot leave unheeded." — Tauler, it is 
added, " was a man who, imbued with genu- 
ine Devotedness, as it springs from the depths 
of- a soul strengthened in self-contemplation, 
and, free and all-powerful, rules over Life and 
Effort, — attempted to train and win the people 
for a duty which had hitherto been considered 
as that of the learned class alone: to raise the 
Lay-world into moral study of Religion for 
themselves, that so, enfranchised from the 
bonds of unreflecting custom, they might regu- 
late Creed and Conduct by strength self-ac- 
quired. He taught men to look within; by 
spiritual contemplation to feel the secret of 
their higher Destiny ; to seek in their own 
souls what from without is never, or too scan- 
tily afforded; self-believing, to create what, by 
the dead letter of foreign Tradition, can never 
be brought forth."* 

Known to all Europe, as Tauler is to Germany, 
and of a class with him, as a man of antique 
Christian walk, of warm, devoutly-feeling, poetic 
spirit, and insight and experience in the deepest 
regions of man's heart and life, follows, in the 
next generation, Thomas Hamerken, or Ham- 
merlein, {Mulkolus .) usually named Thomas a 
Kenipis, that is, Thomas of Kempcn, a village 
near Cologne, where he was born in 1388. 
Others contend that Plampen in Overyssel was 
his birthplace ; however, in either case, at that 
era, more especially, considering what he did, 
we can here regard him as a Deutsche); a Ger- 
man. For his spiritual and intellectual cha- 
racter we may refer to his works, written in 
the Latin tongue, and still known ; above all, 
to his far-famed work De Imitatione Christi, 
which has been praised by such men as 
Luther, Leibnitz, Haller ; and, what is more, 
has been read, and continues to be read, with 
moral profit, in all Christian languages and 
communions, having passed through upwards 
of a thousand editions, which number is yet 
daily increasing. A new English Thomas a 
Kernpis was published only the other year. 
But the venerable man deserves a word from 
us, not only as a high, spotless Priest, and 
father of the Church, at a time when such 
were rare, but as a zealous promotor of learn- 
ing, which, in his own country, he accomplished 
much to forward. Hammerlein, the son of 
poor parents, had been educated at the famous 
school of Deventer; he himself instituted a 



* Wachler, Vorlesungen iiber die Oeschichte der deut' 
schen JVatioyial-literatur il^eclwres onthe History o£ Ger- 
man National Literature,) b. i. s. 131. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



27& 



similar one at Zwoll, which long continued the 
grand classical seminary of the North. Among 
his own pupils we find enumerated Moritz von 
Spiegelberg, Rudolf von Lange, Rudolf Agri- 
cola, Antonius Liber, Ludwig Dringenberg, 
Alexander Hegius; of whom Agricola, with 
other two, by advice of their teacher, visited 
Italy to study Greek ; the whole six, united 
through manhood and life, as they had been in 
youth and at school, are regarded as the found- 
ers of true classical literature among the 
Germans. Their scholastico-monastic estab- 
lishments at Derventer, with Zwoll and its 
other numerous offspring, which rapidly ex- 
tended themselves over the Northwest of 
Europe from Artois to Silesia, and operated 
powerfully both in a moral and intellectual 
view, are among the characteristic redeeming 
features of that time; but the details of them 
fall not within our present limits.* 

If now, quitting the Cloister and Library, we 
look abroad over active Life, and the general 
state of culture and spiritual endeavour as 
manifested there, we have on all hands the 
cheering prospect of a society in full progress. 
The Practical Spirit, which had pressed for- 
ward into Poetry itself, could not but be busy 
and successful in those proviiif"=« where its 
home specially lies. Among ihT- ■-'• ..:ns, it 
is true, so far as political condition was con- 
cerned, the aspect of affairs had not changed 
for the better. The Imperial Constitution was 
weakened and loosened into the mere sem- 
blance of a Government; the head of which 
had still the title, but no longer the reality of 
sovereign power; so that Germany, ever since 
the times of Rudolf, had, as it were, ceased to 
be one great nation, and become a disunited, 
often conflicting aggregate of small nations. 
Nay, we may almost say, of petty districts, or 
even of households : for now, when every 
pitiful Baron claimed to be an independent po- 
tentate, and exercised his divine right of peace 
and war, too often in plundering the industrious 
Burgher, public Law could no longer vindicate 
the weak against the strong: except the vene- 
rable unwritten code of jF(;Ks^m/(^ (Club-Law,) 
there was no other valid. On every steep rock, 
or difficult fastness, these dread sovereigns 
perched themselves ; studding the country with 
innumerable Raitbsclddsscr, (Robber-Towers,) 
which now in the eye of the picturesque 
tourist look interesting enough, but in those 
days were interesting on far other grounds. 
Herein dwelt a race of persons, proud, igno- 
rant, hungry; who, boasting of an endless 
pedigree, talked familiarly of living on the 
produce of their "Saddles," (iv./h Sattcl zu 
leben,) that is to say, by the profession of high- 
waymen, for which, unluckily, as mentioned, 
there was then no effectual gallows. Some, 
indeed, might plunder as the eagle, others as 
the vulture and crow; but, in general, from 
men cultivating that walk of life, no profit in 
any other was to be looked for. Vain was it, 
however, for the Kaiser to pubhsh edict on 
edict against them ; nay, if he destroyed their 
Robber-Towers, new ones were built; was the 
old wolf hunted down, the cub had escaped. 



« See Eicbborn's Oeschichte der Literatur, b. ii. s. 134. 



who re-appeared when his teeth were grown,- 
Not till industry and social cuhivation had 
everyM'here spread, and risen supreme, could- 
that brood, in detail, be extirpated or tamed. 

Neither was this miserable defect of police 
the only misery in such a state of things. For 
the Saddle-eating Baron, even in pacific cir- 
cumstances, naturally looked down on the 
fruit-producmg Burgher; who, again, feeling 
himself a wiser, wealthier, better, and, in time, 
a stronger man, ill brooked this procedure, and 
retaliated, or, by quite declining such commu- 
nications, avoided it. Thus, throughout long 
centuries, and after that old code of Club-Law 
had been well-nigh abolished, the effort of the 
nation was still divided into two courses; the 
Noble and the Citizen would not work together, 
freely imparting and receiving their several 
gifts ; but the culture of the polite arts, and 
that of the useful arts, had to proceed with 
mutual disadvantage, each on its separate 
footing. Indeed that supercilious and too 
marked distinction of ranks, which so ridicu- 
lously characterized the Germans, has only in 
very recent times disappeared. 

Nevertheless here, as it ever does, the 
strength of the country lay in the middle 
classes; which were sound and active, and, in 
spite of all these hindrances, daily advancing. 
The Free towns, which, in Germany as else- 
where, the sovereign favoured, held within their 
walls a race of men as brave as they of the 
Robber-Tower, but exercising their bravery on 
fitter objects ; who, by degrees, too, ventured 
into the field against even the greatest of these 
kinglets, and in many a stout fight taught them 
a juristic doctrine, which no head, with all its 
helmets, was too thick for taking in. The Four 
Forest Cantons had already testified in this 
way; their Tells and Stauffachers preaching, 
with apostolic blows and knocks, like so many 
Luthers ; whereby, from their remote Alpine 
glens, all lands and all times have heard them, 
and believed them. By dint of such logic it 
began to be understood everywhere, that a 
Man, whether clothed in purple cloaks or in 
tanned sheep-skins, wielding the sceptre or the 
ox-goad, is neither Deity nor Beast, but simplj 
a Man, and must comport himself accordingly. 

But commerce of itself was pouring new 
strength into every peaceable community; the 
Hanse League, now in full vigour, secured the 
fruits of industry over all the North. The 
havens of the Netherlands, thronged with 
ships from every sea, transmitted or collected 
their wide-borne freight over Germany; where, 
far inland, flourished market-cities, with their 
cunning workmen, their spacious warehouses, 
and merchants who in opulence vied with the 
richest. Except perhaps in the close vicinity 
of Robber-Towers, and even there not always 
nor altogether, Diligence, good Order, peaceful 
abundance were everywhere conspicuous in 
Germany. Petrarch has celebrated, in warm 
terms, the beauties of the Rhine, as he wit- 
nessed them; the rich, embellished, cultivated' 
aspect of land and people : ^Eneas Sylvius,, 
afterwards Pope Pius the Second, expresse.s 
himself, in the next century, with still greater 
emphasis ; he says, and he could judge, having 
seen both, " that the King of Scotland did not 



»76 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



live so handsomely as a moderate Citizen of | 
Niirnberg:" indeed Conrad Celtes, another 
contemporary witness, informs us, touching 
these same citizens, that their wives went 
abroad loaded with the richest jewels, that 
"most of their household utensils were of 
silver and gold." For, as ^neas Sylvius adds, 
"their mercantile activity is astonishing; the 
greater part of the German nation consists of 
merchants." Thus, too, in Augsburg, the Fug- 
ger family, which sprang, like that of the 
Medici, from smallest beginnings, were fast 
rising into that height of commercial great- 
ness, such that Charles V., in viewing the 
Royal Treasury at Paris, could say, "I have a 
weaver in Augsburg able to buy it all with his 
own gold."* With less satisfaction, the same 
haughty Monarch had to see his own Nephew 
wedded to the fair Philippine Welser, daughter 
of another merchant in that city, and for 
wisdom and beauty the paragon of her time.f 
In this state of economical prosperity, Litera- 
ture and Art, such kinds of them at least as 
had a practical application, could not want 
encouragement. It is mentioned as one of the 
furtherances to Classical Learning among the 



•Charles had his reasons for suih a speech. This 
same Aulon Fugi-er, to whom lie alluded here, had 
often stood by hini in straits, sliowing a munificence and 
even generosity worthy of the proudest princes. Dur- 
ing the celebrated Diet of Augsliurs. in 1530, the Em- 
peror lodged for a whole year in Auton's house ; and 
Auton wasa man to warm his Emperor "at afire of cin- 
namon wood,'' and to burn therein "the bonds i>'X large 
sums owing him by his majesty." For all which, Auton 
and his kindred had countships and princeships in 
abundance ; also the rijht to coin money, but no solid 
bullion to exercise such riiiht on ; which, however, they 
repeatedly did on bullion of their own. This Auton left 
six millions of gold-crowns in cash : "besides precious 
artitles, jewels, properties in all countries of Europe, 
and both the Indies." The fiisgers had ships on every 
sea, wagons on every hlL'hvvay ; they worked the t'a- 
rinthian Mines ; even Alhrecht Durer's Pictures must 
pass through their warehouses to the Italian market. 
However, this family had other merits than their moun- 
tains of metal, their kindness to needy sovereigns, and 
even their all-emhracin'j spirit of c<imiuerciai enter- 
prise. They were famed for acts of ireneral beneficence, 
and did much charity where no imperial thanks were to 
be looked for. To found Hospitals and Schools, on the 
most liberal scale, was a common thing with them. I'l 
the sixtnemh century, three benevolent brothers of the 
House purchased a subur'i of .\u<rsburg ; rebuilt it with 
em:ill commodious houses, to be let to indigent indus- 
trious burghers for a tri-ling rent: this is the well- 
■Xnown Fii^s-erei, which, still existins. with its nwn walls 
iand gate, maintains their name in daily currency there, 
e— The founder of this remarkable family did actually 
drive the shuttle in the vill ige of (Joggingen, near Augs- 
burg, about the middle of the Fourteenth century; "but 
in 1619," says the Spiegel der Eliren, (Mirror of Honour,) 
" the noble stem had so branched out that there were 
forty-seven Counts and Countesses belongin'-' to it, and 
of young descendants as many as there are days in the 
year." Four stout houghs of the same noble stem, in 
the rank of Princes, still subsist and flourish. " Thus in 
the generous Fu2?ers," says that above-named Mirror, 
"was fulfilled our Saviour's promise: 'Give, and it 
shall be given you.' " — Conv. Lexicon, $ Fugger-Oe- 
tchlecht. 

♦ The Welsers were of patrician descent, and had for 
many centuries followed commerce at Augshursr. where, 
next only to the Fungers, they played a high part. It 
was they, for example that, at their own charges, first 
colonized Venezuela ; that equipped the tirst German 
ship to India, "the .lournal of whii h si ill exists ;" they 
united with the Fussrers to lend f:harles V. twelve 
Tonnen G-.W. 1,200,000 Florins. The fair Philippine, by 
hfT pure charms and honest wiles, worked out a recon- 
ciliation with K liser Ferdinand the First, her Filher-m 
law; lived thirty happy years with her husband ; and 
had medals strui-.k by him, IHvm Philippiiiw. in honourof 
Jier, when (at Innspruck in 1580) he became a widower. 
••-Conv. Lexicon, $ H'tUer. 



Germans, that these Free Towns, as well aa 
numerous petty Courts of Princes, exercising 
a sovereign power, required individuals of 
some culture to conduct their Diplomacy ; one 
man able at least to write a handsome Latin 
style was an indispensable requisite. For a 
long while even this small accomplishment 
was not to be acquired in Germany; where, 
such had been the troubldus condition of the 
Governments, there were yet, in the beginning 
of the fourteenth cenlury, no Universities: 
however, a better temper and better fortune 
began at length to prevail among the German 
Sovereigns ; the demands of the time insisted 
on fulfilment. The University of Prague was 
founded in 1348, that of Vienna in 1364;* and 
now, as if to make up for the delay, princes 
and communities on all hands made haste to 
establish similar Institutions; so that before 
the end of the century we find three others, 
Heidelberg, Cologne, Erfurt; in the course of 
the next no fewer than eight more, of which 
Leipzig (in 1404) is the most remarkable. 
Neither did this honourable zeal grow cool in 
the sixteenth century, or even down to our 
own, when Germany, boasting of some forty 
great Schools and twenty-two Universities, 
four of which date within the last thirty years, 
may fairly reckon itself the best school-pro- 
vided country in Europe; as, indeed, those 
who in any measure know it are aware that it 
is also indisputably the best educated. 

Still more decisive are the proofs of national 
activity, of progressive culture among the 
Germans, if we glance at whit concerns the 
practical Arts. Apart from Universities and 
learned show, there has dwelt, in those same 
Nuriibergs and Augsburgs, a solid, quietly- 
perseverant spirit, full of old Teutonic charac- 
ter and old Teutonic sense; whereby, ever 
and anon, from under the bonnet of some 
rusged German artisan or staid Burgher, this 
and the other World's Invention has been 
starling ,foi"th, where such was least of all 
looked for. Indeed with regard to practical 
Knowledge in General, if we consider the pre- 
sent history and daily life of mankind, it must 
be owned that while each nation has contri- 
buted a share, — the largest share, at least of 
such shares as can be appropriated and fixed 
on any special contributor, belong-^ to Ger- 
many. Copernic, Hevel, Kepler, Otto Guericke, 
are of other times ; but in this era also the 
spirit of Inquiry, of Invention, was especially 
busy. Gunpowder, (of the thirteenth century ) 
though Milton gives the credit of it tn Satan, 
has helped mightily to lessen the horrors of 
war: thus much at least must be admitted in 
its favour, that it secures the dominion of 



♦There seems to be some controversy about the pre- 
cedence here : Bouterwek gives VienUM. with a date 
1.333. as the earliest ; Koch a' ain puts HeidcUierL' li 0, 
in front ; the dates in the Text profess t' be taken from 
Meiner's Oefr/iirlne ilr.r Knstehuvff vnd F.ntir.rlnl min- 
der Holicti Scliiilen imger-i F.rdtheiU. (History cf the 
Origin and Development of lli^'h Schools in F.urojie.) 
GiiiiiMijen. 1802 The last established University is ili t 
of Miinrhcn, (Muni<h.) in I82t) Prussia alone Ina 
21 000 Piililic S( hoolniasters, specially trained to iti.'ir 
profession, sometimes even sent to iravi-l for improve- 
ment ai the cost of Governn'.enf. What says "the 
most enlightened nation in the world" to this'' — Eats 
its puddini.', and sajs little or nothing. 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



277 



civilized over savage mafi : nay, hereby, in 
personal contests, not brute Strength, but 
Courage and Ingenuity, can avail; for the 
Dwarf and the Giant are alike strong with 
pistols between them. Neither can Valour 
now find its best arena in War, in Battle, 
■which is henceforth a matter of calculation 
and strategy, and the soldier a chess-pawn to 
shoot and be shot at: whereby that noble 
quality may at length come to reserve itself 
for other more legitimate occasions, of which, 
in this our Life-Battle with Destiny, there are 
enough. And thus Gunpowder, if it spread the 
havoc of War, mitigates it in a still higher 
degree ; like some Inoculation, — to which may 
an extirpating Vaccination one day succeed ! 
It ought to be stated, however, that the claim 
of Schwartz to the original invention is du- 
bious ; to the sole invention altogether un- 
founded : the recipe stands under disguise in 
the writings of Roger Bacon ; the article itself 
"was previously known in the East. 

Far more indisputable are the advajitages 
of Printing : and if the story of Brother 
Schwartz's mortar giving fire and driving his 
pestle through the ceiling, in the city of Mentz, 
as the painful Monk and Alchymist was acci- 
dentally pounding the ingredients of our first 
Gunpowder, is but a fable, — that of our first 
Book being printed there is much better ascer- 
tained. Johann Gutenberg was a native of 
Mentz; and there, in company with Faust and 
Schoffer, appears to have completed his inven- 
tion, between the years 1440 and 1449 : the 
famous "Forty-two line Bible" was printed 
there in 1455.* Of this noble art, which is 
like an infinitely intensated organ of Speech, 
whereby the Voice of a small transitory man 
may reach not only through all earthly Space, 
but through all earthly Time, it were needless 
to repeat the often-repeated praises ; or specu- 
late on the practical effects, the most moment- 
ous of which are, perhaps, but now becoming 
visible. On this subject of the Press, and its 
German origin, a far humbler remark may be 
in place here ; namely, that Rag-paper, the 
material on which Printing works and lives, 
was also invented in Germany some hundred 
and fifty years before. "The oldest specimens 
of this article yet known to exist," says Eich- 
horn, "are some Documents, of the year 1318, 
in the Archives of the Hospital at Kaufbeuern. 
Breitkopf (ro;« Ursprwig der Spiclkartcn, On the 
Origin of Cards) has demonstrated our claim 
to the invention ; and that France and Eng- 
land borrowed it from German)', and Spain 
from Italy."-}- 

On the invention of Printing there followed 
naturally a multiplication of Books, and a new- 
activity, which has ever since proceeded at an 
accelerating rate, in the business of Literature; 
but for the present, no change in its character 
or objects. Those Universities, and other 
Establishments and Improvements, were so 
many tools which the spirit of the time had 

* As to the Dutch claim, it rests only oti vaeue local 
tradiliona. which were never heard of piililiclj' till their 
Loreiiz Coster had heen dead almost a hmidred and fifty 
ye.irs ; so that, out of Holland, it finds few partisans. 

t li. ii. s. 91. — "The first German Paper-mill we have 
sure account of," sajs Koch, "worked at Niirnberg in 
13«0."— Vol. i. p. 35. 



devised, not for working out new paths, which 
was their ulterior issue, but, in the mean while^ 
for proceeding more commodiously on the old 
path. In the Prague University, it is true, 
whither Wicklifie's writings had found their 
way, a teacher of more earnest tone had risen, 
in the person of John Huss, Rector there; 
whose Books, Of the Six Errors and Of the 
CInirch, still iTiore his energetic, zealously 
polen:)ical Discourses to the people, were yet 
unexampled on the Continent. The shameful 
murder of this man, who lived and died as be- 
seemed a Martyr; and the stern vengeance 
which his countrymen took for it, unhappily 
not on the Constance Cardinals, but on less 
offensive Bohemian Catholics, kept up during 
twenty years, on the Eastern Border of Ger- 
many, an agitating tumult, not only of opinion, 
but of action : however, the fierce, indomitable 
Zisca being called away, and the pusillanimous 
I Emperor offering terms, which, indeed, he did 
I not keep, this uproar subsided, and the national 
' activity proceeded in its former course. 
j In German Literature, during those years, 
nothing presents itself as worthy of notice 
i here. Chronicles were written ; Class-books 
j for the studious, edifying Homilies, in varied 
guise, for the busy, were compiled : a few 
I Books of Travels made their appearance, 
I among which Translations from our too fabu- 
lous countryman, Mandeville, are perhaps the 
most remarkable. For the rest. Life continued 
to be looked at less with poetic admiration, 
than in a spirit of observation and comparison J 
not without many a protest against clerical 
and secular error ; such, however, seldom' 
rising into the style of grave hate and hostility,- 
but playfully expressing themselves in satire. 
The old effort towards the Useful ; in Litera-' 
ture, the old prevalence of the Didactic, espe- 
cially of the ^sopic, is everywhere manifest. 
Of this ^sopic spirit, what phases it succes- 
sively assumed, and its significance in these, 
there were much to be said. However, in 
place of multiplying smaller instances and 
aspects, let us now lake up the highest ; and 
with the best of all Apologues, Reynard the Fox, 
terminates our survey of that Fable-loving 
time. 

The story of Rcinecke Fuchs, or, to give it the 
original Low-German name, Reineke de Fos, is, 
more than any other, a truly European per- 
formance : for some centuries, a universal 
household possession and secular Bible, read 
everywhere, in the palace and the hut; it still 
interests us, moreover, by its intrinsic worth, 
being on the whole the most poetical and me- 
ritorious production of our Western World in 
that kind ; or perhaps of the whole World, 
though in such matters, the West has gene- 
rally yielded to, and learned from, the East. 

Touching the origin of this Book, as often 
happens in like cases, there is a controversy, 
perplexed not only by inevitable ignorance, 
but also by anger and false patriotism. Into 
this vexed sea we have happily no call to ven- 
ture; and shall merely glance for a moment, 
from the firm land, where all that can specially 
concern us in the matter stands secured and 
safe. The oldest printed Edition of our actuaf, 
2 A 



278 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Beynard is that of Liibeck, in 1498 ; of which 
there is a copy, understood to be the only one, 
still extant in the Wolfenbiittel Library. This 
oldest Edition is in the Low-German or Saxon 
tongue, and appears to have been produced by 
Hinrek van Alkmer, who in the Preface calls 
himself " Schoolmaster and Tutor of that noble 
virtuous Prince and Lord, the Duke of Lor- 
raine ;" and says farther, that by order of this 
same worthy sovereign, he "sought out and 
rendered the present Book from the Walloon and 
French tongue into German, to the praise and 
honour of God, and wholesome edification of 
whoso readeth therein." Which candid and 
business-like statement would doubtless have 
continued to yield entire satisfaction; had it 
not been that, in modern days, and while this 
first LiJbeck Edition was still lying in its dusty 
recess unknov/n to Bibliomaniacs, another 
account, dated some hundred years later, and 
supported by a little subsequent hearsay, had 
been raked up: how the real Author was 
Nicholas Baumann, Professor at Rostock ; 
how he had been Secretary to the Duke of 
Juliers, but was driven from his service by 
wicked cabals; and so in revenge composed 
this satirical adumbration of the Juliers Court; 
putting on the title-page, to avoid conse- 
quences, the feigned tale of its being rendered 
from the French and Walloon tongue, and the 
feigned name of Hinrek van Alkmer, who, for 
the rest, was never Schoolmaster and Tutor at 
Lorraine, or anywhere else, but a mere man 
of straw, created for the nonce, out of so many 
Letters of the Alphabet. Hereupon excessive 
debate, and a learned sharp-shooting, with vic- 
tory-shouts on both sides ; into which we 
nowise enter. Some touch of human sym- 
pathy does draw us towards Hinrek, whom, if 
he was once a real man, with bones and 
sinews, stomach and provender-scrip, it is 
mournful to see evaporated away into mere 
vowels and consonants: however, beyond a 
kind wish, we can give him no help. In Lite- 
rary History, except on this one occasion, as 
seems indisputable enough, he is nowhere men- 
tioned or hinted at. 

Leaving Hinrek and Nicolaus, then, to fight 
out their quarrel as they may, we remark that 
the clearest issue of it would throw little light 
on the origin of Reinerke. The victor could at 
most claim to be the first German redactor of 
this Fable, and the happiest; whose work had 
superseded and obliterated all preceding ones 
whatsoever ; but nowise to be the inventor 
thereof, who must be sought for in a much re- 
moter period. There are even two printed 
versions of the Tale, prior in date to this of 
Liibeck: a Dutch one, at Delft in 1484; and 
one by Caxton in English, in 1481, which 
seems to be the earliest of all.* These two 



* Caxlon's Edition, a copy of which is in the British 
Museum, bears title: Hystorye of Reijnart the Foie : and 
begins thus :— " It was about'e the tyme of Pentecoste or 
Whylsoiityde that the wodes coiiiynly be lusty and 
filadsome, and the trees clad with levys and blossoms, 
and the grounds with herbes and flowers sweete smell- 
yng ;" — where, as in many other passages, the fact that 
Caxton and Alkmer had the same original before them 
is manifest enough. Our venerable Printer says in con- 
clusion : "I have not added ne inynnsshed but have 
followed as nyghe as I can my copve whvch was in 
Julche ; and by me Willm Caxton translated in to this 



differ essentially from Hinrek's; still more so 
does the French Roman du nouveau Renard, 
composed " by Jacquemars Giel^e at Lisle, 
about the year 1290," which yet exists in 
manuscript: however, they sufficiently verify- 
that statement, by some supposed to be feigned, 
of the German redactor's having " sought and 
rendered" his work froin the Walloon and 
French; in which latter tongue, as we shall 
soon see, some shadow of it had been known 
and popular, long centuries before that time. 
For besides Gielee's work, we have a Renard 
Conronnc of still earlier, a Renard Cont7-efait of 
somev.'hat later date : and Chroniclers inform 
us that, at the noted Festival given by Philip 
the Fair, in the beginnmg of the fourteenth 
centnry, among the dramatic entertainments, 
was a whole Life of Reynard ; wherein it must 
not surprise us that he " ended by becoming 
Pope, and still, under the Tiara, continued to 
eat poultry." Nay, curious inquirers have 
discovered on the French and German borders, 
some. vestige of the Story even in Carlovingian 
times, which, indeed, again makes it a German 
original : they will have it that a certain Rein- 
hard, or Reinecke, Duke of Lorraine, who, in 
the ninth century, by his craft and exhaustless 
stratagems worked strange mischief in that 
region, many times overreaching King Zwenti- 
bald himself, and at last, in his stronghold of 
Durfos, proving impregnable to him, — had in 
satirical songs of that period been celebrated 
as a fox, as Rclnhard the Fox, and so given rise 
afar off to this Apologue, at least to the title of 
it. The name hegrim, as applied to the Wolf, 
these same speculators deduce from an Aus- 
trian Count Isengrin, who, in those old days, 
had revolted against Kaiser Arnulph, and 
otherwise exhibited too wolfish a disposition. 
Certain it is, at least, that both designations 
were in imiversal use during the twelfth cen- 
tury; they occur, for example, in one of the 
two sirventes which our Coeur-de-Lion has left 
us : " ye have promised me fidelity," says he, 
"but ye have kept it as the Wolf did to the 
Fox," as Isant^rin did to Reijihart.* Nay, per- 
haps the ancient circulation of some such 
Song, or Tale, among the French, is best of all 
evinced by the fact that this same Reinhart, or 
Renard, is still the only word in their language 
for Fox; and thus, strangely enough, the Pro- 
per may have become an Appellative ; and sly 
Duke Reinhart, at an era when the French 
tongue was first evolving itself from the rub- 
bish of Latin and German, have insinuated 
his name into Natural as well as Political 
History. 

From all which, so much at least would ap- 
pear : That the Fable of Reynard the Fox, which 
in the German version we behold completed, 
nowise derived its completeness from the indi- 
vidual there named Hinrek van Alkmer, or 
from any other individual, or people : but 
rather, that being in old times universally cur- 
rent, it was taken up by poets and satirists of 
all countries; from each received some acces- 



rude and symple englyssh in thabbey of Westminster, 
and fynnyshed the vi daye of Juyn the yere of our lord 
1481, the 21 yere of the regne "of Kynge Edward the 
iiijth." 

* Flogel, (iii. 31,) who quotes the Histoire Litteraire 
Jes Troubadours, t. i. p. 63, 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



279 



sion or improvement; and properly has no 
single author. We must observe, however, 
that as yet it had attained no fixation or con- 
sistency; no version was decidedly preferred 
to every other. Caxton's and the Dutch ap- 
pear, at best, but as the skeleton of what after- 
wards became a body ; of the old Walloon 
version, said to have been discovered lately, 
we are taught to entertain a similar opinion :* 
in the existing French versions, which are all 
older, either in Gielee's, or in the others, there 
is even less analogy. Loosely conjoined, there- 
fore, and only in the state of dry bones, was it 
that Hinrek, or Nicolaus, or some Lower-Saxon 
whoever he might be, found the story ; and 
blowing on it with the breath of genius, raised 
it up into a consistent Fable. Many additions 
and some exclusions he must have made ; was 
probably enough assisted by personal experi- 
ence of a Court, whether that of Juliers or 
some other; perhaps also he admitted personal 
allusions, and doubtless many an oblique 
glance at existing things : and thus was pro- 
duced the Low-German Rcinckc de Fos, which 
version, shortly after its appearance, had ex- 
tinguished all the rest, and come to be, what it 
still is, the sole veritable representative of 
Reynard, inasmuch as all subsequent transla- 
tions and editions have derived themselves 
from it. 

The farther history of Rcinccke is easily 
traced. In this new guise, it spread abroad 
over all the world, with a scarcely exampled 
rapidity; fixing itself also as a firm possession 
in most countries, where, indeed, in this cha- 
racter, we still find it. It was printed and 
rendered, innumerable times : in the original 
dialect alone, the last Editor has reckoned up 
more than twenty Editions; on one of which, 
for example, we find such a name as that of 
Heinrich Voss. It was first translated into 
High-German in 1545; into Latin in 1567, by 
Hartmann Schopper, whose smooth style and 
rough fortune keep him in memory with 
Scholars :■}- a new version into short German 
verse appeared next century; in our own 
times, Goethe has not disdained to re-produce 
it, by means of his own, in a third shape : Of 
Soltau's version, into literal doggerel, we have 
already testified. Long generations before, it 
had been manufactured into Prose, for the use 
of the people, and was sold on stalls ; where 
still, with the needful changes in spelling, and 
printed on grayest paper, it tempts the specu- 
lative eye. 

♦ See Scheller ; (Reineke de Fos, To Bninswylc, 1825 ;) 
Vorrede. 

f While engaged in this Translation, at Freiburg in 
Baden, he was impressed as a soldier, and carried, ap- 
parently in fetters, to Vienna, having given his work to 
another to finish. At Vienna he stood not long in the 
ranks ; having fallen violently sick, and being thrown 
out into the streets to recover there. He says, "lie was 
without bed, and had to seek quarters on the muddy 
pavement, in a Barrel." Here too, in the night, some 
excessively straitened individual stole from him his 
cloak and sabre. However, men were not all hyenas ; 
one Josias Hufnagel, unknown to him, but to wliom by 
his writincs he was known, took him under roof, pro- 
cured medical assistance, equipped him anew ; so that 
" in the harvest season, being half-cured, he could re- 
turn or rather re-crawl to Frankfort on the Mayn." 
There too "a Magister .lohann Cuipius, Christian Eeen- 
olph's son-in-law, kindly received him," and encouraged 
him to finish his Translation; as accordingly he did. 



Thus has our old Fable, rising like some 
River in the remote distance, from obscure 
rivulets, gathered strength out of every valley, 
out of every country, as it rolled on. It is Eu- 
ropean in two senses; for as all Europe con- 
tributed to it, so all Europe has enjoyed it. 
Among the Germans, Reinecke Fuchs was long 
a House-book and universal Best-companion: 
it has been lectured on in Universities, quoted 
in Imperial Council-halls; it lay on the toilette 
of Princesses, and was thumbed to pieces on 
the bench of the Artisan ; we hear of grave 
men ranking it only next to the Bible. Neither, 
as we said, was its popularity confined to 
home; Translations ere long appeared in 
French, Italian, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Eng- 
lish :* nor was that same stall-honour, which 
has been reckoned the truest literary celebrity, 
refused it here ; perhaps many a reader of 
these pages may, like the writer of them, re- 
collect the hours, when, hidden from unfeeling 
gaze of pedagogue, he swallowed The most 
pleasant and delightful History of Renard the Fox, 
like stolen waters, with a timorous joy. 

So much for the outward fortunes of this 
remarkable Book. It comes, before us with 
a character such as can belong only to a very 
few ; that of being a true world's-Book, which 
through centuries was everywhere at home, 
the spirit of which diff'used itself into all lan- 
guages and all minds. These quaint J3sopic 
figures have painted themselves in innumera- 
ble heads ; that rough, deep-lying humour has 
been the laughter of many generations. So 
that, at worst, we must regard this Reinecke as 
an ancient Idol, once worshipped, and still in- 
teresting for that circumstance, were the sculp- 
ture never so rude. We can love it, moreover, 
as being indigenous, wholly of our own crea- 
tion : it sprang up from European sense and 
character, and was a faithful type and organ 
of these. 

But independently of all extrinsic considera- 
tions, this Fable of Reinecke may challenge a 
judgment on its own merits. Cunningly con- 
structed, and not without a true poetic life, we 
must admit it to be : great power of concep- 
tion and invention, great pictorial fidelity, a 
M'arm, sunny tone of colouring, are manifest 
enough. It is full of broad, rustic mirth ; in- 
exhaustible in comic devices ; a World-Satur- 
nalia, where Wolves tonsured into Monks, and 



dedicating it to the Emperor, with doleful complaints, 
fruitles.s or not is unknown. For now poor Hartmann, 
no lonser an AutobioL'raphcr, quite vanishes, and we 
can understand only that be laid his wearied back one 
day in a most still bed, where the blanket of the Night 

softly enwrapped liim and all his woes. His Book is 

entitled Opu.^ poetktnn dr. adiniruhili FaUucia et Astutid, 
Viitperidcr Hehirkes, See. Sir. ; and in the Dedication and 
Preface contains all these details. 

* Besides Ca.xton's oriirinal, of which little is known 
anions us but the name, we have two versions ; one in 
1667, "with excellent Morals and Expositions," which 
was reprinted in 16SI, and followed in 168'1 by a con- 
tinuation, called the Shifts of Reijnnrd'.n'. the Son of Rey- 
Tinrd, of English growtli ; auolher in 17(18, slightly alter- 
ed from the former, explaining what appears doulitfiil or 
allegorical; "it being uriL'inally written," says the 
brave edilor elsewhere, "by an eminent Statesman of 
tlie Oerman Empire, to show some Men their Follies, 
and correct the Vices of the Times he lived in." Not 
only Reynardine but a second Appendix, Cawood the Rook, 
appears here ; also there are "curious Devices, or Pic- 
tures." — Of editions "printed for the Flying-Slation- 
ors," we say nothing. 



280 



CARLYLE'S MISCELI,ANEOUS WRITINGS. 



nigh starved by short commons, Foxes pilgrim- 
ing to Rome for absolution, Cocl^s pleading 
at the judgment-bar, make strange mummery. 
Nor is this wild Parody of Human Life with- 
out its meaning and moral: it is an Air-pa- 
geant from Fancy's Dream-grotto, yet Wis- 
dom lurks in it; as we gaze, the vision be- 
comes poetic and prophetic. A true Irony 
mus! have dwelt in the Poet's heart and head ; 
here, under grotesque shadows, he gives us 
the saddest picture of Reality; yet for us with- 
out sadness ; his figures mask themselves in 
uncouth, bestial vizards, and enact, gambol- 
ing: their Tragedy dissolves into sardonic 
grins. He has a deep, heartfelt Humour, 
sporting with the world and its evils in kind 
mockery : this is the poetic soul, round which 
the outward material has fashioned itself into 
living coherence. And so, in that rude old 
Apologue, we have still a mirror, though now 
tarnished and time-worn, of true magic reality ; 
and can discern there, in cunning reflex, some 
image both of our destiny and of our duty: 
for now, as then, " Prudence is the only virtue 
sure of its reward," and cunning triumphs 
■where Honesty is worsted; and now, as then, 
it is the -wise man's part to know this, and 
cheerfully look for it, and cheerfully defy it : 

Ut vulpis adulatio 

Here through his own world moveth, 
Sic hominis et ratio 

Most V\ke to Reynard's proveth.* 

If Reinccke is nowise a perfect Comic Epos, it 
has various features of such, and, above all, a 
genuine Epic spirit, which is the rarest fea- 
ture. 

Of the Fable, and its incidents and struc- 
ture, it is perhaps superfluous to ofl^er any 
sketch ; to most readers the whole may be al- 
ready familiar. How Noble, King of the 
Beasts, holdmg a solemn Court, one Whitsun- 
tide, is deafened on all hands with complaints 
against Reinecke ; Hinze the Cat, Lampe the 
Hare, Isegrim the Wolf, with innumerable 
others, having suflered from his villany, Ise- 
grim especially, in a point which most keenly 
touches honour; nay. Chanticleer the Cock, 
(Henning de Bane,) amid bitterest wail, appear- 
ing even with the corpus delicti, iht body of one 
of his children, whom that arch-knave has fe- 
loniously murdered with intent to eat. How 
his indignant Majesty thereupon despatches 
Bruin the Bear to cite the delinquent in the 
King's name; how Bruin, inveigled into a Ho- 
ney-Expedition, returns without his errand, 
without his ears, almost without his life; Hinze 
the Cat, in a subsequent expedition, faring no 
belter. How at last Reinecke, that he may 
not have to stand actual siege in his fortress 
of Malaperlus, does appear for trial, and is 
about to be hanged, but on the gallows-ladder 
makes a speech unrivalled in forensic elo- 
quence, and saves his life; nay, having inci- 
dentally hinted at some Treasures, the hiding- 
place of which is well known to him, rises 
into high favour; is permitted to depart on 
that pious pilgrimage to Rome he has so much 

* Ut vulpis adzilatio 

JVii in de irertde blikket : 
Sic hominis et ratio 

Oelyk dem Fos siti shikket.— Motto to Reinecke. 



at heart, and furnished even with shoes, cut 
from the living hides of Isegrim and Isegrim's 
much-injured spouse, his worst enemies. How, 
the Treasures not making their appearance, 
but only new misdeeds, he is again haled to 
judgment; again glozes the general ear with 
sweetest speeches; at length, being challenged 
to it, fights Isegrim in knightly tourney, and by 
the cunningest, though ihe most unchivalrous 
method, not to be farther specified in polite 
writing, carries off" a complete victory; and 
having thus, by wager of battle, manifested his 
innocence, is overloaded with royal favour; 
created Chancellor, and Pilot to weather the 
Storm ; and so, in universal honour and au- 
thority, reaps the fair fruit of his gifts and la- 
bours. 

Whereljy shall each to wisdom turn. 
Evil eschew, and virtue learn, 
Therefore was this same story wrote. 
That is its aim, and other not. 
This Book for little price is sold. 
But image clear of world doth hold ; 
Whoso into the world would look, 
IMy counsel is, — he buy this book. 
So endeth Reynard's Fox's story: 
God help us all to heavenly glory! 

It has been objected that the animals in Rie~ 
necke are not Animals, but Men disguised; to 
which objection, except in so far as grounded 
on the necessary indubitable fact that this is 
an Apologue or emblematic Fable, and no 
Chapter of Natural History, we cannot in any 
considerable degree accede. Nay, that very 
contrast between Object and Effort, where the 
Passions of men develope themselves on the 
Interests of animals, and the whole is hud- 
dled together in chaotic mockery, is a main 
charm of the picture. For the rest, we should 
rather say, these bestial characters were mo- 
derately well' sustained : the vehement, futile 
vociferation of Chanticleer ; the hysterical 
promptitude, and earnest profession and pro- 
testation of poor Lampe the Hare; the thick- 
headed ferocity of Isegrim ; the sluggish, glut- 
tonous opacity of Bruin; above all, the craft, 
the tact, and inexhaustible knavish adroitness 
of Reinecke himself, are in strict accuracy of 
costume. Often also their situations and oc- 
cupations are bestial enough. What quan- 
tities of bacon and other provant do Isegrim 
and Reinecke forage; Reinecke contributing 
the scheme, — for the two were then in partner- 
ship, — and Isegrim paying the shot in broken 
bones ! What more characteristic than the 
fate of Bruin, when, ill-counselled, he intro- 
duces his stupid head into RustefiU's half-split 
log, has the wedges whisked away, and stands 
clutched there, as in a vice, and uselessly 
roaring, disappointed of honey, sure only of a 
beating without parallel! Not to forget the 
Mare, whom, addressing her by the title of 
Good-wife, with all politeness, Isegrim, sore- 
pinched with hunger, asks whether she will 
sell her foal : she answers, that ihe price is 
written on her hinder hoof; which document 
the intending purchaser, being " an Erfurt 
graduate," declares his full ability to read; 
but finds there no writing, or print, save only 
the print of six horsenails on his own mauled 
visage. And abundance of the like ; sufficient 



EARLY GERMAN LITERATURE. 



281 



to excuse our old Epos on this head, or altoge- 
ther justify it. Another objection, that, namely, 
which points to the great, and excessive coarse- 
ness of the work, here and there, it cannot so 
readily turn aside; being indeed rude, old- 
fashioned, and homespun, apt even to draggle 
in the mire: neither are its occasional dulness 
and tediousness to be denied ; but only to be 
set against its frequent terseness and strength, 
and pardoned as the product of poor huma- 
nity, from whose hands nothing, not even a 
Reinckc dc Fos, comes perfect. 

He who would read, and still understand 
this old Apologue, must apply to Goethe, 
whose version, for poetical use, we have 
found infinitely the best ; like some copy of 
an ancient, bedimmed, half-obliterated wood- 
cut, but new-done on steel, on India-paper, 
and with all manner of graceful, yet appro- 
priate appendages.- Nevertheless, the old 
Low-German original has also a certain 
charm, and, simply as the original, would 
claim some notice. It is reckoned greatly the 
best performance that was ever brought out 
in that dialect; interesting, moreover, in a 
philological point of view, especially to us 
English ; being properly the language of our 
old Saxon Fatherland ; and still curiously like 
our own, though the two, for some twelve cen- 
turies, have had no brotherly communication. 
One short specimen, with the most verbal 
translation, we shall here insert, and then 
have done with Reineckc : 

" Ue Greving was Reinken broder's sone, 
The Badger was Reijike's brother's son, 
De sprak do, un was s6r kone. 
He spake there, and was (sore) very (keen) bold. 
He forantworde in dem Hove den Fos, 
He (for-answered) defended in the Court the fox, 
De dog was ser falsh un 16s. 
That (though) yet was very false and loose. 
He sprak to deme Wulve also fdrd : 
He spake to the Wolf so forth : 
Here Isegriin, it is ein 61dspraken word, 
Master Iseg-rim, it is an old-spoken word, 
Des fyendes mund sliafle, selden lV6m ! 
The (fends) enemi/s mouth (shapeth) bringeth sel- 
dom advantage ! 
So do ji 6k by Reinken, niimen 6m. 
So do ye (eke) too by Reinke, mine (erne) uncle. 
Were he so wol alse ji hyre to Hove, 
Were he as well as ye here at Court, 
Un stunde he also in des Knninge's love, 
vflnrf stood he so in the King's favottr, 
Here Isegrini, alse ji d6t, 
Master Isegrim, as ye do. 
It sholde Jn nigt diinken g6d, 
It should you not (think) seem good, 
Dat ji en hyr alsus forspraken 
That ye him here so furspake 
Un de 6lden sliikke hyr f6rra.ken. 
.Snd the old tricks here forth-raked. 
Men dit kwerde, dat ji Reinken hilvven ged^n, 
But the ill that ye Reinke have done, 
Dat late ji al agler stan. 
That let ye all (after stand) stand by. 
It is nog etliken heren wol kiind, 
It is yet to some gentlemen well known, 
Woji mid Reinken nialcen den Orbinid, 
How ye with Rienke made (bond) alliance, 
Un woldeii waren twe like L'sspIIhii; 
.Snd would he two (like) equal partners ; 
Dat mnk Ik dirren ht-ren fcria.len. 
That mote I these gentlemen forth-tell. 
Wentp Reinke, myn 6rn, in winiersudd, 
Since Reinke, mine uncle, in winter' s-need, 
36 



Umme Tspffrim's willen, fylna was d6d. 

For Isegrim's (will) sake, full-nigh was dead. 

Wentp it geshang dat ein kwani gef:iren, 

Fur it chanced that one came (faring) driving, 

De haride aroite fishe up eiier karen: 

Who had many fshes upon a car: 

Iseirriin hadiie geren der fishe gehaled, 

Isegrim had fain the fishes (have haled) have got, 

Men he hadde nigt, darniid se worden belaled. 

But he had not wherewith they should be (betold) paid- 

Hp br.Tirte iiiinen 6:n in de ffrole ii6!i. 

He bro2tfrht mine uncle into great (need) straits, 

Vm siiien wiUen eins; he liuseti for ddd. 

For his sake went he to (lig) lie for dead, 

Rpit in den va Se, un stund iiventur. 

Right in the way, and stood (adventure) chance. 

Market, worden em ok de fishe sur ■? 

Mark, were him eke the fishes (soar) dear-bought 7 

Do jpnne ri id der kare scfHren kwam 

niien (yonder) he with the ear driving came 

Tin niinen om dar?ulvest fornein, 

.4nd mine uncle (there-self) even there perceived, 

Hasiiffen ids he syn swerd un snel, 

Hastily (took) drew he his sword and (snell) quick, 

Un wolde mineme ouie torriiken en fel. 

jind woxdd my uncle (tatter in fell) tear in pieces. 

Men he ro.'ede sik nict kl6n no2 grot : 

But he stirred himself not (little nor great) more or 

less ; 
Do nifende he dat he were d6d ; 
Then (meaned) thought he that he icas dead; 
He lade on up de kar, uiid dayte on to fillen, 
He laid him upon the car, and thought him to skin, 
Dat wagede he all dorg Isesriin's willen ! 
That risked he all through Isegrim's will I 
Do he fordan begunde to faren. 
When he forth-on began to fare, 
Wiirp Reinke etlike fishe fan der karen, 
Cast Reinke some fishes from the car. 
Tsegrim fan feme agteona kwam 
Isegrim from afar after came 
Un derre fishe al to sik nam. 
.^nd these fishes all to himself took. 
Reinke sprang wedder fan der karen ; 
Reinke sprang again from the car ; 
Em liistede to nigt liinger to faren. 
Him listed not longer to fare. 
He had'le ok g§rne der fishe begerd. 
He (had) would have also fain of the fishes required. 
Men Isegrim hadde se alle fortdrd. 
But Isegrim had them all consumed. 
He hadde getan dat he wolde barsten, 
He had eaten so that he would burst, 
lln nioste darunnne gen torn arsten. 
.^nd must thereby go to the doctor. 
Do Isegrini der graden nist en mogte, 
Jls Isegrim the fish-bones not liked, 
Der siilven he em ein weinig brogte. 
Of these same he him a little brought. 

Whereby it would appear, if we are to be- 
lieve Grimbart the Badger, that Reinecke was 
not only the cheater in this case, but also the 
cheatee ; however, he makes matters straight 
again in that other noted fish expedition, where 
Isegrim minded not to steal but to catch fish, 
and having no fishing-tackle, by Reinecke's 
advice, inserts his tail into the lake, in winter- 
season ; but before the promised string of 
trouts, all hooked to one another, and to him, 
will bite, is frozen in, and left there to his own 
bitter meditations. 



We here take leave of Reineke de Fos, and 
of the whole JCsopic genus, of which it is al- 
most the last, and by far the most remarkable 
example. The Age of Apologue, like that of 
Chivalry and Love-singing, is gone; for no- 
thing in this Earth has continuance. If we 
2 A 3 



282 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ask, where are now our People's Books 1 the 
answer might give room for reflections. Hin- 
rek van Alkmer has passed away, and Dr. 
Birkbeck has risen in his room. What good 
and evil lie in that little sentence ! — But doubt- 
less the day is coming when what is wanting 
here will be supplied ; when as the Logical, 
so likewise the Poetical susceptibility and fa- 
culty of the people, — their Fancy, Humour, 
Imagination, wherein lie the main elements 
of spiritual life, — will no longer be left uncul- 
tivated, barren, or bearing only spontaneous 
thistles, but in new and finer harmony, with 
an improved Understanding, will flourish in 
new vigour ; and in our inward world there 



will again be a sunny Firmament and verdant 
Earth, as well as a Pantry and culinary Fire; 
and men will learn not only to recapitulate 
and compute, but to worship, to love ; in tears 
or in laughter, hold mystical as well as logical 
communion with the high and the low of this 
wondrous Universe ; and read, as they should 
liv^e, with their whole being. Of which glorious 
consummation there is at all times, seeing 
these endowments are indestructible, nay, es- 
sentially supreme, in man, the firmest ulterior 
certainty, but, for the present, only faint pros- 
pects and far-off" indications. Time brings 
Roses ! 



TAYLOE'S HISTORIC SURVEY OE GERMAN 

POETRY.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



Gehmax Literature has now for upwards 
of half a century been making some M-ay in 
England; yet by no means at a constant rale, 
rather in capricious flux and reflux, — deluge 
alternating with desiccation : never would it 
assume such moderate, reasonable currency, 
as promised to be useful and lasting. The 
history of its progress here would illustrate 
the progress of more important things ; would 
again exemplify what obstacles a new spiritual 
object, with its mixture of truth and of false- 
hood, has to encounter from unwise enemies, 
still more from unwise friends ; how dross is 
mistaken for metal, and common ashes are so- 
lemnly labelled as fell poison ; how long, in 
such cases, blind Passion must vociferate be- 
fore she can awaken Judgment ; in short, with 
what tumult, vicissitude, and protracted dilfi- 
cultv, a foreign doctrine adjusts and locates 
itself among the homeborn. Perfect ignorance 
is quiet, perfect knowledge is quiet; not so the 
transition from the former to the latter. In a 
vague, all-exaggerating twilight of wonder, 
the new has to fight its battle with the old ; 
Hope has to settle accounts with Fear : thus 
the scales strangely waver; public opinion, 
which is as yet baseless, fluctuates without 
limit; periods of foolish admiration and fool- 
ish execration must elapse, before that of true 
inquiry and zeal according to knowledge can 
begin. 

Thirty years ago, for example, a person of 
influence and understanding thought good to 
emit such a proclamation as the following : 
"Those ladies, who take the lead in society, 
are loudly called upon to act as guardians of 
the public taste as well as of the public virtue. 
They are called upon, therefore, to oppose, 
with the whole weight of their influence, the 



♦ Historic Survey of German Poetry, interspersed 
with various Translations. By W. Taylor, of Norwich. 
S vots. 8vo, London, 1830. 



irruption of those swarms of Publications 
now daily issuing from the banks of the Da- 
nube, which, like their ravaging predecessors 
of the darker ages, though with far other and 
more fatal arras, are overrunning civilized so- 
ciety. Those readers, whose purer taste has 
been formed on the correct models of the old 
classic school, see with indignation and asto- 
nishment the Huns and Vandals once more 
overpowering the Greeks and Romans. They 
behold our minds, with a retrograde but rapid 
motion, hurried back to the reign of Chaos 
and old Night, by distorted and unprincipled 
Compositions, which, in spite of strong flashes 
of genius, unite the taste of the Goths with 
the morals of Bagshot." — " The newspapers 
announce that Schiller's Tragedy of the Robbers, 
which inflamed the young nobility of Ger- 
many to enlist themselves into a band of high- 
waymen, to rob in the forests of Bohemia, is 
now acting in England by persons of qua- 
lity!"* 

Whether our fair Amazons, at sound of this 
alarm-trumpet, drew up in array of war to dis- 
comfit those invading Compositions, and snuif 
out the lights of that questionable private 
theatre, we have not learned; and see only 
that, if so, their campaign was fruitless and 
needless. Like the old Northern Immigrators, 
those new Paper Goths marched on resistless 
whither they were bound ; some to honour, 
some to dishonour, the most to oblivion and 
the impalpable inane; and no weapon or 
artillery, not even the glances of bright eyes, 
but only the omnipotence of Time, could tame 
and assort them. Thus, Kolzebue's truculent 
armaments, once so threatening, all turned 
out to be mere Fantasms and Night appari- 
tions ; and so rushed onwards, like some 
Spectre Hunt, with loud howls indeed, yet 

* Stinctures on the Modern System of Female Education, 
' By Hannah More. The Eighth Edition, p. 41. 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY. 



283 



hurrying nothing into chaos but themselves. 
While again, Schiller's Tragedy of the Robbers, 
which did not inflame either the young or the 
old nobility of Germany to rob in the forests of 
Bohemia, or indeed to do any thing, except per- 
haps yawn a little less, proved equally innocu- 
ous in England, and might still be acted without 
off'ence, could living individuals, idle enough 
for that end, be met with here. Nay, this same 
Schiller, not indeed by Robbers, yet by IVallen- 
steins, by Maids of Orleans, and Wilhelm Tells, 
has actually conquered for himself a fixed 
dominion among us, which is yearly widening; 
round which other German kings, of less in- 
trinsic prowess, and of greater, are likewise 
erecting thrones. And yet, as we perceive, 
civilized society still stands in its place; and 
the public taste, as well as the public virtue, 
live on, though languidh', as before. For, in 
fine, it has become manifest that the old Cim- 
merian forest is now quite felled and tilled; 
that the true Children of Night, whom we have 
to dread, dwell not on the banks of the Danube, 
but nearer hand. 

Could we take our progress in knowledge 
of German Literature since that diatribe was 
written, as any measure of our progress in the 
science of Criticism, above all in the grand 
science of national Tolerance, there were some 
reason for satisfaction. With regard to Ger- 
many itself, whether we yet stand on the right 
footing, and know at last how we are to live 
in profitable neighbourhood and intercourse 
M'ith that country; or whether the present is 
but one of those capricious tides, which also 
will have its reflux, may seem doubtful: 
meanwhile, clearly enough, a rapidly growing 
favour for German Literature comes to light; 
which favour too is the more hopeful, as it 
now grounds itself on better knowledge, on 
direct study and judgment. Our knowledge is 
better, if only because more general. Within 
the last ten years, independent readers of Ger- 
man have multiplied perhaps a hundred fold; 
so that now this acquirement is almost ex- 
pected as a natural item in liberal education. 
Hence, in a great number of minds, some im- 
mediate personal insight into the deeper sig- 
nificance of German Intellect and Art; — 
everywhere, at least a feeling that it has some 
such significance. With independent readers, 
moreover, the writer ceases to be independent, 
which of itself is a considerable step. Our 
British Translators, for instance, have long 
been unparalleled in modern literature, and, 
like their country, "the envy of surrounding 
nations:" but now there are symptoms that, 
even in the remote German province, they 
must no longer range quite at will; that the 
butchering of a Fuvsl will henceforth be 
accounted literary homicide, and practitioners 
of that quality must operate cm the dead sub- 
ject only. While there are Klingemanns and 
Claurens in such abundance, let no merely 
ambitious, or merely hungry Interpreter, fasten 
on Goethes and Schillers. Remark, too, with 
satisfaction, how the old established British 
Critic now feels that it has become unsafe 
to speak delirium on this subject; wherefore 
he prudently restricts himself to one of two 
courses : either to acquire some understanding 



of it, or, which is the still surer course, alto- 
gether to hold his peace. Hence freedom from 
much babble that was wont to be oppressive: 
probably no watchhorn with such a note as 
that of Mrs. More's can again be sounded, by 
male or female Dogberry, in these Islands. 
Again, there is no one of our younger, more 
vigorous Periodicals, but has its German 
craftsman, gleaning what he can : we have 
seen Jean Paul quoted in English Newspapers. 
Nor, among the signs of improvement, at least 
of extended curiosity, let us omit our British 
Foreign Reviews, a sort of merchantmen that 
regularly visit the Continental, especially the 
German ports, and bring back such ware as 
luck yields them, with the hope of better. 
Last, not least among our evidences of Philo- 
Germanism, here is a whole Historic Survey of 
German Poetry, in three sufficient octavos ; and 
this not merely in the eulogistic and recom- 
mendatory vein, but proceedmg in the way of 
criticism, and indifferent, impartial narrative : 
a man of known character, of talent, experience, 
penetration, judges that the English public is 
prepared for such a service, and likely to re- 
ward it. 

These are appearances, which, as advocates 
for the friendly approximation of all men and 
all peoples, and the readiest possible inter- 
change of whatever each produces of advan- 
tage to the others, we must witness gladly. 
Free Literary intercourse with other nations, 
what is it but an extended Freedom of the 
Press ; a liberty to read (in spite of Ignorance, 
of Prejudice, which is the worst of Censors) 
what our foreign teachers also have printed for 
us 1 — ultimately, therefore, a liberty to speak 
and to hear, were it with men of all countries 
and of all times ; to use, in utmost compass, 
those precious natural organs, by which not 
Knowledge only but mutual Affection is chiefly 
generated among mankind ! It is a natural 
wish in man to know his fellow-passengers in 
this Strange Ship, or Planet, on this strange 
Life-voyage : neither need his curiosity re- 
strict itself to the cabin where he himself 
chances to lodge ; but may extend to all acces- 
sible departments of the vessel. In all he 
will find mysterious beings, of Wants and 
Endeavours like his own ; in all he will find 
Men ; with these let him comfort and mani- 
foldly instruct himself. As to German Litera- 
ture, in particular, which professes to be not 
only new, but original, and rich in curious in- 
formation for us; which claims, moreover, 
nothing that we have not granted to the French, 
Italian, Spanish, and in a less degree to far 
meaner literatures, we are gratified to see that 
such claims can no longer be resisted. In the 
present fallow slate of our English Literature, 
when no Poet cultivates his own poetic field, 
but all are harnessed into Editorial teams, and 
ploughing in concert, for Useful Knowledge, 
or Bibliopolic Profit, we regard this renewal 
of our intercourse with poetic Germany, after 
twenty years of languor or suspension, as 
among the most remarkable and even promis- 
ing features of our recent intellectual history. 
In the absence of better tendencies, let this, 
which is no idle, but, in some points of view, 
a deep and earnest one, be encouraged. For 



284 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ourselves, in the midst of so many louder and 
more exciting interests, we feel it a kind of 
duty to cast some glances now and then on 
this little stiller interest; since the matter is 
once for all to be inquired into, sound notions 
on it should be furthered, unsound ones can- 
not be too speedily corrected. It is on such 
grounds that we have taken up this Historic 
Survey. 

Mr. Taylor is so considerable a person, that 
no Book deliberately published by him, on any 
subject, can be without weight. On German 
Poetry, such is the actual stale of public in- 
formation and curiosity, his guidance will be 
sure to lead or mislead a numerous class of 
inquirers. We are therefore called on to ex- 
amine him with more than usual strictness 
and minuteness. The Press, in these times, 
has become so active; Literature — what is still 
called Literature — has so dilated in volume, 
and diminished in density, that the very Re- 
viewer feels at a nonplus, and has ceased to 
review. Why thoughtfully examine what was 
written without thought; or note faults and 
merits, where there is neither fault nor merit? 
From a Nonentity, imbodied, with innocent 
deception, into foolscap and printer's ink, and 
named Book; from the common wind of Talk, 
even when it is conserved by such mechanism, 
for days, in the shape of Froth, — how shall 
the hapless Reviewer filter aught in that once 
so profitable colander of his 1 He has ceased, 
as we said, to attempt the impossible, — cannot 
review, but only discourse; he dismisses his 
too unproductive Author, generally with civil 
words, not to quarrel needlessly with a fellow- 
creature ; and must try, as he best may, to grind 
from his own poor garner. Authors long 
looked with an evil, envious eye on the Re- 
viewer, strove often to blow out his light, 
which only burnt the clearer for such blasts; 
but now, cunningly altering their tactics, they 
have extinguished it by want of oil. Unless 
for some unforeseen change of affairs, or some 
new-contrived machinery, of which there is 
yet no trace, the trade of Reviewer is well nigh 
done. 

The happier are we that Mr. Taylor's Book 
is of the old stamp, and has substance in it for 
our uses. If no honour, there will be no dis- 
grace, in having carefully examined it; which 
service, indeed, is due to our readers, not with- 
out curiosity in this matter, as well as to the 
Author. In so far as he seems a safe guide, 
and brings true tidings from the promised land, 
let us proclaim that fact, and recommend him 
to all pilgrims: if, on the other hand, his tidings 
are false, let us hasten to make this also known ; 
that the German Canaan suffer not, in the eyes 
of the fainthearted, by spurious samples of its 
produce and reports of bloodthirsty sons of 
Anak dwelling there, which this harbinger and 
spy brings out of it. In either case, Ave may 
hope, our Author, who loves the Germans in 
his way, and would have his countrymen 
brought into closer acquaintance with them, 
will feel that, in purpose at least, we are co- 
operating with him. 

First, then, be it admitted without hesitation, 
that Mr. Taylor, in respect of general talent 
and acquirement, takes his place above all our 



expositors of German things; that his book is 
greatly the most important we yet have on this 
subject. Here are upwards of fourteen hun- 
dred solid pages of commentary, narrative, and 
translation, submitted to the English reader; 
numerous statements and personages, hitherto 
unheard of, or vaguely heard of, stand here in 
fixed shape; there is, if no map of intellectual 
Germany, some first attempt at such. Farther, 
we are to state that our author is a zealous, 
earnest man; no hollow dilettante hunting 
after shadows, and prating he knows not what; 
but a substantial, distinct, remarkably decisive 
man; has his own opinion on many subjects, 
andean express it adequately. We should say, 
precision of idea was a striking quality of his : 
no vague transcendentalism, or mysticism of 
any kind ; nothing but what is measurable and 
tangible, and has a meaning which he that 
runs may read, is to be apprehended here. He 
is a man of much classical and other reading; 
of much singular reflection ; stands on his own 
basis, quiescent yet immovable : a certain 
rugged vigour of natural power, interesting 
even in its distortions, is everywhere manifest. 
Lastly, we venture to assign him the rare merit 
of honesty: he speaks out in plain English 
what is in him ; seems heartily convinced of 
his own doctrines, and preaches them because 
they are his own ; not for the sake of sale, but 
of truth; at worst, for the sake of making 
proselytes. 

On the strength of which properties, we 
reckon that this Historic Survey may, under 
certain conditions, be useful and acceptable to 
two classes. First, to incipient students of 
German Literature in the original ; who in any 
History of their subject, even in a bare cata- 
logue, will find help ; though for that class, 
unfortunately, Mr. Taylor's help is much di- 
minished in value by several circumstances;, 
by this one, were there no other, that he no- 
where cites any authority : the path he has 
opened may be the true or the false one ; for 
farther researches and lateral surveys there is 
no direction or indication. But, secondly, we 
reckon that this Book may be welcome to many 
of the much larger miscellaneous class, who 
read less for any specific object than for the 
sake of reading; to whom any book, that will, 
either in the way of contradiction or of con- 
firmation, by new wisdom, or new perversion 
of wisdom, stir up the stagnant inner man, is 
a windfall ; the rather if it bring some historic 
tidings also, fit for remembering, and repeat- 
ing; above all, if, as in this case, the style, 
with many singularities, have some striking 
merits, and so the book be a light exercise, 
even an entertainment. 

To such praise and utility the work is just- 
ly entitled ; but this is not all it pretends to ; and 
more cannot without many limitations be con- 
ceded it. Unluckily the Historic Survey is not 
what it should be, but only what it would be. 
Our Author hastens to correct in his Preface 
any false hopes his Titlepage may have ex- 
cited: "A complete History of German Poe- 
try," it seems, "is hardly within reach of his 
local command of library: so comprehensive 
an undertaking would require another resi- 
dence in a country from which he has now been 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY. 



285 



separated more than forty years ;" and which 
various considerations render it unadvisa'de 
to revisit. Nevertheless, "having long been 
in the practice of importing the productions 
of its fine literature," and of working in that 
material, as critic, biographer, and translator, 
for mi^re than one " periodic publication of this 
country," he has now composed " introductory 
and connective sections," filled up deficiencies, 
retrenched superfluities ; and so,colleciingand 
remodelling those "successive contributions," 
cements them together into the " new and entire 
■work" here offered to the public. " With frag- 
ments," he concludes, "long since hewn, as it 
were, and sculptured, lattempt to construct an 
English Temple of Fame to the memory of 
those German Poets." 

There is no doubt but a Complete History 
of German Poetry exceeds any local or uni- 
versal command of books which a British 
man can at this day enjoy; and, farther, pre- 
sents obstacles of an infinitely more serious 
character than this. A History of German, or 
of any national Poetry, would form, taken in 
its complete sense, one of the most arduous 
enterprises any writer could engage in. Poetry, 
■were it the rudest, so it be sincere, is the at- 
tempt which man makes to render his exist- 
ence harmonious, the utmost he can do for that 
end : it springs therefore from his whole feel- 
ings, opinions, activity, and takes its character 
from these. It may be called the music of his 
■whole manner of being; and, historically con- 
sidered, is the test how far Music, or Freedom, 
existed therein; how far the feeling of Love, 
of Beauty, and Dignity, could be elicited from 
that peculiar situation of his, and from the 
views he there had of Life and Nature, of the 
Universe, internal and external. Hence, in 
any measure to understand the Poetry, to esti- 
mate its worth, and historical meaning, we 
ask as a quite fundamental inquiry: What 
that situation was 1 Thus the History of a 
nation's Poetry is the essence of its History, 
political, economic, scientific, religious. With 
all these the complete Historian of a national 
Poetry will be familiar; the national physiog- 
nomy, in its finest traits, and through its suc- 
cessive stages of growth, will be clear to him: 
he will di^cern the grand spiritual Tendency 
of each period, what was the highest Aim and 
Enthusiasm of mankind in each, and how one 
epoch naturally evolved itself from the other. 
He has to record this highest Aim of a nation, 
in its successive directions and developments ; 
for by this the Poetry of the nation modulates 
itself this i^• the Poetry of the nation. 

Such were the primary essence of a true 
History of Poetry ; the living principle round 
which all detached facts and phenomena, all 
separate characters of Poems and Poets, 
would fashion themselves into a coherent 
whole, if they are by any means to cohere. 
To accomplish such a work for any Literature 
would require not only all outward aids, but an 
excellent inward faculty: all telescopes and 
observatories were of no avail, without the 
seeing eye and the understanding heart. 

Doubtless, as mat'ers stand, such models re- 
main in ureat part ideal ; ibe stinted result of 
actual practice must not be too rigidly tried by 



them. In our language, we have yet no ex- 
ample of such a performance. Neither else- 
where, except perhaps in the well-meant, but 
altogether ineffectual, attempt of Denina, 
among the Italians, and in some detached, 
though far more successful, sketches by Ger- 
man writers, is there any that we know of. 
To expect an English History of German Li- 
terature in this style were especially unrea- 
sonable ; where not only the man to write 
it, but the people to read and enjoy it, are 
wanting. Some Hislonc Siaveij, wherein such 
an ideal standard, if not attained, if not ap- 
proached, might be faithfully kept in view, and 
endeavoured after, would suffice us. Neither 
need such a Survey, even as a British Survey- 
or might execute it, be deficient in striking ob- 
jects, and views of a general interest. There 
is the spectacle of a great people, closely re- 
lated to us in blood, language, character, ad- 
vancing through fifteen centuries of culture ; 
with the eras and changes that have distin- 
guished the like career in other nations. Nay, 
perhaps, the intellectual history of the Ger- 
mans is not without peculiar attraction, on two 
grounds : first, that they are a separate unmix- 
ed people; that in them one of the two grand 
stem-tribes, from which all modern European 
countries derive their population and speech, 
is seen growing up distinct, and in several 
particulars following its own course; second- 
ly, that by accident and by desert, the Ger- 
mans have more than once been found playing 
the highest part in European culture ; at more 
than one era the grand Tendencies of Europe 
have first imbodied themselves into action in 
Germany, the main battle between the New 
and the Old has been fought and gained there. 
We mention only the Swiss Revolt, and Lu- 
ther's Reformation. The Germans have not 
indeed so many classical works to exhibit as 
some other nations ; a Shakspeare, a Dante, 
has not yet been recognised among them; 
nevertheless, they too have had their 'J'eachers 
and inspired Singers ; and in regard to popu- 
lar Mythology, traditionary possessions and 
spirit, what we may call the inarticuLde Poetry 
of a nation, and what is the element of its 
spoken or written Poetry, they will be found 
superior to any other modern people. 

The Historic Surveyor of German Poetry 
will observe a remarkable nation struggling 
out of Paganism ; fragments of that stern 
Superstition, saved fri>m the general wreck, 
and still, amid the new order of things, carry- 
ing back our view, in faint reflexes, into the 
dim primeval time. By slow degrees the chaos 
of the Northern Immigrations settles into a 
new and fairer world; arts advance; little by 
little, a fund of Knowledge, of Power over Na- 
ture, is accumulated for man ; feeble glimmer- 
ings, even of a his;her knowledge, of a poetic, 
break forth; till at length in the Sw ibiun Ern, 
as it is named, a blaze of true though simple 
Poetry bursts over Germany, more splendid, 
we might say, than the Troubndour Period of 
any other nation ; for that famous Nihelungen 
Song, prcduced, at least ultimately fashioned in 
those times, and still so significant in these, is 
altogether without parallel elsewhere. 

To this period, the essence of which was 



286 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



young Wonder, and an entliusiasm for which 
Chivalry was still the fit exponent, there suc- 
ceeds, as was natural, a period of Inquirj', a 
Didactic period ; wherein, among the Germans, 
as elsewhere, many a Hugo von Trimberg de- 
livers wise saws, and moral apothegms, to the 
genera] edification : later, a Town-clerk of 
Strasburg sees his Ship of fools translated into 
all living languages, twice into Latin, and read 
by Kings ; the Apologue of Reynard the Fox 
gathering itself together, from sources remote 
and near, assumes its Low-German vesture ; 
and becomes the darling of high and low, nay 
still lives with us, in rude genial vigour, as 
one of the most remarkable indigenous pro- 
ductions of the Middle Ages. Nor is acted 
poetry of this kind wanting; the Spirit of In- 
quiry translates itself into Deeds which are 
poetical, as well as into words: already at the 
opening of the fourteenth century, Germany 
witnesses the first assertion of political right, 
the first vindit ation of Man against Nobleman ; 
in the early history of the German Swiss. 
And again, two centuries later, the first asser- 
tion of intellectual right, the first vindication 
of Man against Clergyman; in the history of 
Luther's Reformation. Meanwhile the Press 
has begun its incalculable task ; the indige- 
nous Fiction of the Germans, what we have 
called their inarticulate Poetry, issues in in- 
numerable Volks-Buchci; (People's-Books,) the 
progeny and kindred of which still live in 
all European countries: the People have their 
Tragedy and their Comedy ; Tyll Euknspicgel 
shakes every diaphragm with laughter; the 
rudest heart quails with awe at the wild my- 
thus of Faust. 

With Luther, however, the Didactic Tenden- 
cy has reached its poetic acme ; and now we 
must see it assume a prosaic character, and 
Poetry for a long while decline. The Spirit 
of Inquiry, of Criticism, is pushed beyond the 
limits, or two exclusively cultivated : what had 
done so much, is capable of doing all; Under- 
standing is alone listened to, while Fancy and 
Imagination languish inactive, or are forcibly 
stifled; and all poetic culture gradually dies 
away. As if with the high resolute genius, 
and noble achievements, of its Luthers and 
Huttens, the genius of the country had ex- 
hausted itself, we behold generation after ge- 
neration of mere Prosaists succeed these high 
Psalmists. Science indeed advances, practi- 
cal manipulation in all kinds improves; Ger- 
many has its Copernics, Hevels, Guerickes, 
Keplers; later, a Leibnitz opens the path of 
true Logic, and teaches the mysteries of Fi- 
gure and Number: but the finer Education of 
mankind seems at a stand. Instead of Poetic 
recognition and worship, we have stolid Theo- 
logic controversy, or still shallower Freethink- 
ing; pedantry, servility, mode-hunting, every 
species of Idolatry and Affectation holds sway. 
The World has lost its beauty, Life its infinite 
majesty, as if the Author of it were no longer 
divine: instead of admiration and creation of 
the True, there is at best criticism and denial 
of the False; to Luther there has succeeded 
Thomasius. In this era, so unpoetical for all 
Europe, Germany torn in pieces by a Thirty 
Year's War, and its consequences, is pre-emi- 



nently prosaic ; its few Singers are feeble 
echoes of foreign models little better than 
themselves. No Shakspeare, no Milton ap- 
pears there ; such, indeed, would have appeared 
earlier, if at all, in the current of German his- 
tory ; but instead, they have only at best Opit- 
zes, Flemmings, Logans, as we had our Queen 
Anne Wits ; or, in their Lohensteines, Gryphs, 
Hoffmannswaldaus, though in inverse order, 
an unintentional parody of our Drydens and 
Lees. 

Nevertheless from every moral death there 
is a new birth; in this wondrous course of 
his, man may indeed linger but cannot retro- 
grade or stand still. In the middle of last 
century, from among the Parisian Erotics, 
rickety Sentimentalism, Court aperies, and 
hollow Dulness, striving in all hopeless 
courses, we behold the giant spirit of Ger- 
many awaken as from long slumber; shake 
away these worthless fetters, and by its Les- 
sings and Klopstocks, announce, in true Ger- 
man dialect, that the Germans also are men. 
Singular enough in its circumstances was 
this rescuscitation ; the work as of a " spirit 
on the waters," — a movement agitating the 
great popular mass; for it was favoured by 
no court or king: all sovereignties, even the 
pettiest, had abandoned their native Litera- 
ture, their native language, as if to irreclaim- 
able barbarism. The greatest King produced 
in Germany since Barbarossa's time, Frede- 
rick the Second, looked coldly on the native 
endeavour, and saw no hope but in aid from 
France. However, the native endeavour pros- 
pered without aid : Lessing's announcement 
did not die away with him, but took clearer 
utterance, and more inspired modulation from 
his followers ; in whose works it now speaks, 
not to Germany alone, but to the whole world. 
The results of this last Period of German 
Literature are of deep significance, the depth 
of which is perhaps but now becoming visi- 
ble. Here, too, it may be, as in other cases, 
the Want of the Age has first taken voice and 
shape in Germany; that change from Nega- 
tion to Affirmation, from Destruction to Re- 
construction, for which all thinkers in every 
country are now prepared, is perhaps already 
in action there. In the nobler Literature of 
the Germans, say some, lie the rudiments of a 
new spiritual era, which it is for this, and for 
succeeding generations to work out and realize. 
The ancient creative Inspiration, it would 
seem, is still possible in these ages; at a time 
when Skepticism, Frivolity, Sensuality, had 
withered Life into a sand desert, and our gay- 
est prospect was but the false mirage, and even 
our Byrons could utter but a death-song or de- 
spairing howl, the Moses'-wand has again 
smote from that Horeb refreshing streams, to- 
wards which the better spirits of all nations 
are hastening, if not to drink, yet wistfully and 
hopefully to examine. If the older Literary 
History of Germany has the common attrac- 
tions, which in a greater or a less degree be- 
long to the successive epochs of other such 
Histories; its newer Literature, and the histo- 
rical delineation of this, has an interest such 
as belongs to no other. 

It is somewhat in this way, as appears to, 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY. 



387 



us, that the growth of German Poetry must be 
construed and represented by the historian : 
these are the general phenomena and vicissi- 
tudes, which, if elucidated by proper indivi- 
dual instances, by specimens fitly chosen, pre- 
sented in natural sequence, and worked by 
philosophy into union, would make a valuable 
book; on any and all of which the observa- 
tions and researches of so able an inquirer as 
Mr. Taylor would have been welcome. Sorry 
are we to declare that of all this, which con- 
stitutes the essence of any thing calling itself 
Historic Surveij, there is scarcely a vestige in 
the book before us. The question. What is 
the German mind ; what is the culture of the 
German mind ; what course has Germany fol- 
lowed in that matter; what are its national 
characteristics as manifested therein ? appears 
not to have presented itself to the author's 
thought. No theorem of Germany and its in- 
tellectual progress, not even a false one, has 
he been at pains to construct for himself. We 
believe, it is impossible for the most assidu- 
ous reader to gather from these three Volumes 
any portraiture of the national mind of Ger- 
many, — not to say in its successive phases 
and the historical sequence of these, but in 
any one phase or condition. The work is 
made up of critical, biographical, bibliogra- 
phical dissertations, and notices concerning 
this and the other individual poet; inter- 
spersed with large masses of translation : and 
except that all these are strung together in the 
order of time, has no historical feature what- 
ever. Many literary lives as we read, the na- 
ture of literary life in Germany, — what sort 
of moral, economical, intellectual element it 
is that a German writer lives in and works 
in, — will nowhere manifest itself. Indeed, far 
from depicting Germany, scarcely on more 
than one or two occasions does our author 
even look at it, or so much as remind us that 
it were capable of being depicted. On these 
rare occasions, too, we were treated with such 
philosophic insight as the following: "The 
Germans are not an imitative, but they are a 
listening people: they can do nothing without 
directions, and any thing with them. As soon 
as Gottsched's rules for writing German cor- 
rectly had made their appearance, everybody 
began to write German." Or we have theo- 
retic hints, resting on no basis, about some 
new tribunal of taste which at one time had 
formed itself " in the mess-rooms of the Prus- 
sian officers !" 

In a word, the " connecting sections," or in- 
deed by what alchymy such a congeries could 
be connected into an Historic Survey, have not 
become plain to us. Considerable part of it 
consists of quite detached little Notices, mostly 
of altogether insignificant men ; heaped to- 
gether as separate fragments ; fit, had they 
been unexceptionable in other respects, for a 
Biographical Dictionary, but nowise for an Hit^- 
ioric Survey. Then we have dense masses of 
Translation, sometimes good, but seldom of 
the characteristic pieces ; an entire Iphis.cnia, 
an entire Nathan the Wise : nay worse, a Sequel 
to Nathan, which when we have conscien- 
tiously struggled to pursue, the Author turns 
round, without any apparent smile and tells 



us that it is by a nameless writer, and worth 
nothing. Not only Mr. Taylor's own Transla- 
tions, which are generally good, but contribu- 
tions from a whole body of labourers in that 
department, are given : for example, near 
sixty pages, very ill rendered by a Miss Plum- 
tre, of a Life of Kotzr.lme, concerning whom, or 
v,-hose life, death, or burial, there is now no 
curiosity extant among. men. If in that "Eng- 
lish Temple of Fame," with its hewn and 
sculptured stones, those Biographical-Diction- 
ary fragments and fractions are so much dry 
rtibble-(fork of whinstone, is not this quite des- 
picable Aiitobiop-aphy of Kolzebuc a rood or 
two of mere turf, which, as ready-cut, our ar- 
chitect, to make up measure, has packed in 
among his marble ashlar, whereby the whole 
wall will the sooner bulge ? But indeed, ge- 
nerally speaking, symmetry is not one of his- 
architectural rules. Thus, in volume First, 
we have a long story translated from a Ger- 
man Magazine, about certain antique Hyper- 
borean Baresarks, amusing enough, but with 
no more reference to Germany than to Eng- 
land ; while, in return, the Nibelnngen Lied is 
despatched in something less than one line, 
and comes no more to light. Tyll Eulenspie- 
gel, who was not an " anonymous Satire, enti- 
tled the Mirror of Otds," but a real flesh-and- 
blood hero of that name, whose tombstone is 
standing to this day near Lubeck, has some 
four lines for his share ; Reijicke de Vos about 
as many, which also are inaccurate. Again, 
if Wieland have his half-volume, and poor 
Ernest Schulze, poor Zacharias Werner, and 
numerous other poor men, each his chapter; 
Luther also has his two sentences, and is in 
these weighed against — Dr. Isaac Watts. Ul- 
rich Hutten does not occur here ; Hans Sachs 
and his Master-singers escape notice, or even 
do worse ; the poetry of the Reformation is 
not alluded to. Tlie name of Jean Paul 
Friedrich Richter appears not to be known to 
Mr. Taylor ; or if want of Rhyme was to be 
the test of a Prosaist, how comes Salomon 
Gesner here? Stranger still, Ludwig Tieck 
is not once mentioned; neither is Novalis ; 
neither is Maler Miiller. But why dwell on 
these omissions and commissions'? is not all 
included in this one well-nigh incredible fact, 
that one of the largest articles in the Book, a 
tenth part of the whole Historic Survey of Ger- 
man Poetry, treats of that delectable genius, 
August von Kotzebuel 

The truth is, this Historic Survey has not 
any thing historical in it; but is a mere aggre- 
gate of Dissertations, Translations, Notices, 
and Notes, bound together indeed by the cir- 
cumstance that they are all about German 
Poetry, "about it and about it;" also by the 
sequence of time, and still more strongly by 
the Bookbinder's packthread; but by no other 
sufficient tie whatever. The authentic title, 
were not some mercantile varnish allowable in 
such cases, might be : " General Jail-delivery 
of all Publications and Manuscripts, original 
or translated, composed or borrowed, on the 
subject of German Poetry; by," &c. 

To such Jail-delivery, at least when it is 
from the prison of Mr. Taylor's Desk at Nor- 
wich, and relates to a subject in the actual 



288 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



predicament of German Poetry among us, we 
have no funda menial objection : and for the 
name, now that it is explained, there is nothing 
in a name; a rose by any other name would 
smell as swee'. However, even in this lower 
and lowest puint of view, the Hisojir Swvry is 
liable td grave objcclic-ns: its worth is of no 
unmixed character. We mentioned that Mr. 
Taylor djd not often cite-authorities : for which 
doubtless he may have his reasons. If it be 
not from French Prefaces, and the Bi< graphic 
Utiiversellc, and other the like sources, we con- 
fess ourselves altogether at a loss to divine 
whence any reasonable individual gathered 
such notices as these. Books indeed are 
scarce; but the most untoward situation may 
command Wachler's Vorlemugen, Horn's Pocsie 
und Eeredsanikcit, Meister's ChaructciisHken, 
Koch's Compendium, or some of the thousand 
and one compilations of that sort, numerous 
and accurate in German, more than in any 
other literature : at all events, Jorden's Lexicon 
Deu scher und Piosaisten, and the world-renown- 
ed Leipsic Conversiilions-Lexicon. No one of 
these appears to have been in Mr. Taylor's 
possession; — Bouterwek alone, and him he 
seems to have consulted perfunctorily. Acer- 
tain proportion of errors in such a work is 
pardonable and unavoidable: scarcely so the 
proportion observed here. The Historic Survey 
abounds with eiTors, perhaps beyond any book 
it has ever been our lot to review. Of these, 
many, indeed, are harmless enough : as, for 
instance, where we learn that GCrres was born 
in 1804, (not in 1776;) though in that case he 
must have published his S'lah-Nameh at the age 
of three years; or where it is said that Wer- 
ner'.s epitaph " begs Mary Magdalene to pray 
for his soul," which it does not do, if indeed 
any one cared what it did. Some are of a 
quite mysterious nature; either impregnated 
with a wit which continues obstinatelv latent, 
or indicating that, in spite of Railways and 
Newspapers, some portions of this Island are 
still impermeable. For example, ■' It (Goelz 
von J erliclmigen) was admirably translated into 
English, in 1799, at Edinburgh, by Willidm 
Scott, Advocate; no doubt, the same person 
who, under the poetical but assumed name of 
Wdier, has since become the most extensively 
popular of the British writers." — Others again 
are the fruit of a more culpable ignorance; as 
when we hear that Goethe's Dichlwg und 
Wahrheit is literally meant to be a fictitious 
narrative, and no genuine Biography; that his 
Sella ends quietly in Bigamy, (to Mr. Taylor's 
satisfaction,) which, however the French 
Translation may run, in. the original it cer- 
tainly does not. Mr. Taylor likewise com- 
plains that his copy of Faust is incomplete: 
so, we grieve to staie, is ours. Still worse is 
it when speaking of distinguished men, who 
probably have been at piins to veil their sen- 
timents on certain subjects; our author takes it 
upon him to lift such veil, and with perfect 
composure pronout ces this to be a Deist, that 
a Pantheist, that other an Atheist, often with- 
out any due foundati<.n. It is quite erroneous, 
for example, to describe Schiller by any such 
unhappy term as that of Deist: it is very par- 
ticularly erroneous to say that Goethe any- 



where " avows himself an Atheist," that he "is 
a Pantheist;" — indeed, that he is, was, or is 
like to be any isi to which Mr. Taylor would 
attach just meaning. 

But on the whole, what struck us most ia 
these errors, is their surprising number. In,- 
the way of our calling, we at first took pencil, 
with intent to mark such transgressions; but 
soon found it too appalling a task, and so laid 
aside our black-lead and our art {ccestus artem- 
qve.) Happily, however, a little natural in- 
vention, assisted by some tincture of arithme- 
tic,, came to our aid. Six pages, studied for 
that end, we did mark; finding therein thirteea 
errors: the pages are 167 — 173 of Volume 
Third, and still in our copy, have their mar- 
ginal stigmas, which can be vindicated before 
a jury of Authors. Now if 6 give 13, who 
sees not that 1455, the entire number of pages, 
will give 3152, and a fraction 1 Or, allowing 
for translations, which are freer from errors, 
and for philosophical Discussions, wherein the 
errors are of another sort; nay, granting with 
a perhaps unwarranted liberality, that these 
six pages may yield too high an average, 
which we know not that they do, — may not, ia 
round numbers. Fifteen Hundred be given as 
the approximate amount, not of Errors, indeed, 
yet of Mistakes and Misstatements, in these 
three octavos ] 

Of errors in doctrine, false critical judg- 
ments, and all sorts of philosophical hallucina- 
tion, the number, more difficult to ascertain, is 
also unfortunately great. Considered, indeed, 
as in any measure a picture of what is re- 
markable in German Poetry, this Histuric Survey 
is one great Error. We have to object to Mr. 
Taylor on all grounds ; that his views are 
often partial and inadequate, sometimes quite 
false and imaginary ; that the highest produc- 
tions of German Literature, those works in 
which properly its characteristic and chief 
worth lie, are still as a sealed book to him ; or, 
what is worse, an open book that he will not 
read, but pronounces to be filled with blank 
paper. From a man of such intellectual 
vigour, who has studied his subject so long, 
we should not have expected such a failure. 

Perhaps the main principle of it may be 
staled, if not accounted for, in this one circum- 
stance, that the //s one Snrvey, like its Author, 
stands separated from Germany by "more 
than forty years." During this lime Germany 
has been making unexampled progress; while 
our author has either advanced in the other 
direction, or continued quite stationary. Forty 
years, it is true, make no difference in a classi- 
cal Poem; yet much in the readers of that 
Poem, and its position towards these. Forty 
years are but a small period in s<>me Histories, 
but in the history of German Literature, the 
most rapidly extending, incessantly fluctuating 
object even in the spiritual world, they make 
a great period. In Germany, within these forty 
years, how much has been united, how much 
has fallen asunder! Kant has superceded 
Wolfe; Fichte, Kant; Schelling, Fichte ; and 
now, it seems, Hegel is bent on superseding 
Schelling. Baumgarten has given place to 
Schlegel; the Duu. srhe i iblwihek to the Berlia 
Hermes: Lessing still towers in the distance 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY. 



28§ 



like an Earthborn Atlas ; but in the poetical 
Heaven, Wieland and Klopstock burn fainter, 
as new and more radiant luminaries have 
arisen. Within the last forty years, German 
Literature has become national, idiomatic, 
distinct from all others; by its productions 
during that period, it is either something or 
nothing. 

Nevertheless it is still at the distance of 
forty years, sometimes we think it must be 
fifty, that Mr. Taylor stands. " The fine Lite- 
rature of Germany," no doubt, he has " im- 
ported;" yet only with the eyes of 1780 does 
he read it. Thus Sulzer's Universal Theory 
continues still to be his roadbook to the temple 
of German taste ; almost as if the German 
critic should undertake to measure IVaverley and 
Manfred by the scale of Blair's Lectures. Sulzer 
was an estimable man, who did good service 
in his day ; but about forty years ago sunk 
into a repose, from which it would now be im- 
possible to rouse him. The superannuation 
of Sulzer appears not once to be suspected by 
our Author; as indeed little of all the great 
work that has been done or undone, in Literary 
Germany within that period, has become clear 
to him. The far-famed Xenien of Schiller's 
Musenalmanach arc once mentioned, in some 
half-dozen lines, wherein also there are more 
than half-a-dozen inaccuracies, and one rather 
egregious error. Of the results that followed 
from these Xenien; of Tieck, Wackenroder. 
the two Schlegels, and Novalis, whose critical 
Union, and its works, filled all Germany with 
tumult, discussion, and at length with new 
conviction, no whisper transpires here. The 
New School, with all that it taught, untaught, and 
mistaught, is not so much as alluded to. 
Schiller and Goethe, with all the poetic world 
they created, remain invisible, or dimly seen : 
Kant is a sort of Political Reformer. It must 
be stated with all distinctness, that of the 
newer and higher German Literature, no reader 
will obtain the smallest understanding from 
these Volumes. 

Indeed, quite apart from his inacquaintance 
with actual Germany, there is that in the struc- 
ture or habit of Mr. Taylor's mind, which sin- 
gularly unfits him for judging of such matters 
well. We must complain that he reads Ger- 
man Poetry, from first to last, with English 
eyes; will not accommodate himself to the 
spirit of the Literature he is investigating, and 
do his utmost, by loving endeavour, to win its 
secret from it; but plunges in headlong, and 
silently assuming that all this was written for 
him and for his objects, makes short work with 
it, and innumerable false conclusions. It is 
sad to see an honest traveller confidently gaug- 
ing all foreign objects with a measure that will 
not mete them; trying German Sacred Oaks 
by their fitness for British shipbuilding; walk- 
ing from Dan to Beersheba, and finding so 
little that he did not bring with him. This, we 
are too well aware, is the commonest of all 
errors, both with vulgar readers, and with 
vulgar critics; but from Mr. Taylor we had 
expected something better; nay, let us confess, 
he himself now and then seems to attempt 
something better, but loo imperfectly succeeds 
in it. 

37 



The truth is, Mr. Taylor, though a man of 
talent, as we have often admitted, and as the 
world well knows, though a downright, inde- 
pendent, and to all appearance most praise- 
worthy man, is one of the most peculiar 
critics to be found in our times. As we con- 
strue him from these volumes, the basis of his 
nature seems to be polemical ; his whole 
view of the world, of its Poetry, and whatever 
else it holds, has a militant character. Ac- 
cording to this philosoph}', the whole duty of 
man, it would almost appear, is to lay aside 
the opinion of his grandfather. Doubtless, it 
is natural, it is indispensable, for a man to lay 
aside the opinion of his grandfather, when it 
will no longer hold together on him ; but we 
had imagined that the great and infinitely 
harder duty was — To turn the opinion that 
does hold together, to some account. How- 
ever, it is not in receiving the New, and 
creating good with it, but solely in pulling to 
pieces the Old, that Mr. Taylor will have us 
employed. Often, in the course of these pages, 
might the British reader sorrowfully exclaim: 
" Alas ! is this the year of grace 1831, and are 
we still here? Armed with the hatchet and 
tinder-box; still no symptom of the sower's- 
sheet and plough?" These latter, for our 
Author, are implements of the dark ages ; the 
ground is full of thistles and jungle; cut down 
and spare not. A singular aversion to Priests, 
something like a natural horror and hydropho- 
bia, gives him no rest night nor day: the gist 
of all his speculations is to drive down more 
or less efleclual palisades against that class 
of persons ; nothing that he does but they 
interfere with or threaten ; the first question 
he asks of every passer-by, be it German 
Poet, Philosopher, Farce-writer, is, " Arian or 
Trinitarian 1 Wilt thou help me or noti" 
Long as he has now laboured, and though call- 
ing himself Philosopher, Mr. Taylor has not 
yet succeeded in sweeping this arena clear ; but 
still painfully struggles in the questions of 
Naturalism and Supernaturalism, Liberalism 
and Servilism. 

Agitated by this zeal, with its fitful hope and 
fear, it is that he goes through Germany ; 
scenting out Infidelity with the nose of an an- 
cient Heresy-hunter, though for opposite pur- 
poses ; and, like a recruiting sergeant, beating 
aloud for recruits ; nay, where in any corner 
he can spy a tall man, clutching at him, to 
crimp him or impress him. Goethe's and 
Schiller s creed we saw specified above ; those 
of Lessing and Herder are scarcely less edify- 
ing ; but take rather this sagacious exposition 
of Kant's Philosophy: 

" The Alexandrian writings do not difl'er so 
widely as is commonly apprehended from those 
of the KiJnigsberg School , for they abound 
with passages, which, while they seem to flatter 
the popular credulity, resolve into allegory the 
stories of the gods, and into an illustrative 
personification the soul of the world ; thus in- 
sinuating to the more alert and penetrating, the 
speculative rejection of opinions with which 
they are encouraged and commanded in action 
to comply. With analogous spirit, Professor 
Kant studiously introduces a distinction be- 
tween Practical and Theoretical Reason ; an^ 
2 B 



290 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



while he teaches that rational conduct Avill in- 
dulge the hypothesis of a God, a revelation, and 
a future state, (this, we presume is meant by 
calling them inferences of Practical Reasoji,) he 
pretends that Theoretical Reason can adciuce 
no one satisfactory argument in their behalf: 
so that his morality amounts to a defence of 
the old adage, 'Think with the wise, and act 
with the vulgar;' a plan of behaviour which 
secures to the vulgar an ultimate victory over 
the wise. * * Philosophy is to be withdrawn 
within a narrower circle of the initiated ; and 
these must be induced to conspire in favouring 
a vulgar superstition. This can best be ac- 
complished by enveloping with eni.a:matic 



of a corrupt but instructed refinement, which 
are likely to rebuild the morality of the An- 
cients on the ruins of Christian Puritanism." 
Such retrospections and prospections bring 
to mind an absurd rumour which, confound- 
ing our author with his namesake, the cele- 
brated translator of Plato and Aristotle, repre- 
sented him as being engaged in the repair and 
re-establishment of the Pagan religion. For 
such rumour, we are happy to state, there is 
not, and was not, the slightest foundation. 
Wieland may, indeed, at one time, have put 
some whims into his disciple's head; but Mr. 
Taylor is too solid a man to embark in specu- 
lations of that nature. Prophetic day-dreams 



jargon the topics of discussion ; by employing are not practical projects ; at all events, as we 



a cloudy phraseology, which may intercept 
from below the war-whoop of impiety, and 
from above the evulgation of infidelity; by 
contriving a kind of ' cipher of illuminism,' in 
which public discussions of the most critical 
nature can be carried on from the press, with- 
out alarming the prejudices of the people, or 
exciting the precautions of the magistrate. 
Such a cipher, in the hands of an adept, is the 
dialect of Kant. Add to this, the notorious 
Gallicanismof his opinions, which must endear 
him to the patriotism of the philosophers of 
the Lyceum ; and it will appear probable that 
the reception of his forms of syllogising should 
extend from Germany to France ; should com- 
pletely and exclusively establish itself on the 
Continent; entoilib with the Reasonings the 
Reason of th- modern world; and form the 
tasteless f:c;iwork which seems about to con- 
vert the halls of liberal Philosophy into 
churches of mystical Supernaturalism." 
These are, indeed, fearful symptoms, and 



here see, it is not the old Pagan gods that we 
are to bring back, but only the ancient Pagan 
morality, a refined and reformed Paganism; — 
as some middle-aged householder, if distressed 
by tax-gatherers and duns, might resolve on 
becoming thirteen again, and a bird-nesting 
schoolboy. Let no timid Layman apprehend 
any overflow of Priests from Mr. Taylor, or 
even of Gods. Is not this commentary on the 
hitherto so inexplicable conversion of Friedrich 
Leopold, Count Stolberg, enough to quiet every 
alarmist? 

" On the Continent of Europe, the gentle- 
man, and Frederic Leopold was emphatically 
so, is seldom brought up with much solicitude 
for any positive doctrine : among the Catholics, 
the moralist insists on the duty of conforming 
to the religion of one's ancestors ; among the 
Protestants, on the duty of conforming to the 
religion of the magistrate ; but Frederic Leo- 
pold seems to have invented a new point of 
honour, and a most rational one, the duty of 



enough to quicken the diligence of any recruit- ' conforming to the religion of one's father-in- 
ing officer that has the good cause at heart. 
Reasonably may such offiicer, beleagured with 
" witchcraft and demonology,trinitarianism, in- 
tolerance," and a considerable list oi ct-celcras, 
and, still seeing no hearty followers of his flag, 
but a mere FalstafT regiment, smite upon his 
thigh, and, in moments of despondenc}^ lament 
that Christianity had ever entered, or, as we 
here have it, " intruded" into Europe at all; 
that, at least, some small slip of heathendom 



law. 

" A young man is the happier, while single, 
for being unencumbered with any religious re- 
straints; but when the time comes for sub- 
mitting to matrimony, he will find the pre- 
cedent of Frederic Leopold well entitled to 
consideration. A predisposition to conform 
to the religion of the father-in-law facilitates 
advantageous matrimonial connections ; it pro- 
duces in a family the desirable harmony of 



" Scandinavia, for instance," had not been ! religious profession ; it secures the sincere 
"left to its natural course, unmisguided by j education of the daughters in the faith of their 
ecclesiastical missionaries and monastic in- ! mother; and it leaves the young men at liberty 
stitutions. Many superstitions, which have j to apostatize, in their tiirn, to exert their right 
fatigued the credulity, clouded the intellect, ' of private judgment, and to choose a worship 
and impaired the security of man, and which, ; for themselves. Religion, if a blemish in the 
alas ! but too naturally followed in the train of i male, is surely a grace in the female sex : 
the sacred books, would there, perhaps, never courage of mind may tend to acknowledge 



have struck root; and in one corner of the 
world, the inquiries of reason might have 
found an earlier asylum, and asserted a less 
circumscribed range." Nevertheless, there is 
still hope, preponderating hope. " The general 
tendency of the German school," it would ap- 
pear, could we but believe such tidings, " is to 
teach French opinions in English forms." 
Philosophy can now look down with some ap- 
proving glances on Socinianism. Nay, the 
literature of Germany, " very liberal and tole- 
rant," is gradually overflowing even into the 
Slavonian nations, "and will found, in new 
languages and climates, those latest inferences 



nothing above itself; but timidity is ever dis- 
posed to look upwards for protection, for con- 
solation, and for happiness." 

With regard to this latter point, whether Re- 
ligion is " a blemish in the male, and surely a 
grace, in the female sex," it is possible judg- 
ments may remain suspended. Courage of 
mind, indeed, will prompt the squirrel to set 
itself in posture against an armed horseman ; 
yet whether for men and women, who seem to 
stand, not only under the Galaxy and Stellar 
system, and under Immensity and Eternity, 
but even under any bare bodkin or drop of 
prussic acid, " such courage of mind as may 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OP GERMAN POETRY. 



^m 



tend to acknowledge nothing above itself," 
were ornamental or the contrary; whether, 
lastly, religion is grounded on Fear, or on 
something infinitely higher and inconsistent 
with Fear, — may be questions. But they are 
of a kind we are not at present called to med- 
dle with. 

Mr. Taylor promulgates many other strange 
articles of faith, for he is a positive man, and 
has a certain quiet wilfulness ; these, however, 
cannot henceforth much surprise us. He still 
calls the Middle Ages, during which nearly all 
the inventions and social institutions, whereby 
we yet live as civilized men, were originated 
or perfected, " a Millennium of Darkness ;" on. 
the faith chiefly of certain long-past Pedants, 
who reckoned every thing barren, because Chry- 
solaras had not yet come, and no Greek Roots 
grew there. Again, turning in the other direc- 
tion, he criticizes Luther's Reformation, and 
repeats that old, and indeed quite foolish, story 
of the Augustine Monk's having a merely com- 
mercial grudge against the Dominican ; com- 
putes the quantity of blood shed for Protest- 
antism ; and, .forgetting that men shed blood, 
in all ages, for any cause, and for no cause, 
for Sansculottism, for Bonapartism, thinks that, 
on the whole, the Reformation was an error 
and failure. Pity that Providence (as King 
Alphonso wished in the Astronomical case) 
had not created its man three centuries sooner, 
and taken a little counsel from him ! On the 
other hand, " Voltaire's Reformation" was suc- 
cessful; and here, for once. Providence was 
right. Will Mr. Taylor mention what it was 
that Voltaire reformed:'' Many things he f/e- 
formed, deservedly and undeservedly, but the 
thing that he/orwied or re-formed is still un- 
known to the world. 

It is perhaps unnecessary to add, that Mr. 
Taylor's whole Philosophy is sensual ; that is, 
he recognises nothing that cannot be weighed, 
measured, and, with one or the other organ, 
eaten and digested. Logic is his only lamp of 
life ; where this fails, the region of Creation 
terminates. For him there is no Invisible, In- 
comprehensible ; whosoever, under any name, 
believes in an invisible, he treats, with leniency 
and the loftiest tolerance, as a mystic and luna- 
tic ; and if the unhappy crackbrain has any 
handicraft, literary or other, allows him to go 
at large, and work at it. Withal he is a great- 
hearted, strong-minded, and, in many points, 
interesting man. There is a majestic com- 
posure in the attitude he has assumed ; mas- 
sive, immovable, uncomplaining, he sits in a 
world of Delirium; and for his Future looks 
with sure faith, — only in the direction of the 
Past. We take him to be a man of sociable 
turn, not without kindness; at all events of 
the most perfect courtesy. He despises the 
entire Universe, yet speaks respectfully of 
Translators from the German, and always says 
that they "English beautifully." A certain mild 
Dogmatism sits well on him ; peaceable, in- 
controvertible, uttering the palpably absurd, as 
if it were a mere truism. On the other hand, 
there are touches of a grave, scientific ob- 
scenity, which are questionable. This word 
ODscenity we use with reference to our readers, 
and might also add Profanity, but not with re- 



ference to Mr. Taylor; he, as we said, is 
scientific merely ; and where there is no ccetium 
and no fanmn, there can be no obscenity and 
no profanity. 

To a German we might have compressed all 
this long description into a single word: Mr. 
Taylor is simply what they call a Philister ; 
every fibre of him is Philistine. With us such 
men usually take into Politics, and become 
Code-makers and Utilitarians : it was only in 
Germany that they ever meddled much with 
Literature; and there worthy Nicolai has long 
since terminated his Jesuit-hunt; no Adelung 
now writes books, Ucber die NillzUchkeit der Emp- 
findung, (On the Utility of Feeling.) Singu- 
lar enough, now, when that old species had been 
quite extinct for almost half a century in their 
own land, appears a native-born English Philis- 
tine, made in all points as they were. With 
wondering welcome we hail the Sirongboned ; 
almost as we might a resuscitated Mammoth. 
Let no David choose smooth stones from the 
brook to sling at him : is he not our own 
Goliath, whose limbs were made in England, 
whose thcAvs and sinews any soil might be 
proud of? Is he not, as we said, a man that 
can stand on his own legs without collapsing 
when left by himself? in these days one of the 
greatest rarities, almost prodigies. 

We cheerfully acquitted Mr. Taylor of Re- 
ligion ; but must expect less gratitude when 
we farther deny him any feeling for true Po- 
etry, as indeed the feelings for Religion and 
for Poetry of this sort are one and the same. 
Of Poetry, Mr. Taylor knows well what will 
make a grand, especially a large, picture in the 
imagination : he has even a creative gift of 
this kind himself, as his style will often tes- 
tify; but much more he does not know. How 
indeed should he T Nicolai, too, "judged of 
Poetry as he did of Brunswick Mum, simply 
by tasting it." Mr. Taylor assumes, as a fact 
known to all thinking creatures, that Poetry ia 
neither more nor less than "a stimulant.'-'' 
Perhaps, above five hundred times in the His'- 
toric Survey we see this doctrine expressly acted 
on. Whether the piece to be judged of is a 
Poetical Whole, and has what the critics have 
named a genial life, and what that life is, he 
[inquires not; but, at best, whether it is a lo- - 
I gical Whole, and for most part, simply, whether ' 
it is stimulant. The praise is, that it has fine 
situations, striking scenes, agonizing scenes, 
harrows his feelings, and the like. Schiller'a 
Robbers he finds to be stimulant ; his Maid of 
Orleans is not stimulant, but " among the weak- 
est of his tragedies, and composed apparently 
in ill health." The author of Pizurro is su- 
premely stimulant ; he of Torquafo Tasso is 
" too quotidian to be stimulant." We had un- 
derstood that alcohol was stimulant in all its 
shapes; opium also, tobacco, and inds«d the 
whole class of narcotics; but heretofore found 
Poetry in none of the Pharmacopoeias. Ne^ 
vertheless, it is edifying to observe with what 
fearless consistency Mr. Taylor, who is no 
half-man, carries through this theory of stimu- 
lation. It lies privily in the heart of many a 
reader and reviewer; nay, Schiller, at one 
time, said that " Moliere's old woman seemed 
to have become sole Editress of all Reviews;' 



292 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



but seldom, in the history of Literature, has 
she had the honesty to unveil, and ride trium- 
phant as in these volumes. Mr. Ta)ior dis- 
covers that the only Poet to be classed with 
Homer is Tasso ; that Shakspeare's Tragedies 
are cousins-german to those of Otway ; that 
poor, moaning, monotonous Macpherson is 
an epic poet. Lastly, he runs a laboured 
parallel between Schiller, Goethe, and Kotze- 
bue ; one is more this, the other more that ; 
one strives hither, the other thither, through 
the whole string of critical predicables; al- 
most as if we should compare scientifically 
Milton's Paradise Lost, the Prophecies of Isaiah, 
and Mat Lewis's Talcs of Terror. 

Such is Mr. Taylor; a strong-hearted oak, 
but in an unkindly soil, and beat upon from 
infancy by Trinitarian and Tory Southwest- 
ers : such is the result which native vigour, 
■wind-storms, and thirsty mould have made 
out among them ; grim boughs dishevelled in 
multangular complexity, and of the stiffness 
of brass ; a tree crooked every way, un wedge- 
able and gnarled. What bandages or cord- 
ages of ours, or of man's, could straighten it, 
now that it has grown there for half a cen- 
tury 1 We simply point out that there is 
excellent tough knee-timber in it, and of straight 
timber little or none. 

In fact, taking Mr. Taylor as he is and must 
be, and keeping a perpetual account and pro- 
test with him on these peculiarities of his, 
■we find that on various parts of his subject 
he has profitable things to say. The Gottingen 
group of Poets, " Burger and his set," such 
as they were, are pleasantly delineated. The 
like may be said of the somewhat earlier 
Swiss brotherhood, whereof Bodmer and Brei- 
tinger are the central figures ; though worth}', 
"wonderful Lavater, the wandering Physiogno- 
mist and Evangelist, and Protestant Pope, 
should not have been first forgotten, and then 
crammed into an insignificant paragraph. 
Lessing, again, is but poorly managed ; his 
main performance, as was natural, reckoned 
to be the writing of Nathan the Wise ; we have 
no original portrait here, but a pantagraphical 
reduced copy of some foreign sketches or 
scratches, quite unworthy of such a man, in 
such an historical position, standing on the con- 
fines of Light and Darkness, like Day on the 
misty mountain tops. Of Herder also there 
is much omitted; the Geschichte dcr Menscheit 
scarcely alluded to ; yet some features are 
given, accurately and even beautifully. A 
slow-rolling grandiloquence is in Mr. Taylor's 
best passages, of which this is one : if no po- 
etic light, he has occasionally a glow of true 
rhetorical heat. Wieland is lovingly painted, 
yet on the whole faithfully, as he looked some 
fifty years ago, if not as he now looks : this is 
the longest article in the Historic Survey, and 
much too long; those Paganizing Dialof^ucs in 
particular had never much worth, and at pre- 
sent have scarcely any. 

Perhaps the best of all these Essays is that 
OD Klopstock. The sphere of Klopstock's ge- 
nius does not transcend Mr. Taylor's scale of 
poetic altitudes ; though it perhaps reaches 
the highest grade there; the "stimulant" the- 
ory recedes into the back-ground; indeed there 



is a rhetorical amplitude and brilliancy in the 
Messias which elicits in our critic an instinct 
truer than his philosophy is. He has honestly 
studied the Messias, and presents a clear out- 
line of it; neither has the still purer spirit of 
Klopstock's Odes escaped him. We have 
English Biographies of Klopstock, and a mi- 
serable Version of his great Work; but per- 
haps there is no writing in our language that 
offers so correct an emblem of him as this 
analysis. Of the Odes we shall here present 
one, in Mr. Taylor's translation, which, though 
in prose, the reader will not fail to approve of. 
It is perhaps, the finest passage in his whole 
Historic Survey. 

"the two muses. 

." I saw — tell me, was I beholding what now 
happens, or was I beholding futurity 1 — I saw 
with the Muse of Britain the Muse of Ger- 
many engaged in competitory race — flying 
warm to the goal of coronation. 

"Two goals, where the prospect terminates, 
bordered the career: Oaks of the forest shaded 
the one ; near to the other waved Palms in 
the evening shadow. 

" Accustomed to contest, stepped she from 
Albion proudly into the arena; as she stepped, 
when, with the Grecian Muse and with her 
from the Capitol, she entered the lists. 

"She beheld the young trembling rival, who 
trembled yet with dignity ; glowing roses wor- 
thy of victory streamed flaming over her cheek, 
and her golden hair flew abroad. 

" Already she retained with pain in her tu- 
multuous bosom the contracted breath; al- 
ready she hung bending forward towards the 
goal; already the herald was lifting the trum- 
pet, and her eyes swam "svith intoxicating joy. 

" Proud of her courageous rival, prouder of 
herself, the lofty Britoness measured, but with 
noble glance, thee, Tuiskone : ' Yes, by the 
bards, I grew up with thee in the grove of oaks : 

" 'But a tale had reached me that thou wast 
no more. Pardon, O Muse, if thou beest im- 
mortal, pardon that I but now learn it. Yon- 
der at the goal alone will I learn it. 

"'There it stands. But dost thou see the 
still further one, and its crowns also T This 
represt courage, this proud silence, this look 
which sinks fiery upon the ground, I know: 

" ' Yet weigh once again, ere the herald sound 
a note dangerous to thee. Am I not she who have 
measured myself with her from Thermopylae, 
and with the stately one of the Seven Hills?" 

"She spake: the earnest decisive moment 
drew nearer with the herald. ' I love thee,' 
answered quick with looks of flame, Teutona, 
' Britoness, I love thee to enthusiasm; 

"'But not \varmer than immortality and 
those Palms: Touch, if so wills thy genius, 
touch them before me ; yet will I, when thou 
seizest it, seize also the crown. 

"'And, Oh how I tremble! ye Immortals, 
perhaps I may reach first the high goal: then, 
oh then, may thy breath attain my loose- 
streaming hair !' 

" The herald shrilled. They flew with eagle- 
speed. The wide career smoked up clouds of 
dust. I looked. Beyond the Oak billowed 
yet thicker the dust, and I lost them." 



TAYLOR'S SURVEY OF GERMAN POETRY. 



293 



"This beautiful allegory," adds Mr. Ta)'lor, 
"requires no illustration; but it constitutes 
one of the reasons for suspecting that the 
younger may eventually be the victorious 
Muse." We hope not, but that the generous 
race may yet last through long centuries. 
Tuiskone has shot through a mighty space, 
since this Poet saw her : what if she were now 
slackening her speed, and the Britoness quick- 
ening hers 1 

If the Essay on Klopstock is the best, that 
on Kotzebue is undoubtedly the worst, in this 
book, or perhaps in any book written by man 
of ability in our day. It is one of those acts 
which, in the spirit of philanthropy, we could 
■wiish Mr. Taylor to conceal in profoundest 
secrecy ; were it not that hereby the " stimu- 
lant" theory, a heresy which still lurks here 
and there even in our belter criticism, is in 
some sort brought to a crisis, and may the 
sooner depart from this world, or at least from 
the high places of it, into others more suitable. 
Kotzebue, whom all nations, and kindreds, and 
tongues, and peoples, his own people the fore- 
most, after playing with him for some foolish 
hour, have swept out of doors as a lifeless 
bundle of dyed rags, is here scientificallj^ ex- 
amined, measured, pulse-felt, and pronounced 
to be living, and a divinity. He has such pro- 
lific "invention," abounds so in '"fine situa- 
tions," in passionate scenes, is so soul-har- 
rowing, so stimulant. The Proceedings at I'ow 
Street are stimulant enough; neither is prolific 
invention, interesting situations, or soul-har- 
rowing passion wanting among the Authors 
that compose there; least of all if M-e follow 
them to Newgate, and the gallows : but when 
did the Morning Herald think of inserting its 
Police Reports among our Anthologies 1 Mr. 
Taylor is at the pains to analyze very many 
of Kotzebue's productions, and translates 
copiously from two or three : how the Siberian 
Governor took on when his daughter was 
about to run away with one Benjowsky, who 
however, was enabled to surrender his prize, 
there on the beach, with sails hoisted, by 
"looking at his wife's picture;" how the peo- 
ple "lift young Burgundy from the Tun," not 
indeed to drink him, for he is not wine but a 
Duke; how a certain stout-hearted West In- 
dian, that has made a fortune, proposes mar- 
riage to his two sisters, but finding the ladies 
reluctant, solicits their serving-woman, whose 
reputation is not only cracked, but visibly 
quite rent asunder, accepts her nevertheless, 
■with her thriving cherub, and is the happiest 
of men ; — with more of the like sort. On the 
strength of which we are assured that, " accord- 
ing to my judgment, Kotzebue is the greatest 
dramatic genius that Europe has evolved since 
Shakspeare." Such is the table which Mr. 
Taylor has spread for pilgrims in the Prose 
Wilderness of Life : thus does he sit like a kind 
host, ready to carve ; and though the viands 
and beverage are but, as it were, stewed gar- 
lic, Yarmouth herrings, and blue-ruin, praise 
them as " stimulant," and courteously presses 
the universe to fall to. 

What a purveyor with this palate shall say 
to Nectar and Ambrosia, may be curious as a 
question in Natural History, but hardly other- 



wise. The most of what Mr. Ta34or has writ- 
ten on Schiller, on Goethe, and the new Litera- 
ture of Germany, a reader that loves him, as 
we honestly do, will consider as unwritten, or 
written in a state of somnambulism. He who 
has just quitted Kotzebue's Bear-garden, and 
Fives-court, and pronounces it to be all stimu- 
lant and very good, what is there for him to do 
in the Hall of the Gods] He looks transiently 
in; asks with mild authority, " Arian or 
Trinitarian? Quotidian or Stimulantl" and 
receiving no answer but a hollow echo, which 
almost sounds like laughter, passes on, mut- 
tering that they are dumb idols, or mere Niirn- 
berg waxwork. 

It remains to notice Mr. Taylor's Transla- 
tions. Apart from the choice of subjects, 
which in probably more than half the cases is 
unhappy, there is much to be said in favour 
of these. Compared with the average of 
British Translations, they may be pronounced 
of almost ideal excellence ; compared with the 
best translations extant, for example, the Ger- 
man Sliakspem-e, Homer, Calderem, they may 
still be called better than indifferent. One 
great merit Mr. Taylor has: rigorous ad- 
herence to his original ; he endeavours at 
least to copy with all possible fidelit}' the turn 
of phrase, the tone, the very metre, whatever 
stands written for him. With the German 
language he has now had a long familiarity, 
and, what is no less essential, and perhaps 
still rarer among our translators, has a decided 
understanding of English. All this of Mr. 
Taylor's own Translations: in the borrowed 
pieces, whereof there are several, we seldom, 
except indeed in those by Shelley and Cole- 
ridge, find much worth ; sometimes a distinct 
worthlessness. Mr. Taylor has made no con- 
science of clearing those unfortunate per- 
formances even from their gross blunders. 
Thus, in that "excellent version by Miss 
Plumptre," we find this statement : Professor 
Miiller could not utter a period without intro- 
ducing the words irilli vndcr, "whether they had 
business there or not;" which statement, were 
it only on the ground that Professor Miiller was 
not sent to Bedlam, there to utter periods, we 
venture to deny. Doubtless his besetting sin 
was milunder, which indeed means at the same 
time, or the like, (etymologically, willi among,) 
but nowise ivitli under. One other instance we 
shall give, from a much more important sub- 
ject. Mr. Taylor admits that he does not make 
much of Faiisl : however, he inserts Shelley's 
version of the Mayday Night ; and another 
scene, evidently rendered by quite a different 
artist. In this latter, Margaret is in the Cathe 
dral during High-Mass, but her whole thought-- 
are turned inwards on a secret shame and sor 
row: an Evil Spirit is whispering in her ear, 
the Choir chant fragments of the Dies ira ; shf 
is like to choke and sink. In the original, 
this passage is in verse; and, we presume, 
in the translation also, — founding on thi; 
capital letters. The concluding lines an* 
these: 

"MARGARET. 

I feel imprison'd. The thick pillars gird nie. 
The vaults low'r o'er me. Air, air, I faint. 



294 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



EVIL SPIRIT. 

Where wilt thou lie concealed 1 for sin and shame 
Remain not hidden — wo is coming down. 

THE CHOIR. 

^uid stun miser turn dicturus ? 
Quern patronum rogaturus ? 
Cum viz Justus sit securus. 

EVIL SPIRIT. 

From thee the glorified avert their vieie, 
The pure forbear to offer thee a hand. 

THE CHOIR. ' 

Quid sum miser turn dicturus 7 
MARGARET. 

Neighbour, your " 

— Your what 1 — Angels and ministers of grace 
defend us ! — " Your Drambotlle" Will Mr. 
Taylor have us understand, then, that "the 
noble German nation," more especially the 
fairer half thereof, (for the " Neighbour " is 
iV«f/(in?-iM, Neighbouress,) goes to church with a 
decanter of brandy in its pocket? Or would 
he not rather, even forcibly, interpret Fldsch- 
chen by vinuigrette, hy volulilc-salts ? — The world 
has no notice that this passage is a borrowed 
one, but will, notwithstanding, as the more 
charitable theory, hope and believe so. 

We have now done with Mr. Taylor ; and 
would fain, after all that has come and gone, 
part with him in good nature and good will. 
He has spoken freely, we have answered free- 
ly. Far as we differ from him in regard to 
German Literature, and to the much more im- 
portant subjects here connected with it ; deeply 
as we feel convinced that his convictions are 
wrong and dangerous, are but half true, and, 
if taken for the whole truth, wholly false and 
fatal, we have nowise blinded ourselves to his 
vigorous talent, to his varied learning, his sin- 
cerity, his manful independence and self-sup- 
port. Neither is it for speaking out plainly 
that we blame him. A man's honest, earnest 
opinion is the most precious of all he possesses: 
let him communicate this, if he is to communi- 
cate anything. There is, doubtless, a time to 
speak, and a time to keep silence; yet Fon- 
tenelle's celebrated aphorism, / wug/i^ have my 
hand full of truth, and would open only my little 
finger, may be practised also to excess, and 
the little finger itself kept closed. That re- 
serve, and knowing silence, long so universal 
among us, is less the fruit of active benevo- 
lence, of philosophic tolerance, than of in- 
difference and weak conviction. Honest Skep- 
ticism, honest Atheism, is better than that 
withered, lifeless Dilettantism and amateur 
Eclecticism, which merely toys with all opi- 
nions ; or than that wicked Machiavelism, 
which, in thought denying every thing, except 
that Power is Power, in words, for its own wise 
purposes, loudly believes every thing: of both 
which miserable habitudes the day, even in 
England, is wellnigh over. That Mr. Taylor 
belongs not, and at no time belonged, to either 
of these classes, we account a true praise. Of 
his Hisloric Survey we have endeavoured to 
point out the faults and the merits : should he 



reach a second edition, which we hope, per- 
haps he may profit by some of our hints, and 
render the work less unworthy of himself and 
of his subject. In its present state and shape, 
this English Temple of Fame can content no 
one. A huge, anomalous, heterogeneous mass, 
no section of it like another, oriel-window 
alternating with rabbit-hole, wrought capital 
on pillar of dried mud; heaped together out 
of marble, loose earth, rude boulder-stone ; 
hastily roofed in with shingles, — such is the 
Temple of Fame ; uninhabitable either for 
priest or statue, and which nothing but a con- 
tinued suspension of the laws of gravity can 
keep from rushing ere long into a chaos of 
stone and dust. For the English worshipper, 
who in the meanwhile has no other temple, we 
search out the least dangerous apartments; for 
the future builder, the materials that will be 
valuable. 

And now, in washing our hands of this ail- 
too sordid but not unnecessary task, one word 
on a more momentous object. Does not the 
existence of such a Book, do not mau}^ other 
indications, traceable in France, in Germany, 
as well as here, betoken that a new era in the 
spiritual intercourse of Europe is approach- 
ing; that instead of isolated, mutually repi\l- 
sive National Literatures, a World-Literature 
may one day be looked for? The better minds 
of all countries begin to understand each other; 
and, which follows naturally, to love each 
other and help each other ; by whom ultimate- 
ly all countries in all their proceedings are 
governed. 

Late in man's history, yet clearly at length, 
it becomes manifest to the dullest, that mind 
is stronger than matter, that mind is the creator 
and shaper of matter; that not brute Force, 
but only Persuasion and Faith is the king of 
this world. The true Poet, who is but the in- 
spired Thinker, is still an Orpheus whose Lyre 
tames the savage beasts, and evokes the dead 
rocks to fashion themselves into palaces and 
stately inhabited cities. It has been said, and 
may be repeated, that Literature is fast be- 
coming all in all to us ; our Church, our Sen- 
ate, our whole Social Constitution. The true 
Pope of Christendom is not that feeble old 
man in Rome ; nor is its Autocrat the Na- 
poleon, the Nicolas, with his half million even 
of obedient bayonets ; such Autocrat is him- 
self but a more cunningly-devised bayonet and 
military engine in the hands of a mightier than 
he. The true Autocrat and Pope is that man, 
the real or seeming Wisest of the past age ; 
crowned after death; who finds his Hierarchy 
of gifted Authors, his Clergy of assiduous 
Journalists ; whose Decretals, written not on 
parchment, but on the living souls of men, ic 
were an inversion of the Laws of Nature to 
rftsobey. In these times of ours, all Intellect 
has fused itself into Literature: Literature, 
Printed Thought, is the molten sea and wonder- 
bearing Chaos, into which mind after mind 
casts forth its opinion, its feeling, to be molten 
into the general mass, and to work there ; In- 
terest after Interest is engulfed in it, or em- 
barked on it: higher, higher it rises round all 
the Edifices of Existence ; they must all be 



TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH. 



295 



molten into it, and anew bodied forth from it, 
or stand unconsumed among its fiery surges. 
Wo to him whose Edifice is not built of true 
Asbest, and on the everlasting Rock ; but on 
the false sand, and of the drift-wood of Ac- 
cident, and the paper and parchment of anti- 
quated Habit ! For the power, or powers, exist 
not on our Earth, that can say to that sea, roll 
back, or bid its proud waves be still. 

What form so omnipotent an element will 
assume ; how long it will welter to and fro as 
a wild Democracy, a wild Anarchy ; what 
Constitution and Organization it will fashion 
for itself, and for what depends on it, in the 



depths of Time, is a subject for prophetic con- 
jecture, wherein brightest hope is not un- 
mingled with fearful apprehension and awe 
at the boundless unknown. The more cheer- 
ing is this one thing which we do see and 
know — That its tendency is to a universal 
European Commonweal ; that the wisest in 
all nations will communicate and co-operate ; 
whereby Europe will again have its true 
Sacred College, and Council of Amphictyous ; 
wars will become rarer, less inhuman, and, in 
the course of centuries, such delirious ferocity 
in nations, as in individuals it already is, may 
I be proscribed, and become obsolete forever. 



TRAGEDY OF THE NIGHT-MOTH. 



[Fraser's Magazine, 1831.] 



Magna Ausus. 

'T is placid midnight, stars are keeping 
Their meek and silent course in heaven ; 

Save pale recluse, all things are sleeping, 
His mind to study still is given. 

But see ! a wandering Night-moth enters. 
Allured by taper gleaming bright ; 

A while keeps hovering round, then ventures 
On Goethe's mystic page to light. 

With awe she views the candle blazing ; 

A universe of fire it seems 
To xaoih-suvante with rapture gazing. 

Or fount whence Life and Motion streams. 

What passions in her small heart whirling, 
Hopes boundless, adoration, dread ; 

At length her tiny pinions twirling. 

She darts and — puff! — the moth is dead! 

The sullen flame, for her scarce sparkling, 
Gives but one hiss, one fitful glare ; 

Now bright and busy, now all darkling, 
She snaps and fades to empt}^ air. 

Her bright gray form that spread so -sliinly, 
Some fan she seemed of pigm}'^ Queen ; 

Her silky cloak that lay so trimly. 

Her wee, wee eyes that looked so keen, 

Last moment here, now gone for ever. 
To nought are passed with fiery pain ; 

And ages circling round shall never 
Give to this creature shape again 1 



Poor moth ! near weeping I lament thee, 
Thy glossy form, thy instant wo ; 

'T was zeal for " things too high" that sent thee 
From cheery earth to shades below. 

Short speck of boundless space was needed 
For home, for kingdom, world to thee ! 

Where passed unheeding as unheeded, 
Thy slender life from sorrow free. 

But syren hopes from out thy dwelling. 
Enticed thee, bade thee Earth explore, — 

Thy frame, so late with rapture swelling, 
Is swept from Earth for evermore ! 

Poor moth ! thy fate my own resembles : 

Me too a restless asking mind 
Hath sent on far and weary rambles, 

To seek the good I ne'er shall find. 

Like thee, with common lot contented. 
With humble joys and vulgar fate, 

I might have lived and ne'er lamented. 
Moth of a larger size, a longer date ! 

But Nature's majesty unveiling. 

What seemed her wildest, grandest charms. 
Eternal Truth and Beauty hailing, 

Like thee, I rushed into her arms. 

What gained we, little moth 1 Thy ashes. 
Thy one brief parting pang may show: 

And withering thoughts for soul that dashes 
From deep to deep, are but a death more slow. 



396 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



CHARACTERISTICS.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1831.] 



The healthy know not of their health, but 
only the sick : this is the Physician's Aphorism ; 
and applicable in a far wider sense than he 
gives it. We may say, it holds no less in 
moral, intellectual, political, poetical, than in 
merely corporeal therapeutics ; that wherever, 
or in what shape soever, powers of the sort 
which can be named vital are at work, herein 
lies the test of their working right, or working 
wrong. 

In the Bodjs for example, as all doctors are 
agreed, the first condition of complete health 
is, that each organ perform its function uncon- 
sciously, unheeded ; let but any organ announce 
its separate existence, were it even boastfully, 
and for pleasure, not for pain, then already has 
one of those unfortunate "false centres of sen- 
sibility" established itself, already is derange- 
ment there. The perfection of bodily well- 
being is, that the collective bodily activities 
seem one ; and be manifested, moreover, not in 
themselves, but in the action they accomplish. 
If a Dr. Kitchener boast that his system is in 
high order, Dietetic Philosophy may indeed 
take credit; but the true Peptician was that 
Countryman who answered that, "for his part, 
he had no system." In fact, unity, agreement, 
is always silent, or soft-voiced ; it is only dis- 
cord that loudly proclaims itself. So long as 
the several elements of Life, all fitly adjusted, 
can pour forth their movement like harmonious 
tuned strings, it is a melody and unison ; Life, 
from its mysterious fountains, flows out as in 
celestial music and diapason, — which also, like 
that other music of the spheres, even because 
it is perennial and complete, without interrup- 
tion and without imperfection, might be fabled 
to escape the ear. Thus, too, in some lan- 
guages, is the state of health well denoted by a 
term expressing unity ; when we feel ourselves 
as we wish to be, we say that we are whole. 

Few mortals, it is to be feared, are perma- 
nently blessed with that felicity of " having no 
system :" nevertheless, most of us, looking 
back on young years, may remember seasons 
of a light, aerial trans] ucency and elasticity, 
and perfect freedom ; the body had not yet 
become the prison-house of the soul, but was 
its vehicle and implement, like a creature of 
the thought, and altogether pliant to its bid- 
ding. We knew not that we had limbs, we 
only lifted, hurled, and leapt ; through eye and 
ear, and all ave*iues of sense, came clear un- 
impeded tidings from without, and from within 



* 1. An Essay on the Origin and Prospects of Man. 
By Thomas Hope. 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1831. 

2. Philosophische Vorlesungen, insbesondere iiher Pkilo- 
sophie der sprache und des IVortes. Geschrieben und 
vorgetragen zu Dresden im December, 1828, U7id in den 
ersten Tagen des Januars 1829, (Philosophical Lectures, 
especially on the Philosophy of Lansruage and the Gift 
of Speech. Written and delivered at Dresden in De- 
cember, 1828, and the early days of January, 1829.) By 
Friedrich von Schlegel. 8vo. "Vienna, 1830. 



issued clear victorious force ; we stood as in 
the centre of Nature, giving and receiving, in 
harmony with it all ; unlike Virgil's Husband- 
men, "too happy because we did not know our 
blessedness." In those days, health and sick- 
ness were foreign traditions that did not con- 
cern us ; our whole being was as yet One, the 
whole man like an incorporated Will. Such, 
were Rest or ever-successful Labour the hu- 
man lot, might our life continue to be: a pure, 
perpetual, unregarded music; a beam of per- 
fect white light, rendering all things visible, 
but itself unseen, even because it was of that 
perfect whiteness, and no irregular obstruction 
had yet broken it into colours. The beginning 
of Inquiry is Disease: all Science, if we con- 
sider well, as it must have originated in the 
feeling of something being wrong, so it is and 
continues to be but Division, Dismemberment, 
and partial healing of the wrong. Thus, as 
was of old written, the Tree of Knowledge 
springs from a root of evil, and bears fruits of 
good and evil. Had Adam remained in Para- 
dise, there had been no Anatomy and no 
Metaphysics. 

But, alas, as the Philosopher declares, "Life 
itself is a disease ; a working incited by suf- 
fering ;" action from passion ! The memory 
of that first state of Freedom and paradisiac 
Unconsciousness has faded away into an ideal 
poetic dream. We stand here too conscious 
of many things : with Knowledge, the symptom 
of Derangement, we must even do our best to 
restore a little Order. Life is, in few instances, 
and at rare intervals, the diapason of a hea- 
venly melody ; oftenest the fierce jar of disrup- 
tions and convulsions, which, do what we will, 
there is no disregarding. Nevertheless, such 
is still the wish of Nature on our behalf; in 
all vital action, her manifest purpose and 
effort is, that we" should be unconscious of it, 
and, like the peptic Countryman, never know 
that we "have a system." For indeed vital 
action everywhere is emphatically a means, 
not an end; Life is not given us for the mere 
sake of Living, but always with an ulterior 
external Aim : neither is it on the process, on 
the means, but rather on the result, that Na- 
ture, in any of her doings, is wont to intrust us 
with insight and volition. Boundless as is the 
domain of man, it is but a small fractional 
proportion of it that he rules with Conscious- 
ness and by Forethought: what he can con- 
trive, nay, what he can altogether know and 
comprehend, is essentially the mechanical, 
small ; the great is ever, in one sense or other, 
the vital ; it is essentially the mysterious, and 
only the surface of it can be understood. But 
Nature, it might seem, strives, like a kind 
mother, to hide from us even this, that she is a 
mystery : she will have us rest on her beauti- 
ful and awful bosom as if it were our secure 
home ; on. he bottomless, boundless Deep, 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



297 



whereon all human things fearfully and won- 
derfully swim, she will have us walk and build, 
as if the film which supported us there (M'hich 
any scratch of a bare bodkin will rend asunder, 
anysputterof a pistol-shot instantaneously burn 
up) were no film, but a solid rock-foundation. 
For ever in the neighbourhood of an inevitable 
Death, man can forget that he is born to die; 
of his Life, which, strictly meditated, contains 
in it an Immensity and an Eternit}', he can 
conceive lightly, as of a simple implement 
wherewith to do day-labour and earn wages. 
So cunningly does Nature, the mother of all 
highest art, which only apes her from afar, 
"body forth the Finite from the Infinite;" and 
guide man safe on his wondrous path, not more 
by endowing him with vision, than, at the right 
place, with blindness ! Under all her works, 
chiefly under her noblest M'ork, Life, lies a 
basis of Darkness, which she benignantly con- 
ceals ; in Life, too, the roots and inward cir- 
culations which stretch down fearfully to the 
regions of Death and Night, shall not hint of 
their existence, and only the fair stem with its 
leaves and flowers, shone on by the fair sun, 
disclose itself, and joyfully grow. 

However, without venturing into the abstruse, 
or too eagerly asking Why and How, in things 
where our answer must needs prove, in great 
part, an echo of the question, let us be content 
to remark farther, in the merely historical 
way, how that Aphorism of the bodily Physi- 
cian holds good in quite other departments. 
Of the Soul, with her activities, we shall find 
it no less true than of the Body : na)', cry the 
Spiritualists, is not that very division of the 
unity, Man, into a dualism of Soul and Body, 
itself the symptom of disease ; as, perhaps, 
your frightful theory of Materialism, of his 
being but a Body, and therefore, at least, once 
more a unity, may be the paroxj'sm which 
M^as critical, and the beginning of cure! But 
omitting this, we observe, with confidence 
enough, that the truly strong mind, view it as 
Intellect, as Morality, or under any other as- 
pect, is nowise the mind acquainted with its 
strength ; that here as before the sign of health 
is Unconsciousness. In our inward, as in our 
outward world, what is mechanical lies open 
to us: not what is dynamical and has vitality. 
Of our Thinking, we might say, it is but 
the mere upper surface that we shape into 
articulate Thoughts^, — underneath the region 
of argument and conscious discourse lies the 
region of meditation ; here, in its quiet myste- 
rious depths, dwells what vital force is in us ; 
here, if aught is to be created, and not merely 
manufactured and communicated, must the 
work go on. Manufacture is intelligible, but 
trivial ; Creation is great, and cannot be un- 
derstood. Thus if the Dcbator and Demon- 
strator, whom we may rank as the lowest of 
true thinkers, knows what he has done, and 
how he did it, the Artist, whom we rank as the 
highest, knows not; must speak of Inspiration, 
and, in one or the other dialect, call his work 
the gift of a divinity. 

But on the whole, " genius is ever a secret 

to itself;" of this old truth we have, on all sides, 

daily evidence. The Shakspeare takes no airs 

for writing Hamlet and the Tew/)fsf, understands 

38 



not that it is any thing surprising: Milton,, 
again, is more conscious of his faculty, which 
accordingly is an inferior one. On the other 
hand, what cackling and strutting must we 
not often hear and see, when, in some shape 
of academical prolusion, maiden speech, re- 
view article, this or the other well-fledged 
goose has produced its goose-egg, of quite 
measurable value, were it the pink of its whole 
kind; and wonders w-hy all mortals do not 
wonder ! 

Foolish enough, too, was the College Tutor's 
surprise at Walter Shandy ; how, though un- 
read in Ai-istotle, he could nevertheless argue ; 
and not knowing the name of any dialectic 
tool, handled them all to perfection. Is it the 
slcilfuUest Anatomist that cuts the best figure 
at Sadler's Wells 1 or does the Boxer hit bet- 
ter for knowing that he has a flexor longus 
and a flexor brevis 1 But, indeed, as in the 
higher case of the Poet, so here in that of the 
Speaker and Inquirer, the true force is an un- 
conscious one. The healthy Understanding, 
we should say, is not the Logical, argumenta- 
tive, but the Intuitive ; for the end of Under- 
standing is not to prove, and find reasons, but, 
to know and believe. Of Logic, and its limits, 
and uses and abuses, there were much to be 
said and examined ; one fact, however, which 
chiefly concerns us here, has long been 
familiar; that the man of logic and the man 
of insight ; the Reasoner and the Discoverer, or 
even Knower, are quite separable, — indeed, for 
most part, quite separate characters. In prac- 
tical matters, for .example, has it not become 
almost proverbial that the man of logic cannot 
prosper? This is he whom business people 
call Systematic and Theorizer and Word- 
monger; his I'tV rjZintellectual force lies dormant 
or extinct, his whole force is mechanical, con- 
scious : of such a one it is foreseen that, when 
once confronted with the infinite complexities 
of the real world, his little compact theorem 
of the world will be found wanting ; that unless 
he can throw it overboard, and become a new 
creature, he Mall necessarily founder. Nay, 
in mere Speculation itself, the most ineffectual 
of all characters, generally speaking, is your 
dialectic man-at-arms ; were he armed cap-a- 
pie in syllogistic mail of proof, and perfect 
master of logic-fence, how little does it avail 
him ! Consider the old Schoolmen, and their 
pilgrimage towards Truth : the faithfullest 
endeavour, incessant unwearied motion, often 
great natural vigour ; only no progress: nothing 
but antic feats of one limb poised against the 
other; there they balanced, somersetled, and 
made postures ; at best gyrated swiftly, with 
some pleasure, like Spinning Dervishes, and 
ended where they began. So it is, so will it 
always be, with all System-makers and builders 
of logical card-castles; of which class a cer- 
tain remnant must, in every age, as they do in 
our own, survive and build. Logic is good, 
but it is not the best. The Irrefragable Doc- 
tor, with his chains of induction, his corollaries, 
dilemmas, and other cunning logical diagrams 
and apparatus, will cast you a beautiful horo- 
': scope, and speak reasonable things; neverthe- 
less your stolen jewel, which you wanted him to 
[ find you, is not forthcoming. Often by some 



298 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■winged wori, winged as the thunderbolt is, of 
a Luther, a Napoleon, a Goethe, shall we see 
the difficulty split asunder, and its secret laid 
bare; while the Irrefragable, with all his logi- 
cal tools, hews at it, and hovers round it, and 
finds it on all hands too hard for him. 

Again in the difference between Oratory 
and Rhetoric, as indeed everywhere in that 
superiority of what is called the Natural over 
the Artificial, we find a similar illustration. The 
Orator persuades and carries all with him, he 
knows not how; the Rhetorician can prove 
that he ought to have persuaded and car- 
ried all with him ; the one is in a state of 
healthy unconsciousness, as if he "had no 
system;" the other, in virtue of regimen and 
dietetic punctuality, feels at best that " his 
system is in high order." So stands it, in 
short, with all forms of Intellect, whether as 
directed to the finding of Truth, or to^the fit 
imparting thereof; to Poetry, to Eloquence, to 
depth of Insight, which is the basis of both 
these; always the characteristic of right per- 
formance is a certain spontaneity, an uncon-- 
sciousness ; "the healthy know not of their 
health, but only the sick." So that the old pre- 
cept of the critic, as crabbed as it looked to his 
ambitious disciple, might contain in it a most 
fundamental truth, applicable to us all, and in 
much else than Literature: "Whenever you 
have written any sentence that looks particu- 
larly excellent, be sure to blot it out." In like 
manner, under milder phraseology, and with 
a meaning purposely much wider, a living 
Thinker has taught us: "Of the Wrong we 
are always conscious, of the Right never." 

But if such is the law with regard to Specu- 
lation and the Intellectual power of man, much 
more is it with regard to Conduct, and the 
power, manifested chiefly therein, which we 
name Moral. " Let not thy left hand know 
what thy right hand doeth :" whisper not to 
thy own heart. How worthy is this action ; for 
then it is already becoming worthless. The 
good man is he who works continually in well- 
doing; to whom well-doing is as his natural 
existence, awakening no astonishment, re- 
quiring no commentary; but there, like a 
thing of course, and as if it could not but be 
so. Self-contemplation, on the other hand, is 
infallibly the symptom of disease, be it or be it 
not the sign of cure : an tinhealthy Virtue is 
one that consumes itself to leanness in repent- 
ing and anxiety ; or, still worse, that inflates 
itself into dropsical boastfulness and vain 
glory: either way, it is a self-seeking; an un- 
profitable looking behind us to measure the 
way we have made : whereas the sole concern 
is to walk continually forward, and make more 
way. If in any sphere of Man's Life, then in 
the moral sphere, as the inmost and most vital 
of all, it is good that there be wholeness ; that 
there be unconsciousness, which is the evi- 
dence of this. Let the free, reasonable Will, 
which dwells in us, as in our Holy of Holies, 
be indeed free, and obeyed like a Divinity, as 
is its right and its eflfort: the perfect obedience 
will be the silent one. Such perhaps were the 
sense of that maxim, enunciating, as is usual, 
but the half of a truth : " To say that we have a 
clear conscience is to utter a solecism ; had we 



never sinned, we should have had no con- 
science." Were defeat unknown, neither 
would victory be celebrated by songs of 
triumph. 

This, true enough, is an ideal, impossible 
state of being; yet ever the goal towards which 
our actual state of being strives; which it is 
the more perfect the nearer it can approach. 
Nor, in our actual world, where Labour must 
often prove ineffectual, and thus in all senses 
Light alternate with Darkness, and the nature 
of an ideal Morality be much modified, is the 
case, thus far, materially different. It is a 
fact, which escapes no one, that, generally 
speaking, whoso is acquainted with his worth 
has but a little stock to cultivate acquaintance 
with. Above all, the public acknowledgment 
of such acquaintance, indicating that it has 
reached quite an intimate footing, bodes ill. 
Already, to the popular judgment, he who 
talks much about Virtue in the abstract, begins 
to be suspicious ; it is shrewdly guessed that 
where there is great preaching, there will be 
little almsgiving. Or again, on a wider scale, 
we can remark that ages of Heroism are not 
ages of Moral Philosophy ; Virtue, when it 
can be philosophized of, has become aware 
of itself, is sickly, and beginning to decline. 
A spontaneous habitual all-pervading spirit of 
Chivalrous Valour shrinks together, and perks 
itself up into shrivelled Points of Honour; 
humane Courtesy and Nobleness of mind 
dwindles into punctilious Politeness, "avoid- 
ing meats;" "paying tithe of mint and anise, 
neglecting the weightier matters of the law." 
Goodness, which was a rule to itself, must ap- 
peal to Precept, and seek strength from Sanc- 
tions; the Freewill no longer reigns unques- 
tioned and by divine right, but like a mere 
earthly sovereign, by expediency, by Rewards 
and Punishments : or rather, let us say, the Free- 
will, so far as may be, has abdicated and with- 
drawn into the dark, and a spectral nightmare 
of a Necessity usurps its throne; for now that 
mysterious Self-impulse of the whole man, 
heaven-inspired, and in all senses partaking 
of the Infinite, being captiously questioned in 
a finite dialect, and answering, as it needs 
must, by silence, — is conceived as non-extant, 
and only the outward Mechanism of it remains 
acknowledged: of Volition, except as the 
synonym of Desire, we hear nothing ; of " Mo- 
tives," without any Mover, more than enough. 

So, too, when the generous Affections have 
become well-nigh paralytic, we have the reign 
of Sentimentality. The greatness, the profit- 
ableness, at an)'^ rate the extremely ornamental 
nature of high feeling, and the luxury of doing 
good ; charity, love, self-forgetfulness, devoted- 
ness, and all manner of godlike magnanimity 
are everywhere insisted on, and pressingly in- 
culcated in speech and writing, in prose and 
verse; Socinian Preachers proclaim " Benevo- 
lence" to all the four winds, and have Truth 
engraved on their watchseals : unhappily with 
little or no effect. Were the Limbs in right 
Walking order, why so much demonstrating 
of Motion 1 The barrenest of all mortals is 
the Sentimentalist. Granting even that he 
were sincere, and did not wilfully deceive us, 
or without first deceiving himself, what good 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



299 



is in him 1 Does he not lie there as a perpetual 
lesson of despair, and type of bedrid valetudina- 
rian impotence 1 His is emphatically a Virtue 
that has become, through every fibre, conscious 
of itself; it is all sick, and feels as if it were 
made of glass and durst not touch or be 
touched : in the shape of work, it can do 
nothing; at the utmost, by incessant nursing 
and caudling, keep itself alive. As the last 
stage of all, when Virtue, properly so called, 
has ceased to be practised, and become extinct, 
and a mere remembrance, we have the era of 
Sophists, descanting of its existence, proving 
it, denying it, mechanically " accounting" for 
it ; — as dissectors and demonstrators cannot 
operate till once the body be dead. 

Thus is true Moral genius, like true intellec- 
tual, which indeed is but a lower phasis thereof, 
" ever a secret to itself." The healthy moral 
nature loves Goodness, and without wonder 
wholly lives in it ; the unhealthy makes love to 
it, and would fain get to live in it; or, finding 
such courtship fruitless, turns round, and not 
without contempt, abandons it. These curious 
relations of the Voluntary and Conscious to 
the Involuntary and Unconscious, and the 
small proportion which, in all departments of 
our life, the former bears to the latter, — might 
lead us into deep questions of Psychology and 
Physiology: such, however, belong not to our 
present object. Enough, if the fact itself be- 
come apparent, that Nature so meant it with 
us; that in this wise we are made. We may 
now say, that view man's individual Existence 
■under what aspect we will, under the highest 
Spiritual, as under the merely Animal aspect, 
everywhere the grand vital energy, while in its 
sound stale, is an unseen, unconscious one ; 
or, in the words of our old Aphorism, " the 
healthy know not of their health, but only the 
sick." 

To understand man, however, we must look 
beyond the individual man and his actions or 
interests, and view him in combination with 
his fellows. It is In Society that man first 
feels what he is; first becomes what he can 
be. In Society an altogether new set of spiri- 
tual activities are evolved in him, and the old 
immeasurably quickened and strengthened. 
Society is the genial element wherein his nature 
first lives and grows ; the solitary man were 
but a small portion of himself, and must con- 
tinue for ever folded in, stunted, and only half 
alive. " Already," says a deep Thinker, with 
more meaning than will disclose itself at 
once, "my opinion, my conviction, gains infi- 
iiitely in strength and sureness, the moment 
a second mind has adopted it." Such, even in 
its simplest form, is association ; so wondrous 
the communion of soul with soul as directed 
to the mere act of Knowing! In other higher 
acts, the wonder is still more manifest; as in 
that portion of our being which we name the 
Moral: for properly, indeed, all communion is 
of a moral sort, whereof such intellectual com- 
munion, (in the act of knowing,) is itself an 
example. But with regard to Morals strictly 
so called, it is in Society, we might almost say, 
that Morality begins ; here at least it takes an 
altogether new form, and on every side, as in 
living growth, expands itself. The Duties of 



Man to himself, to what is Highest in himself, 
make but the First Table of the Law: to the 
First Table is now superadded a Second, v/ith 
the duties of Man to his Neighbour; whereby 
also the significance of the first now assumes 
its true importance. Man has joined himself 
with man; soul acts and reacts on soul; a 
mystic miraculous unfathomable Union estab- 
lishes itself; Life, in all its elements, has be- 
come intensated, consecrated. The lightning- 
spark of Thought, generated, or say rather 
heaven-kindled, in the solitary mind, awakens 
its express likeness in another mind, in a 
thousand other minds, and all blaze up together 
in combined fire ; reverberated from mind to 
mind, fed also with fresh fuel in each, it ac- 
quires incalculable new Light as Thought, in- 
calculable new Heat as converted into Action. 
By and by, a common store of Thought can 
accumulate, and be transmitted as an everlast- 
ing possession : Literature, whether as pre- 
served in the memory of Bards, in Runes and 
Hieroglyphs engraved on stone, or in Books of 
written or printed paper, comes into existence, 
and begins to play its wondrous part. Politics 
are formed ; the weak submitting to the strong; 
with a willing loyalty, giving obedience that he 
may receive guidance : or say rather, in honour 
of our nature, the ignorant submitting to the 
wise ; for so it is in all even the nulest com- 
munities, man never yields himself wholly to 
brute Force, but always to moral Greatness ; 
thus the universal title of respect, from the 
Oriental Schcik, from the Sacliem of the red In- 
dians, down to our English Sir, implies only 
that he whom we mean to honour is our scjiior. 
Last, as the crown and all-supporting keystone 
of the fabric, Rel'gion arises. The devout 
meditation of the isolated man, which flitted 
through his soul, like a transient tone of Love 
and Awe from unknown lands, acquires cer- 
tainty, continuance, when it is shared in by his 
brother-men. " Where two or three are gathered 
together" in the name of the Highest, then first 
does the Highest, as it is written, " appear 
among them to bless them ;" then first does an 
Altar and act of united Worship open a way 
from Earth to Heaven ; whereon, were it but a 
simple Jacob's-ladder, the heavenly Messen- 
gers will travel, with glad tidings, and unspeak- 
able gifts for men. Such is SociETr, the vital 
articulation of many individuals into a new 
collective individual : greatly the most impor- 
tant of man's attainments on this earth ; that in 
which, and by virtue of which, all his other 
attainments and attempts find their arena, and 
have their value. Considered well. Society is 
the standing wonder of our existence; a true 
region of the Supernatural; as it were, a se- 
cond all-embracing Life, wherein our first indi- 
vidual Life becomes doubly and trebly alive, 
and whatever of infinitude was in us bodies 
itself forth, and becomes visible and active. 

To figure society as endowed with Life is 
scarcely a metaphor ; but rather the statement 
of a fact by such imperfect methods as language 
affords. Look at it closely, that mystic Union, 
Nature's highest work with man, wherein man's 
volition plays an indispensable yet so subordi- 
nate a part, and the small Mechanical grows so 
mysteriously and indissolubly out of the infinite 



300 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Dynamical, like body out of Spirit, — is truly 
enough vital, what we can call vital, and bears 
the distinguishing character of life. In the 
same style also, we can say that Society has 
its periods of sickness and vigour, of youth, 
manhood, decrepitude, dissolution, and new- 
birth ; in one or other of which stages, we may, 
in all times and all places where men inhabit, 
discern it; and do ourselves in this time and 
place, whether as co-operating or as contending, 
as healthy members or as diseased ones, to our 
joy and sorrow, form part of it. The question, 
what is the actual condition of Society 1 has 
in these days unhappily become important 
enough. No one of us is unconcerned in that 
question ; but for the majority of thinking men 
a true answer to it, such is the state of matters, 
appears almost as the one thing needful. Mean- 
while as the true answer, that is to say, the 
complete and fundamental answer and settle- 
ment, often as it has been demanded, is no- 
where forthcoming, and indeed by its nature is 
impossible, any honest approximation towards 
such is not without value. The feeblest light, 
or even so much as a more precise recognition 
of the darkness, which is the first step to attain- 
ment of light, will be welcome. 

This once understood, let it not seem idle if 
we remark that here too our old Aphorism 
holds ; that again in the Body Politic, as in the 
animal body, the sign of right pei-formance is 
Unconsciousness. Such, indeed, is virtually the 
meaning of that phrase " artificial state of so- 
ciety," as contrasted with the natural state, and 
indicating something so inferior to it. For, in 
all vital things, men distinguish an Artificial 
and a Natural ; founding on some dim percep- 
tion or sentiment of the very truth we here 
insist on ; the Artificial is the conscious, me- 
chanical ; the Natural is the unconscious, dy- 
namical. Thus as we have an artificial Poetry, 
and prize only the natural ; so likewise we have 
an artificial Morality, an artificial Wisdom, an 
artificial Society. The artificial Society is 
precisely one that knows its own structure, its 
own internal functions ; not in watching, not in 
knowing which, but in working outwardly to 
the fulfilment of its aim, does the well-being of 
a Society consist. Every Society, every Polity, 
has a spiritual principle; is the imbodiment, 
tentative, and more or less complete, of an 
Idea: all its tendencies of endeavour, speciali- 
ties of custom, its laws, politics, and whole pro- 
cedure, (as the glance of some Montesquieu 
across innumerable superficial entanglements 
can partly decipher,) are prescribed by an Idea, 
and flow naturally from it, as movements from 
the living source of motion. This idea, be it 
of devotion to a Man or class of Men, to a 
Creed, to an institution, or even, as in more 
ancient times, to a piece of land, is ever a true 
Loyalty; has in it something of a religious, 
paramount, quite infinite character ; it is pro- 
perly the Soul of the State, its Life : mysterious 
as other forms of Life, and like these working 
secretly, and in a depth beyond that of con- 
sciousness. 

Accordingly, it is not in the vigorous ages 
of a Roman Republic that Treatises of the 
Commonwealth are written : while the Decii 
are rushing with devoted bodies on the ene- 



mies of Rome, what need of preaching Patri- 
otism 1 The virtue of Patriotism has already 
sunk from its pristine, all-transcendant condi- 
tion, before it has received a name. So long as 
the Commonwealth continues rightly athletic, it 
cares not to dabble in anatomy. Why teach 
Obedience to the sovereign; why so much as ad- 
mire ii, or separately recognise it, while a divine 
idea of Obedience perennially inspires all men ? 
Loyalty, like Patriotism, of which it is a form, 
was not praised until it had begun to decline ; 
the Preux Chevaliers first became rightly admir- 
able, when "dying for their king" had ceased to 
be a habitwith chevaliers. Forif the mystic sig- 
nificance of the State, let this be what it may, 
dwells vitally in every heart, encircles every life 
as with a second higher life, how should it stand 
self questioning 1 It must rush outward, and 
express itself by works. Besides, if perfect, 
it is there as by necessity, and does not ex- 
cite inquiry : it is also by nature, infinite, has 
no limits; therefore can be circumscribed by 
no conditions and definitions ; cannot be rea- 
soned of; except 'immcaUy, or in the language 
of Poetry, cannot yet so much as be spoken of.. 
In those days. Society was what we name 
healthy, sound at heart. Not, indeed, without 
suffering enough; not without perplexities, 
difficulty on every side: for such is the ap- 
pointment of man; his highest and sole bless- 
edness is, that he toil, and know what to toil at: 
not in ease, but in united victorious labour, 
which is at once evil and the victory over evil, 
does his Freedom lie. Nay, often, looking no 
deeper than such superficial perplexities of the 
early Time, historians have taught us that it 
was all one mass of contradiction and disease;, 
and in the antique Republic, or feudal Mo- 
narchy, have seen only the confused chaotic 
quarry, not the robust labourer, or the stately 
edifice he was building of it. If society, in such 
ages, had its dilficult3% it had also its strength ; 
if sorrowful masses of rubbish so encumbered 
it, the tough sinews to hurl them aside, with 
indomitable heart, were not wanting. Society 
went along without complaint; did not stop to 
scrutinize itself, to say. How well I perform, 
or, Alas, how ill ! Men did not yet feel them- 
selves to be " the envy of surrounding nations ;" 
and were enviable on that very account. So- 
ciety was what we can call u-hole, in both 
senses of the word. The individual man was 
in himself a whole, or complete union ; and 
could combine with his fellows as the living 
member of a greater whole. For all men, 
through their life, were animated by one great 
Idea ;" thus all effcrrts pointed one way, every- 
where there was wholeness. Opinion and Action 
had not yet become disunited; but the former 
could still produce the latter, or attempt to 
produce it, as the stamp does its impression 
while the wax is not hardened. Thought, and 
the Voice of thought, were also a unison ; thus, 
instead of Speculation we had Poetry; Lite- 
rature, in its rude utterance, was as yet a 
heroic Sons-, perhaps too a devotional Anthem. 
Religion was everywhere ; Philosophy lay hid 
under it, peacefully included in it. Herein, as 
in the life-centre of all, lay the true health and 
oneness. Only at a later era must Religion 
split itself into Philosophies ; and thereby the 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



30 1 



vital union of thought being lost, disunion and 
mutual collision in all provinces of Speech and 
of Action more and more prevail. For if the 
Poet, or Priest, or by whatever title the inspired 
thinker may be named, is the sign of vigour 
and wellbeing; so likewise is th^ Logician, or 
uninspired thinker, the sign of disease, proba- 
bly of decrepitude and decay. Thus, not to 
mention other instances, one of them much 
nearer hand, — so soon as Prophecy among the 
Hebrews had ceased, then did the reign of Ar- 
gumentation begin ; and the ancient Theocracy, 
in its Sadduceeisms and Phariseeisms, and 
vain jangling of sects and doctors, give token 
that the so7tl of it had fled, and that the body 
itself by natural dissolution, "with the old 
forces still at work, but working in reverse 
order," was on the road to final disappearance. 

We might pursue this question into innu- 
merable other ramifications ; and everywhere, 
under new shapes, find the same truth, which 
we here so imperfectly enunciate, disclosed: 
that throughout the whole world of man, in all 
manifestations and performances of his nature, 
outward and inward, personal and social, the 
Perfect, the Great is a mystery to itself, knows 
not itself; whatsoever does know itself is al- 
ready little, and more or less imperfect. Or other- 
wise, we may say. Unconsciousness belongs to 
pure unmixed Life; Consciousness to a diseased 
mixture and conflict of Life and Death : Uncon- 
sciousness is the sign of Creation; Conscious- 
ness at best, that of Manufacture. So deep, in 
this existence of ours, is the significance of M3's- 
tery. Well might the Ancients make silence a 
god ; for it is the element of all godhood, infini- 
tude, or transcendental greatness ; at once the 
source and the ocean wherein all such begins 
and ends. In the same sense, too, have Poets 
sung "Hymns to the Night;" as if "Night" were 
nobler than day ; as if Day were but a small 
motley-coloured veil spread transiently over 
the infinite bosom of Night, and did but deform 
and hide from us its purely transparent, eter- 
nal deeps. So likewise have they spoken and 
sung as if Silence were the grand epitome and 
complete sum-total of all Harmony; and Death, 
what mortals call Death, properly the begin- 
ning of Life. Under such figures, since ex- 
cept in figures there is no speaking of the Invi- 
sible, have men endeavoured to express a great 
Truth; — a Truth, in our times, as nearly as is 
perhaps possible, forgotten by the most; which 
nevertheless continues for ever true, for ever all- 
important, and will one day, under new figures, 
be again brought home to the bosoms of all. 

But, indeed, in a far lower sense, the rudest 
mind has still some intimation of the greatness 
there is in Mystery. If Silence M^as made a 
god of by the Ancients, he still continues a 
government clerk among us Moderns. To all 
Quacks, moreover, of what sort soever, the 
effect of Mystery is well known : here and there 
some Cagliostro, even in latter days, turns it 
to notable account: the Blockhead also, who 
is ambitious, and has no talent, finds sometimes 
in " the talent of silence," a kind of succedane- 
um. Or again, looking on the opposite side of 
the matter, do we not see, in the common un- 
dersianding of mankind, a certain distrust, a 



certain contempt of what is altogether self- 
conscious and mechanical ] As nothing that is 
wholly seen through has other than a trivial cha- 
racter ; so any thing professing to be great, and 
yet wholly to see through itself, is already 
known to be false, and a failure. The evil re- 
pule your " theoretical men" stand in, the ac- 
knowledged inefficiency of " Paper Constitu- 
tions," and all that class of objects, are in- 
stances of this. Experience often repeated, 
and perhaps a certain instinct of something far 
deeper that lies under such experiences, has 
taught men so much. They know, beforehand, 
that the loud is generally the insignificant, the 
empty. Whatsoever can proclaim itself from 
the house-tops may be fit for the hawker, and 
for those multitudes that must needs buy of him; 
but for any deeper use, might as well coniinue 
unproclaimed. Observe, too, how the coiiV'rse 
of the proposition holds ; how the insignificant, 
the empty, is usually the loud; and, after the 
manner of a drum, is loud even because of its 
emptiness. The uses of some Patent Dinner 
Calefactor can he bruited abroad over the 
whole world in the course of the first winter; 
those of the Printing Press are not so well seen 
into for the first three centuries : the passing 
of the Select Vestries Bill raises more noise 
and hopeful expectancy among mankind, than 
did the promulgation of the Christian Religion. 
Again, and again, we say, the great, the crea- 
tive, and enduring, is ever a secret to itself; 
only the small, the barren, and transient, is 
otherwise. 

If we now, with a practical medical view, 
examine, by this same test of Unconsciousness, 
the Condition of our own Era, and of man's 
Life therein, the diagnosis we arrive at is no- 
wise of a flattering sort. The state of Society 
in our days is of all possible states the least an 
unconscious one: this is especially the Era 
when all manner of Inquiries into what was 
once the unfelt, involuntary sphere of man's 
existence, find their place, and as it were oc- 
cupy the whole domain of thought. What, for 
example, is all this that we hear, for the last 
generation or two, about the Improvement of 
the Age, the Spirit of the Age, Destruction of 
Prejudice, Progress of the Species, and the 
March of Intellect, but an unhealthy state of 
self-sentience, self-survey: the precursor and 
prognostic of still worse health 1 That Intel- 
lect do march, if possible at double-quick time, 
is very desirable ; nevertheless why should 
she turn round at every stride, and cry: See 
you what a stride I have taken ! Such a 
marching of Intellect is distinctly of the spa- 
vined kind; what the Jockeys call " all action 
and no go." Or at best, if we examine well, it 
is the marching of that gouty Patient, whom 
his Doctors had clapt on a metal floor artifi- 
cially heated to the searing point, so that he 
was obliged to march, and marched with 
a vengeance — nowhither. Intellect did not 
awaken for the first time yesterday; but has 
been under way from Noah's Flood down- 
wards : greatly her best progress, moreover, 
was in the old times, when she said nothing 
about it. In those same dark " ages," Intellect 
(metaphorically as well as literally) could in 
vent glass, which now she has enough ado vO 
2C 



302 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



grind into spectacles. Intellect built not only- 
Churches, but a Church, the Church, based on 
this firm Earth, yet reaching up, and leading up, 
as high as Heaven ; and now it is all she can do 
to keep its doors bolted, that there be no tearing 
of the Surplices, no robbery of the Alms-box. 
She built a Senate-house likewise, glorious in 
its kind ; and now it costs her a wellnigh mortal 
effort to sweep it clear of vermin, and get the 
roof made rain-tight. 

But the truth is, with Intellect, as with most 
other things, we are now passing from that 
first or boastful stage of Self-sentience into 
the second or painful one : fut of these often 
asseverated declarations that " our system is 
in high order," we come now, by natural se- 
quence, to the melancholy conviction that it is 
altogether the reverse. Thus, for instance, in 
the matter of Government, the period of the 
"Invaluable Constitution" must be followed by 
a Reform Bill; to laudatory De Lolmes suc- 
ceed objurgatory Benthams. At any rate, 
■what Treatises on the Social Contract, on the 
Elective Franchise, the Rights of Man, the 
Rights of Property, Codifications, Institutions, 
Constitutions, have we not, for long years, 
groaned under ! Or again, with a wider sur- 
vey, consider those Essays on Man, Thoughts 
on Man, Inquiries concerning Man; not to 
mention Evidences of the Christian Faith, 
Theories of Poetry, Consideration on the Ori- 
gin of Evil, which during the last century 
have accumulated on us to a frightful extent. 
Never since the beginning of Time was there, 
that we hear or read of, so intensely self-con- 
scious a Society. Our whole relations to the 
Universe and to our fellow man have become 
an Inquiry, a Doubt: nothing will go on of its 
own accord, and do its functions quietly ; but 
all things must be probed into, the whole work- 
ing of man's world be anatomically studied. 
Alas, anatomically studied, that it may be me- 
dically aided ! Till at length, indeed, we have 
come to such a pass, that except in this same 
Medicine, with its artifices and appliances, 
few can so ranch as imagine any strength or 
hope to remain for us. The whole Life of 
Society must now be carried on by drugs : 
doctor after doctor appears with his nostrum, 
of Co-operative Societies, Universal Suffrage, 
Cottage-and-Cow systems, Repression of Popu- 
lation, Vote by Ballot. To such height has 
the dyspepsia of Society reached; as indeed 
the constant grinding internal pain, or from 
time to time the mad spasmodic throes, of all 
Society do otherwise too mournfully indicate. 

Far be it from us to attribute, as some un- 
wise persons do, the disease itself to this un- 
happy sensation that there is a disease! The 
Encyclopedists did not produce the troubles of 
France ; but the troubles of France produced 
the Encyclopedists, and much else. The Self- 
consciousness is the symptom merely; nay, it 
is also the attempt towards cure. We record 
the fact, without special censure ; not wonder- 
ing that Society should feel itself, and in all 
ways complain of aches and twinges, for it 
has suffered enough. Napoleon was but a 
Job's comforter, when he told his wounded 
Staff-officer, twice unhorsed by cannon balls. 



and with half his limbs blown to pieces : Vous 
vaus eioutez troji .' 

On the outward, or as it were Physical diseases 
of Society, it were beside our purpose to insist 
here. These are diseases which he who runs 
may read ; and sorrow over, with or without 
hope. Wealth has accumulated itself into 
masses; and Poverty, also in accumulation 
enough, lies impassably separated from it; op- 
posed, uncommunicating, like forces in posi- 
tive and negative poles. The gods of this 
lower world sit aloft on glittering thrones, less 
happy than Epicurus' gods, but as indolent, as 
impotent; while the boundless living chaos of 
Ignorance and Hunger welters terrific, in its 
dark fury, under their feet. How much among 
us might 1)6 likened to a whited sepulchre; 
outwardly all Pomp and Strength; but in- 
wardly full of horror and despair and dead 
men's bones ! Iron highways, with their wains 
fire-winged, are uniting all ends of the firm 
I>and ; quays and moles, with their innumera- 
ble stately fleets, tame the Ocean into our pli- 
ant bearerof burdens ; Labour's thousand arms, 
of sinew and of metal, all-conquering, every- 
where, from the tops of the mountain down to 
the depths of the mine and the caverns of the 
sea, ply unweariedly for the service of man : 
Yet man remains unserved. He has subdued 
this Planet, his habitation and inheritance, yet 
reaps no profit from the victory. Sad to look 
upon, in the highest stage of civilization, nine- 
tenths of mankind must struggle in the lowest 
battle of savage or even animal man, the bat- 
tle against Famine. Countries are rich, pros- 
perous in all manner of increase, beyond ex- 
ample: but the Men of those countries are 
poor, needier than ever of all sustenance out- 
ward and inward; of Belief, of Knowledge, 
of Money, of Food. The rule. Sic ims non vobis, 
never altogether to be got rid of in men's In- 
dustry, now presses with such incubus weight, 
that industry must shake it off, or utterly be 
strangled under it; and, alas, can as yet but 
gasp and rave, and aimlessly struggle, like one 
in the final deliration. Thus Change, or the 
inevitable approach of Change, is manifest 
everywhere. In one Country we have seen 
lava-torrents of fever-frenzy envelope all 
things ; Government succeed Government, like 
the phantasms of a dying brain : in another 
Country, we can even now see, in maddest al-» 
ternation, the Peasant governed by such guid- 
ance as this: To labour earnestly one month 
in raising wheat, and the next month labour 
earnestly in burning it. So that Society, were 
it not by nature immortal, and its death ever a 
new-birth, might appear, as it does in the eyes 
of some, to be sick to dissolution, and evea 
now writhing in its last agony. Sick enough 
we must admit it to be, with disease enough, a 
whole nosology of diseases ; wherein he per- 
haps is happiest that is not called to prescribe 
as physician ;— wherein, however, one small 
piece of policy, that of summoning the Wisest 
in the Commonwealth, by the sole method yet 
known or thought of, to come together and with 
their whole soul consult for it, might, but for 
late tedious experiences, have seemed unques- 
tionable enousrh. 



CHARACTERISTICS, 



30a 



But leaving this, let us rather look within, 
into the Spiritual condition of Society, and see 
what aspects and prospects offer themselves 
there. For, after all, it is there properly that 
the secret and origin of the whole is to be 
sought: the Physical derangements of Society 
are but the image and impress of its Spiritual ; 
while the heart continues sound, all other 
sickness is superficial, and temporary. False 
Action is the fruit of false Speculation ; let the 
spirit of Society be free and strong, that is to 
say, let true Principles inspire the members 
of Society, then neither can disorders accumu- 
late in its Practice ; each disorder will be 
promptly, faithfully inquired into, and reme- 
died as it arises. But alas, with us the Spiri- 
tual condition of Society is no less sickly than 
the Physical. Examine man's internal world, 
in any of its social relations and performances, 
here too all seems diseased self-consciousness, 
collision, and mutually-destructive striiggle. 
Nothing acts from within outwards in undi- 
vided healthy force ; every thing lies impotent, 
lamed, its force turned inwards, and painfully 
"listens to itself." 

To begin with our highest Spiritual function, 
with Religion, we might ask, whither has Reli- 
gion now fledl Of Churches and their estab- 
lishments we here say nothing; nor of the 
unhappy domains of Unbelief, and how innu- 
merable men, blinded in their minds, must 
" live without God in the world ;" but, taking the 
fairest side of the matter, we ask, What is the 
nature of that same Religion, which still lin- 
gers in the hearts of the few who are called, and 
call themselves, specially the Religious'? Is it 
a healthy Religion, vital, unconscious of itself; 
that shines forth spontaneously in doing of the 
Work, or even in preaching of the Word ? 
Unhappily, no. Instead of heroic martyr Con- 
duct, and inspired and soul-inspiring Elo- 
quence, whereby Religion itself were bi'ought 
home to our living bosoms, to live and reign 
there, we have " Discourses on the Evidences," 
endeavouring, with smallest result, to make it 
probable that such a thing as Religion exists. 
The most enthusiastic Evangelicals do not 
preach a Gospel, but keep describing how it 
should and might be preached; to awaken the 
sacred fire of Faith, as by a sacred contagion, 
is not their endeavour ; but, at most, to describe 
how Faith shows and acts, and scientifically 
distinguish true Faith from false. Religion, 
like all else, is conscious of itself, listens to 
itself; it becomes less and less creative, vital; 
more and more mechanical. Considered as a 
whole, the Christian Religion, of late ages has 
been continually dissipating itself into Meta- 
physics ; and threatens now to disappear, as 
some rivers do, in deserts of barren sand. 

Of Literature, and its deep-seated, wide- 
spread maladies, why speak 1 Literature is 
but a branch of Religion, and always partici- 
pates in its character. However, in our time, 
it is the only branch that still shows any green- 
ness ; and, as some think, must one day become 
the main stem. Now, apart from the subter- 
ranean and tartarean regions of Literature;— 
leaving out of view the frightful, scandalous 
statistics of Pufling, the mystery of Slander, 
Falsehood, Hatred, and other convulsion-work 



of rabid Imbecility, and all that has rendered 
Literature on that side a perfect "Babylon the 
mother of Abominations," in very deed, making 
the world '"drunk" with the wine of her iniquity; 
— forgetting all this, let us look only to the re- 
gions of the upper air; to such Literature as 
can be said to have some attempt towards 
truth in it, some tone of music, and if it be not 
poetical, to hold of the poetical. Among other 
characteristics, is not this manifest enough: 
that it knows itself? Spontaneous devotedness 
to the object, being wholly possessed by the 
object, what we can call Inspiration, has well- 
nigh ceased to appear m Literature. Which 
melodious Singer forgets that he is singing 
melodiously] We have not the love of great- 
ness, but the love of the love of greatness. 
Hence infinite Affectations, Distractions; in 
every case inevitable Error. Consider, for one 
example, this peculiarity of Modern Literature,^ 
the sin that has been named View-hunting. In 
our elder writers, there are no paintings of 
scenery for its own sake ; no euphuistic gal- 
lantries with Nature, but a constant heart-love 
for her, a constant dwelling in communiou 
with her. View-hunting, with so much else 
that is of kin to it, first came decisively into 
action through the Sor7ows of Werter ; which 
wonderful Performance, indeed, may in many 
senses be regarded as the progenitor of all that 
has since become popular in Literature; 
whereof, in so far as concerns spirit and ten- 
dency, it still offers the most instructive image ; 
for nowhere, except in its own country, above 
all in the mind of its illustrious Author, has it 
yet fallen wholly obsolete. Scarcely ever, till 
that late epoch, did any worshipper of Nature 
become entirely aware that he was worship- 
ping, much to his own credit, and think of 
saying to himself: Come let us make a de- 
scription ! Intolerable enough: when every 
puny whipster draws out his pencil, and insists 
on painting you a scene; so that the instant 
you discern such a thing as "wavy outline," 
" mirror of the lake," " stern headland," or the 
like, in any Book, you must timorously hasten 
on ; and scarcely the Author of Waverley him- 
self can tempt you not to skip. 

Nay, is not the diseased self-conscious state 
of Literature disclosed in this one fact, which 
lies so near us here, the prevalence of Review- 
ing! Sterne's wish for a reader " that would 
give up the reins of his imagination into his 
author's hands and be pleased he knew not 
why, and cared not wherefore," might lead him 
a long journey now. Indeed, for our best class 
of readers, the chief pleasure, a very stinted 
one, is this same knowing of the Why ; which 
many a Kames and Bossu has been, ineffec- 
tually enough, endeavouring to teach us: till 
at last these also have laid down their trade; 
and now your Reviewer is a mere tas^ter, who 
tastes, and says, by the evidence of such palate, 
such tongue, as he has got — It is good ; it is 
bad. Was it thus that the French carried out 
certain inferior creatures on their Algerine 
Expedition, to taste the wells for them, and try 
whether they were poisoned 1 Far be it from 
us to disparage our own craft, whereby we 
have our living! Only we must note these 
things : that Reviewing spreads with strange 



304 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



vigour; that such a man as Byron reckons the 
Reviewer and the Poet equal; that at the last 
Leipsic Fair, there was advertised a Review 
of Reviews. By and by it wall be found that 
" all Literature has become one boundless self- 
devouring Review; and as in London routs, 
we have to do nothing, but only to sec others do 
nothing" — Thus does Literature also, like a 
sick thing, superabundantly "listen to itself." 

No less is this unhealthy syinptom manifest, 
if we cast a glance on our Philosophy, on the 
character of our speculative Thinking. Nav, 
already, as above hinted, the mere existence 
and necessity of a Philosophy is an evil. Man 
is sent hither not to question, but to work : 
"the end of man," it was long ago written, "is 
an Action, not a Thought." In the perfect 
state, all Thought were but the Picture and in- 
spiring Symbol of Action ; Philosophy, except 
as Poetry and Religion, had no being. And 
yet how, in this imperfect state, can it be 
avoided, can it be dispensed withl Man 
stands as in the centre of Nature; his fraction 
of Time encircled by Eternity, his handbreadth 
of Space encircled by Infinitude: how shall 
he forbear asking himself, What am I; and 
Whence; and Whither] How too, except in 
slight partial hints, in kind asseverations and 
assurances, such as a mother quiets her fret- 
fully inquisitive child with, shall he get answer 
to such inquiries ? 

The disease of Metaphysics, accordingl}^, is 
a perennial one. In all ages, those questions 
of Death and Immortality, Origin of Evil, Free- 
dom and Necessity, must, under new forms, 
anew make their appearance ; ever, from time 
to time, must the attempt to shape for our- 
selves some Theorem of the Universe be 
repeated. And ever unsuccessfully: for what 
Theorem of the Infinite can the Finite render 
complete! We, the whole species of Man- 
kind, and our whole existence and history, are 
but a floating speck in the illimitable ocean of 
the All ; yet in that ocean ; indissoluble portion 
thereof; partaking of its infinite tendencies; 
borne this way and that by its deep-swelling 
tides, and grand ocean currents ; — of which 
what faintest chance is there that we should 
ever exhaust the significance, ascertain the 
goings and comings? A region of Doubt, 
therefore, hovers for ever in the background ; 
in Action alone can we have certainty. Nay, 
properly. Doubt Is the indispensable, inexhaus- 
tible material whereon Action works, which 
Action has to fashion into Certainty and Re- 
ality; only on a canvas of Darkness, such is 
man's way of being, could the many-coloured 
picture of our Life paint itself and shine. 

Thus if our oldest system of Metaphysics is 
as old as the Book of Genesis, our latest is that 
of Mr. Thomas Hope, published only within 
the current year. It is a chronic malady that 
of Metaphysics, as we said, and perpetually 
recurs on us. At the utmost, there is a better 
and a worse in it; a stage of convalescence, 
and a stage of relapse with new sickness: 
these for ever succeed each other, as is the 
nature of all Life-movements here below. The 
first, or convalescent stage, w'e might also 
name of that Dogmatical or Constructive Meta- 
physics ; when the mind constructively en- 



deavours to scheme out, and assert for itself 
an actual Theorem of the Universe, and there- 
with for a time rests satisfied. The second or 
sick stage might be called that of Skeptical 
or Inquisitory Metaphysics; when the mind 
having widened its sphere of vision, the exist- 
ing Theorem of the Universe no longer answers 
the phenomena, no longer yields contentment; 
but must be torn in pieces, and certainty anew 
sought for in the endless realms of Denial. 
All Theologies and sacred Cosmogonies be- 
long, in some measure, to the first class : in 
all Pyrrhonism from Pyrrho down to Hume 
and the innumerable disciples of Hume, we 
have instances enough of the second. In the 
former, so far "as it affords satisfaction, a tem- 
porary anodyne to Doubt, an arena for whole- 
some action, there may be much good; indeed 
in this case, it holds rather of Poetry than 
of Metaphysics, might be called Inspiration 
rather than Speculation. The latter is Mela- 
physics proper; a pure, unmixed, though from 
time to time a necessary evil. 

For truly, if we look into it, there is no more 
fruitless endeavour than this same, which the 
Metaphysician proper toils in : to educe Con- 
viction out of Negation. How, by merely 
testing and rejecting what is not, shall w-e ever 
attain knowledge of what is 1 Metaphysical 
Speculation, as it begins in No or Nothingness, 
so it must needs end in Nothingness ; circu- 
lates and must circulate in endless vortices ; 
creating, swallowing — itself. Our being is 
made up of Light and Darkness, the Light 
resting on the Darkness, and balancing it; 
everywhere there is Dualism, Equipoise; a 
perpetual Contradiction dwells in us: "where' 
shall I place myself to escape from my own 
shadow?" Consider it well, Metaphysics is 
the attempt of the mind to rise above the 
mind; to environ, and shut in, or as we say, 
comprehend the mind. Hopeless struggle, for 
the wisest, as for the foolishest ! What strength 
of sinew, or athletic skill, will enable the 
stoutest athlete to fold his own body in his 
arms, and, by lifting, lift up himself? The 
Irish Saint swam the Channel "carrying his 
head in his teeth :" but the feat has never been 
imitated. 

That this is the age of Metaphysics, in the 
proper, or skeptical Inquisitory sense ; that 
there was a necessity for its being such an. 
age, we regard as our indubitable misfortune. 
From many causes, the arena of free Activity 
has long been narrowing, that of skeptical In- 
quiry becoming more and more universal, more 
and more perplexing. The Thought conducts 
not to the Deed; but in boundless chaos, self- 
devouring, engenders monstrosities, fantasms, 
fire-breathing chimeras. Profitable Specula- 
tion were this : What is to be done ; and How 
is it to be done ? But wdth us not so much as 
the What can be got sight of. For some 
genei'ations, all Philosophy has been a painful, 
captious, hostile question towards every thins: in 
the Heaven above, in the Earth beneath: Why 
art thou there? Till at length it has come to 
pass that the worth and authenticity of all things 
seems dubitable or deniable: our best effort 
must be unproductively spent, not in working, 
but in ascertaining our mere Whereabout, and 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



305 



so much as whether we are to work at all. 
Doubt, which, as was said, ever hangs in the 
back-ground of our world, has now become 
our middle-ground and foreground; whereon, 
for the time, no fair Life-picture can be painted, 
but only the dark air-canvas itself flow round 
us, bewildering and benighting. 

Nevertheless, doubt as we will, man is 
actually Here; not to ask questions, but to do 
work : in this time, as in all times, it must be 
the heaviest evil for him, if his faculty of Ac- 
tion lie dormant, and only that of skeptical In- 
quiry exert itself. Accordingly, whoever looks 
abroad upon the world, comparing the Past 
with the Present, may find that the practical 
condition of man, in these days, is one of the 
saddest; burdened with miseries which are in 
a considerable degree peculiar. In no time 
was man's life what he calls a happy one ; in 
no time can it be so. A perpetual dream there 
has, been of Paradises, and some luxurious 
Lubberland, where the brooks should nin wine, 
and the trees bend with ready-baked viands ; 
but it was a dream merely, an impossible 
dream. Suffering, Contrrdiction, Error, have 
their quite perennial, and even indispensable, 
abode in this Earth. Is not Labour the in- 
heritance of man 1 And what Labour for the 
present is joyous, and not grievous ? Labour, 
Effort, is the very interruption of that Ease, 
which man foolishly enough fancies to be his 
Happiness: and yet without Labour there 
were no Ease, no Rest, so much as conceiva- 
ble. Thus Evil, what we call Evil, must ever 
€xist while man exists: Evil, in the widest 
sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, 
disordered material out of which man's Free- 
will has to create an edifice of order, and 
Good. Ever must Pain urge us to Labour; 
and only in free Effort can any blessedness be 
imagined for us. 

But if man has, in all ages, had enough to 
encounter, there has, in most civilized ages, 
been an inward force vouchsafed him, whereby 
the pressure of things outward might be with- 
stood. Obstruction abounded ; but Faith also 
was not wanting. It is by Faith that man re- 
moves mountains: while he had Faith, his 
limbs might be wearied with toiling, his back 
galled with bearing; but the heart within him 
was peaceable and resolved. In the thickest 
gloom there burnt a lamp to guide him. If he 
struggled and suffered, he felt, that it even 
should be so; knew for what he was suffering 
and struggling. Faith gave him an inward 
Willingness; a world of Strength wherewith 
to front a world of DiflSculty. The true 
wretchedness lies here : that the Difficulty re- 
main and the Strength be lost; that Pain can- 
not relieve itself in free Effort; that we have 
the Labour, and want the Willingness. Faith 
strengthens us, enlightens us, forall endeavours 
and endurances ; with Faith we can do all, and 
dare all, and life itself has a thousand times 
been joyfully given away. But the sum of I 
man's misery is even this, that he feel himself | 
crushed under the Juggernaut wheels and 
know that Juggernaut is no divinity, but a 
dead mechanical idol. I 

Now this is specially the misery which has 
fallen on man in our Era. Belief, Faith has I 
39 



wellnigh vanished from the world. The youth 
on awakening in this wondrous Universe, no 
longer finds a competent theory of its wonders. 
Time was when, if he asked himself: What is 
man ; what are the duties of man 1 the answer 
stood ready written for him. But now the 
ancient " ground-plan of the All" belies itself 
when brought into contact with reality ; Mother 
Church has, to the most, become a superan- 
nuated Stepmother, whose lessons go disre- 
garded; or are spurned at, and scornfully 
gainsayed. For young Valour and thirst of Ac- 
tion no ideal Chivalry invites to heroism, pre- 
scribes what is heroic: the old ideal of Man- 
hood has grown obsolete, and the new is still 
invisible to us, and we grope after it in dark- 
ness, one clutching this phantom, another that ; 
Werterism, Byronism, even Brummelism, 
each has its day. For contemplation and love 
of Wisdom no Cloister now opens its religious 
shades ; the Thinker must, in all senses, wander 
homeless, too often aimless, looking up to a 
Heaven which is dead for him, round to an 
Earth which is deaf. Action, in those old 
days, was easy, was voluntary, for the divine 
worth of human things lay acknowledged; 
Speculation was wholesome, for it ranged 
itself as the handmaid of Action; what could 
not so range itself died out by its natural death, 
by neglect. Loyalty still hallowed obedience, 
and made rule noble ; there was still some- 
thing to be loyal to; the Godlike stood em- 
bodied under many a symbol in men's interests 
and business; the Finite shadowed forth the 
Infinite; Eternity looked through Time. The 
Life of man was- encompassed and overcano- 
pied by a glory of Heaven, even as his dwell- 
ing-place by the azure vault. 

How changed in these new days ! Truly may 
it be said, the Divinity has withdrawn from 
the Earth ; or veils himself in that wide-wast- 
ing Whirlwind of a departing Era, wherein the 
fewest can discern his goings. Not Godhead, 
but an iron, ignoble circle of Necessity em- 
braces all things; binds the youth of these 
times into a sluggish thrall, or else exasperates 
him into a rebel. Heroic Action is paralyzed; 
for what worth now remains unquestionable 
with him ? At the fervid period when his 
whole nature cries aloud for Action, there is 
nothingsacred under whose banner he can act; 
the course and kind and conditions of free 
Action are all but undiscoverable. Doubt 
storms in on him through every avenue: in- 
quiries of the deepest, painfuUest sort must be 
engaged with ; and the invincible energy of 
young years waste itself in skeptical, suicidal 
cavillings ; in passionate " questionings of 
Destiny," whereto no answer will be returned. 

For men, in whom the old perennial prin- 
ciple of Hunger (be it Hunger of the poor 
Day-drudge who stills it with eighteenpence a 
day, or of the ambitious Place-hunter who can 
nowise still it with so little) suffices to fill up 
existence, the case is bad; but not the worst. 
These men have an aim, such as it is; and 
can steer towards it, with chagrin enough truly ; 
yet, as their hands are kept full, without des- 
peration. Unhappier are they to whom a higher 
instinct has been given; who struggle to be 
persons, not machines ; to whom the Universf? 
2c3 



306 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



is not a warehouse, or at best fancy-bazaar, 
but a mystic temple and hall of doom. For 
such men there lie properly two courses open. 
The lower, yet still an estimable class, take 
xip with worn-out Symbols of the Godlike ; 
keep trimming and trucking between these 
and Hypocrisy, purblindly enough, miserably- 
enough. A numerous intermediate class end 
in Denial; and form a theory that there is no 
theory; that nothing is certain in the world, 
except this fact of Pleasure being pleasant ; 
so they try to realize what trifling modicum 
of Pleasure they can come at, and to live con- 
tented therewith, winking hard. Of these we 
speak not here ; but only of the second nobler 
class, who also have dared to say No, and 
cannot yet say Yea; but feel that in the No 
they dwell as in a Golgotha, where life enters 
not, where peace is not appointed them. Hard, 
for most part, is the late of such men ; the 
harder the nobler they are. In dim forecast- 
ings, wrestles within them the "Divine Idea 
of the World," yet will nowhere visibly reveal 
itself. They have to realize a Worship for 
themselves, or live unworshipping. The God- 
like has vanished from the world; and they, 
by the strong cry of their soul's agony, like 
true wonder-workers, must again evoke its 
presence. This miracle is their appointed task ; 
which they must accomplish, or die wretched- 
ly : this miracle has been accomplished by 
such: but not in our land ; our land yet knows 
not of it. Behold a Byron, in melodious tones, 
*' cursing his day :" he mistakes earthborn 
passionate Desire for heaven-inspired Free- 
will; without heavenly loadstar, rushes madly 
into the dance of meteoric lights that hover on 
the mad Mahlstrom ; and goes down among 
its eddies. Hear a Shelley filling the earth with 
inarticulate wail; like the infinite, inarticulate 
grief and weeping of forsaken infants. A 
noble FriedrichSchlegel, stupified in that fear- 
ful loneliness, as of a silenced battle-field, flies 
back to Catholicism; as a child might to its 
slain mother's bosom, and cling there. In lower 
regions, how many a poor Hazlitt must wander 
on God's verdant earth, like the Unblest on 
burning deserts ; passionately dig wells, and 
draw up only the dry quicksand; believe that 
he is seeking Truth, yet only wrestle among 
endless Sophisms, doing desperate battle as 
with spectre-hosts ; and die and make no 
sign ! 

To the better order of such minds any mad 
joy of Denial has long since ceased : the pro- 
blem is not now to deny, but to ascertain and 
perform. Once in destroying the False, there 
was a certain inspiration; but now the genius 
of Destruction has done its work, there is now 
nothing more to destroy. The doom of the Old 
has long been pronounced, and irrevocable; 
the Old has passed away: but, alas, the New 
appears not in its stead; the Time is still in 
pangs of travail with the New. Man has walked 
by the light of conflagrations, and amid the 
sound of falling cities; and now there is dark- 
ness, and long watching till it be morning. 
The voice even of the faithful can but exclaim : 
" As yet struggles the twelfth hour of the 
Night: birds of darkness are on the wing, 
spectres uproar, the dead walk, the living 



dream. — Thou, Eternal Providence, wilt cause 
the day to dawn !"* 

Such being the condition, temporal and 
spiritual, of the world at our Epoch, can we 
wonder that the world "listens to itself," and 
struggles and writhes, everywhere externally 
and internally, like a thing in pain? Nay, is 
not even this unhealthy action of the world's 
Organization, if the symptom of universal dis- 
ease, yet also the symptom and sole means of 
restoration and cure? The eflRjrt of Nature, 
exerting her medicative force to cast out 
foreign impediments, and once more become 
One, become whole? In Practice, still mc^re 
in Opinion, which is the precursor and proto- 
type of Practice, there must needs be collision, 
convulsion; much has to be ground away. 
Thought must needs be Doubt and Inquiry, be- 
fore it can again be Affirmation and Sacred 
Piecept. Innumerable " Philosophies of Man," 
contending in boundless hubbub, must an- 
nihilate each other, before an inspired Poesy 
and Faith for Man can fashion itself together. 

From this stunning hubbub, a true Babylon- 
ish confusion of tongues, we have here selected 
two voices ; less as objects of praise or con- 
demnation, than as signs how far the confusion 
has reached, what prospect there is of its 
abating. Friedrich Schlegel's Lcchires, de- 
livered at Dresden, and Mr. Hope's Essay, 
published in London, are the latest utterances 
of European Speculation: far asunder in ex- 
ternal place, they stand at a still wider dis- 
tance in inward purport; are, indeed, so op- 
posite and yet so cognate that they may, in 
many senses, represent the two Extremes of 
our whole modern system of Thought; and be 
said to include between them all the Meta- 
physical Philosophies, so often alluded to here, 
which, of late times, from France, Germany, 
England, have agitated and almost over- 
whelmed us. Both in regard to matter and to 
form, the relation of these two Works is signifi- 
cant enough. 

Speaking first of their cognate qualities, let 
us remark, not without emotion, one quite ex- 
traneous point of agreement; the fact that the 
Writers of both have departed from this world ; 
they have now finished their search, and had 
all doubts resolved : while we listen to the 
voice, the tongue that uttered it has gone silent 
for ever. But the fundamental, all-pervading 
similarity lies in this circumstance, well wor- 
thy of being noted, that both these Philoso- 
phies are of the Dogmatic, or Constructive 
sort: each in its way is a kind of Genesis; an 
endeavour to bring the Phenomena of man's 
Universe once more under some theoretic 
Scheme; in both there is a decided principle 
of unity; they strive after a result which shall 
be positive; their aim is not to question, but 
to establish. This, especially if we consider 
with what comprehensive concentrated force 
it is here exhibited, forms a new feature in 
such works. 

Under all other aspects, there is the most 
irreconcilable opposition ; a staring contrarie- 
ty, such as might provoke contrasts were there 

♦ Jean Paul's Hesperus. Vorrede. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



307 



far fewer points of comparison. If Schlegel's 
Work is the apotheosis of Spiritualism ; Hope's 
again is the apotheosis of Materialism : in the 
one, all matter is evaporated into a Phenome- 
non, and terrestrial Life itself, with its whole 
doings and showings, held out as a Disturbance 
{ZerriUiunii) produced by the Zeitgeist, (Spirit 
of Time;) in the other. Matter is distilled and 
sublimated into some semblance of Divinity: 
the one regards Space and Time as mere forms 
of man's mind, and without external existence 
or reality; the other supposes Space and Time 
to be "incessantly created," and rayed in 
vipon us like a sort of "gravitation." Such is 
their difference in respect of purport ; no less 
striking is it in respect of manner, talent, suc- 
cess, and all outward characteristics. Thus, 
if in Schlegel we have to admire the power of 
Words, in Hope we stand astonished, it might 
almost be said, at the want of an articulate 
Language. To Schlegel his Philosophic 
Speech is obedient, dexterous, exact, like a 
promptly-ministering genius; his names are 
so clear, so precise and vivid, that they almost 
(sometimes altogether) become things for him : 
with Hope there is no Philosophical Speech ; 
but a painful, confused stammering, and strug- 
gling after such ; or the tongue, as in dotish 
forgetfulness, maunders low, longwinded, and 
speaks not the word intended, but another; so 
that here the scarcely intelligible, in these end- 
less convolutions, becomes the wholly unreada- 
ble; and often we could ask, as that mad pupil 
did of his tutor in Philosophy, " But whether 
is Virtue a fluid, then, or a gas T" If the fact, 
that Schlegel, in the city of Dresden, could 
find audience for such high discourse, may ex- 
cite our envy ; this other fact, that a person of 
strong powers, skilled in English Thought and 
master of its Dialect, could write the Origin 
and Prospects of Man, may painfully remind us 
of the reproach, "that England lias now no 
language for Meditation ; that England, the 
most Calculative, is the least Meditative, of all 
civilized countries." 

It is not our purpose to offer any criticism 
of Schlegel's Book ; in such limits as were 
possible here, we should despair of communi- 
cating even the faintest image of its signifi- 
cance. To the mass of readers, indeed, both 
among the Germans themselves, and still more 
elsewhere, it nowise addresses itself, and may 
lie for ever sealed. We point it out as a re- 
markable document of the Time and of the 
Man ; can recommend it, moreover, to all 
earnest Thinkers, as a work deserving their 
best regard: a work full of deep meditation, 
wherein the infinite mystery of Life, if not re- 
presented, is decisively recognised. Of Schle- 
gel himself, and his character, and spiritual 
history, we can profess no thorough or final 
understanding; yet enough to make us view 
him with admiration and pity, nowise with 
harsh contemptuous censure; and must say, 
with clearest persuasion, that the outcry of 
his being " a renegade," and so forth, is but 
like other such outcries, a judgment where 
there was neither jury, nor evidence, nor 
judge. The candid reader, in this Book itself, 
to say nothing of all the rest, will find traces 
of a high, far-seeing, earnest spirit, to whom 



" Austrian Pensions," and the Kaiser's crown, 
and Austria altogether, were but a light matter 
to the finding and vitally appropriating of 
Truth. Let us respect the sacred mystery of 
a Person ; rush not irreverently into man's 
Holy of Holies ! Were the lost little one, as 
we said already, found "sucking its dead mo- 
ther, on the field of carnage," could it be other 
than a spectacle for tears T A solemn mourn- 
ful feeling comes over us when we see this last 
Work of Fried rich Schlegel, the unwearied 
seeker, end abruptly in the middle ; and, as if 
he had not yet found, as if emblematically of 
much, end with an " Aber — ," with a " But — !" 
This was the last word that came from the 
Pen of Friedrich Schlegel : about eleven at 
night he wrote it down, and there paused 
sick; at one in the morning. Time for him 
had merged itself in Eternity ; he was, as we 
say, no more. 

Still less can we attempt any criticism of 
Mr. Hope's new Book of Genesis. Indeed, 
under any circumstances, criticism of it were 
now impossible. Such an utterance could 
only be responded to in peals of laughter; and 
laughter sounds hollow and hideous through 
the vaults of the dead. Of this monstrous 
Anomaly, where all sciences are heaped and 
huddled together, and the principles of all are, 
with a childlike innocence, plied hither and 
thither, or wholly abolished in case of need; 
where the First Cause is figured as a huge 
Circle, with nothing to do but radiate " gravi- 
tation" towards its centre ; and so construct a 
Universe, wherein all, from the lowest cu- 
cumber with its coolness, up to the highest 
seraph with his love, were but, "gravitation," 
direct or reflex, " in more or less central globes," 
— what can we say, except, with sorrow and 
shame, that it could have originated nowhere 
save in England ? It is a general agglomerate 
of all facts, notions, whims, and observations, 
as they lie in the brain of an English gentle- 
man ; as an English gentleman, of unusual 
thinking power, is led to fashion them, in his 
schools and in his world: all these thrown 
into the crucible, and if not fused, yet soldered 
or conglutinated with boundless patience ; and 
now tumbled out here, heterogeneous, amor- 
1 phous, unspeakable, a world's wonder. Most 
j melancholy must we name the whole business ; 
I full of long-continued thought, earnestness, 
j loftiness of mind; not Avithout glances into 
I the Deepest, a constant fearless endeavour af- 
ter truth ; and with all this nothing accom- 
I plished, but the perhaps absurdest Book 
I written in our century by a thinking man. A 
I shameful Abortion; which, however, need not 
' now be smothered or mangled, for it is already 
Idead; only, in our love and sorrowing reve- 
rence for the writer of Jnastasius, and the he- 
1 roic seeker of Light, though not bringer thereof, 
j let it be buried and forgotten. 

For ourselves, the loud discord which jars 

j in these two Works, in innumerable works of 

the like import, and generally in all the Thought 

' and Action of this period, does not any longer 

utterly confuse us. Unhappy who, in such ?. 

time, felt not, at all conjunctures, ineradicably 

in his heart the knowledge that a God made 

: this Universe, and a Demon not ! And shall 



308 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Evil always prosper, then '? Out of all Evil 
comes Good ; and no Good that is possible but 
shall one day be real. Deep and sad as is our 
feeling that we stand yet in the bodeful Night; 
equally deep, indestructible is our assurance 
that the Morning also will not fail. Nay, al- 
ready, as we look round, streaks of a day- 
spring are in the east : it is dawning ; when 
the time shall be fulfilled, it will be day. The 
progress of man towards higher and no- 
bler Developments of whatever is highest and 
noblest in him, lies not only prophesied to 
Faith, but now written to the eye of Observa- 
tion, so that he who runs may read. 

One great step of progress, for example, we 
should sa}^ in actual circumstances, was this 
same; the clear ascertainment that we are in 
progress. About the grand Course of Provi- 
dence, and his final Purposes with us, we can 
know nothing, or almost nothing: man begins 
in darkness, ends in darkness; mystery is 
everywhere around us and in us, under our 
feet, among our hands. Nevertheless so much 
has become evident to every one, that this 
wondrous Mankind is advancing somewhither; 
that at least all human things are, have been, 
and for ever will be, in Movement and Change ; 
. — as, indeed, for beings that exist in Time, by 
virtue of Time, and are made of Time, might 
have been long since understood. In some 
provinces, it is true, as in Experimental Sci- 
ence, this discovery is an old one ; but in most 
others it belongs wholly to these latter days. 
How often, in former ages, by eternal Creeds, 
eternal Forms of Government, and the like, 
has it been attempted, fiercely enough, and 
with destructive violence, to chain the Future 
under the Past; and say to the Providence, 
whose ways with man are mysterious, and 
through the great Deep: Hitherto shalt thou 
come, but no farther! A wholly insane attempt; 
and for man himself, could it prosper, the 
frightfullest of all enchantments, a very Life- 
in-Death. Man's task here below, the destiny 
of every individual man, is to be in turns Ap- 
prentice and Workman ; or say rather. Scholar, 
Teacher, Discoverer : by nature he has a 
strength for learning, for imitating; but also a 
strength for acting, for knowing on his own 
account. Are we not in a World seen to be 
Infinite; the relations lying closest together 
modified by those latest-discovered, and lying 
farthest asunder 1 Could you ever spell-bind 
man into a Scholar merely, so that he had no- 
thing to discover, to correct; could you ever 
establish a Theory of the Universe that were 
entire, unimprovable, and which needed only 
to be got by heart; man then were spiritually 
defunct, the species We now name Man had 
ceased to exist. But the gods, kinder to us 
than we are to ourselves, have forbidden such 
suicidal acts. As Phlogiston is displaced by 
Oxygen, and the Epicycles of Ptolemy by the 
Ellipses of Kepler; so does Paganism give 
place to Catholicism, Tyranny to Monarchy, 
and Feudalism to Representative Government, 
— where also the process does not stop. Per- 
fection of Practice, like completeness of 
Opinion, is always approaching, never arrived ; 
Truth, in the words of Schiller, immer idrd, nic 
ist ; never is, always is a-being. 



Sad, truly, were our condition did we know 
but this, that Change is universal and inevi- 
table. Launched into a dark shoreless sea of 
Pyrrhonism, what would remain for us but to 
sail aimless, hopeless ; or make madly merry, 
while the devouring Death had not yet engulfed 
us? As, indeed, we have seen many, and still 
see many do. Nevertheless so stands it not. 
The venerator of the Past (and to what pure 
heart is the Past, in that "moonlight of me- 
mory," other than sad and holy?) sorrows not 
over its departure, as one utterly bereaved. 
The true Past departs not, nothing that was 
worthy in the Past departs ; no Truth or Good- 
ness realized by man ever dies, or can die; 
but is all still here, and recognised or not, 
lives and works through endless changes. If 
all things, to speak in the German dialect, are 
discerned by us, and exist for us, in an element 
of Time, and therefore of Mortality and Muta- 
bility; yet Time itself reposes on Eternity: 
the truly Great and Transcendental has its 
basis and substance in Eternity ; stands re- 
vealed to us as Eternity in a vesture of Time. 
Thus in all Poetry, Worship, Art, Society, as 
one form passes into another, nothing is lost: 
it is but the superficial, as it were the body 
only, that grows obsolete and dies; under the 
mortal body lies a snul that is immortal ; that 
anew incarnates itself in fairer revelation ; and 
the Present is the living sum-total of the whole 
Past. 

In Change, therefore, there is nothing ter- 
rible, nothing supernatural: on the contrary, 
it lies in the very essence of our lot, and life 
in this world. To-day is not yesterday: we 
ourselves change; how can our Works and 
Thoughts, if they are always to be the fittest, 
continue always the same? Change, indeed, 
is painful; yet ever needful: and if Memory 
have its force and worth, so also has Hope. 
Nay, if we look well to it, what is all Derange- 
ment, and necessity of great Change, in itself 
such an evil, but the product simply of in- 
creased resources which the old methods can no 
longer administer; of new wealth which the 
old coffers will no longer contain ? What is 
it, for example, that in our own day bursts 
asunder the bonds of ancient Political Sys- 
tems, and perplexes all Europe with the fear 
of Change, but even this : the increase of 
social resources, which the old social methods 
will no longer sufficiently administer? The 
new omnipotence of the Steam-engine is hew- 
ing asunder quite other mountains than the 
physical. Have not our economical distresses, 
those barnyard Conflagrations themselves, the 
frightfullest madness of our mad epoch, their 
rise also in what is a real increase : increase 
of Men; of human Force ; properly, in such a 
Planet as ours, the most precious of all in- 
creases? It is true again, the ancient methods 
of administration will no longer suffice. Must 
the indomitable millions, full of old Saxon 
energy and fire, lie cooped up in this Western 
Nook, chokin? one another, as in a Blackhole 
of Calcutta, while a whole fertile untenanted 
Earth, desolate for want of the ploughshare, 
cries: Cnmc and till me, come and reap me? 
If the ancient Captains can no longer yield 
guidance, new must be sought after : for the 



CHARACTERISTICS. 



809 



difficulty lies not in nature, but in artifice : the 
European Calcutta-Blackhole has no walls but 
air ones, and paper ones. — So, too, Skepticism 
itself, with its innumerable mischiefs, what is 
it but the sour fruit of a most blessed increase, 
that of Knowledge ; a fruit, too, that will not 
always continue sour? 

In fact, much as we have said and mourned 
about the unproductive prevalence of Meta- 
physics, it was not without some insight into 
the use that lies in them. Metaphysical Specu- 
lation, if a necessary evil, is the forerunner of 
much good. The fever of Skepticism must 
needs burn itself out, and burn out thereby the 
Impurities that caused it ; then again will there 
be clearness, health. The principle of Life, 
which now struggles painfully, in the outer, 
thin, and barren domain of the Conscious or 
Mechanical, may then withdraw into its inner 
Sanctuaries, its abysses of mystery and mi- 
racle; withdraw deepef than ever into that 
domain of the Unconscious, by nature infinite 
and inexhaustible ; and creatively work there. 
From that m3^stic region, and from that alone, 
all wonders, all Poesies, and Religions, and 
Social Systems have proceeded : the like won- 
ders, and greater and higher, lie slumbering 
there ; and, brooded on by the spirit of the 
waters, will evolve themselves, and rise like 
exhalations from the Deep. 

Of our modern Metaphysics, accordingly, 
may not this already be said, that if they have 
produced no Affirmation, they have destroyed 
much Negation? It is a disease expelling a 
disease: the fire of Doubt, as above hinted, 
consuming away the Doubtful; that so the 
Certain come to light, and again lie visible on 
the surface. English or French Metaphysics, 
in reference to this last stage of the speculative 
process, are not what we allude to here; but 
only the Metaphysics of the Germans. In 
France or England, since the days of Diderot 
and Hume, though all thought has been of a 
skeptico-metaphysical texture, so far as there 
were any Thought, we have seen no Meta- 
physics ; but only more or less ineffectual 
questionings whether such could be. In the 
Pyrrhonism of Hume and the Materialism of 
Diderot, Logic had, as it were, overshot itself, 
overset itself. Now, though the athlete, to use 
our old figure, cannot, by much lifting, lift up 
his own body, he may shift it out of a laming 
posture, and get to stand in a free one. ' Such 
a service have German Metaphysics done for 
man's mind. The second sickness of Specula- 
tion has abolished both itself and the first. 
Friedrich Schlegel complains much of the 
fruitlessness, the tumult and transiency of 
German as of all Metaphysics ; and with rea- 
son : yet in that wide-spreading, deep-whirling 
vortex of Kantism, so soon metamorphosed 
into Fichteism, Schellingism, and then as 
Hegelism, and Cousinism, perhaps finally 
evaporated, is not this issue visible enough, 
that Pyrrhonism and Materialism, themselves 
necessary phenomena in European culture, 
have disappeared; and a Faith in Religion 
has again become possible and inevitable for 
the scientific mind; and the word -Free-thinker 
no longer means the Denier or Caviller, but 
the Believer, or the Ready to believe? Nay, 



in the higher Literature of Germany, there 
already lies, for him that can read it, the be- 
ginning of a new revelation of the Godlike; 
as yet unrecognised by the mass of the world; 
but waiting there for recognition, and sure to 
find it when the fit hour comes. This age also 
is not wholly without its Prophets. 

Again, under another aspect, if Utilitarian- 
ism, or Radicalism, or the Mechanical Philo-' 
sophy, or by whatever name it is called, has 
still its long task to do ; nevertheless we can 
now see through it and beyond it : in the bet- 
ter heads, even among us English, it has be- 
come obsolete ; as in other countries it has 
been, in such heads, for some forty or even 
fifty years. What sound mind among the 
French, for example, now fancies that men 
can be governed by "Constitutions ;" by the 
never so cunning mechanizing of Self-inte- 
rests, and all conceivable adjustments of 
checking and balancing : in a word, by the 
best possible solution of this quite insoluble 
and impossible problem. Given a world of 
Knaves, to produce an Honesty from their united 
action ? Were not experiments enough of 
this kind tried before all Europe, and found 
wanting, when, in that doomsday of France, 
the infinite gulf of human Passion shivered 
asunder the thin rinds of Habit ; and burst 
forth all-devouring, as in seas of Neiher FireT 
Which cunningly-devised "Constitution," con- 
stitutional, republican, democratic, sans-culot- 
tic, could bind that raging chasm together? 
Were they not all burnt up, like Paper as- 
they were, in its molten eddies : and still the 
fire-sea raged fiercer than before ? It is not 
by Mechanism, but by Religion ; not by Self- 
interest, but by Loyalt3%that men are governed 
or governable. 

Remarkable it is, truly, how everywhere' 
the eternal fact begins again to be recognised,- 
that there is a Godlike in human affairs ; that 
God not only made us and beholds us, but is 
in us and around us ; that the Age of Mira- 
cles, as it ever was, now is. Such recogni- 
tion we discern on all hands, and in all coun- 
tries : in each country after its own fashion. 
In France, among the younger nobler minds, 
strangely enough ; where, in their loud con- 
tention with the Actual and Conscious, the 
Ideal or Unconscious is, for the time, without 
exponent; where Religion means not the pa- 
rent of Polity, as of all that is highest, but 
Polity itself; and this and the other earnest 
man has not been wanting, who could whisper 
audibly : " Go to, I will make a religion." Iq 
England still more strangely; as in all things, 
worthy England will have its way : by the 
shrieking of hysterical women casting out of 
devils, and other " gifts of the Holy Ghost." 
Well might Jean Paul say, in this his twelfth 
hour of the Night, " the living dream ;" well 
might he say, "the dead walk." Meanwhile 
let us rejoice rather that so much has been 
seen into, Were it through never so diffracting 
media, and never so madly distorted; that in 
all dialects, though but half-articulately, this 
high Gospel begins to be preached: "Man is 
still Man." The genius of Mechanism, as 
was once before predicted, will not always sit 
like a choking incubus on our soul ; but at 



310 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



length, when by a new magic Word the old 
spell is broken, become our slave, and as fa- 
miliar-spirit do all our bidding. "We are 
near awakening when we dream that we 
dream." 

He that has an eye and a heart can even 
now say : Why should I falter ? Light has 
come into the world; to such as love Light, so 
as Light must be loved, with a boundless all- 
doing, all-enduring love. For the rest, let 
that vain struggle to read the mystery of the 
Infinite cease to harass us. It is a mystery 
which, through all ages, we shall only read 
here a line of, there another line of. Do we 
not already know that the name of the Infinite 
is Good, is God 1 Here on Earth we are as 



Soldiers, fighting in a foreign land ; that un- 
derstand not the plan of the catnpaign, and 
have no need to understand it; seeing well 
what is at our hand to be done. Let us do it 
like Soldiers, with submission, with courage, 
with a heroic joy. " Whatsoever thy hand 
findeth to do, do it with all thy might." Be- 
hind us, behind each one of us, lie Six Thou- 
sand years of human effort, human conquest: 
before us is the boundless Time, with its as 
yet uncreated and unconquered Continents 
and Eldorados, which we, even we, have to 
conquer, to create : and from the bosom of 
Eternity shine for us celestial guiding stars. 
"My inheritance how wide and fair ! 
Time is my fair sepd- field, of Time I 'm heir." 



GOETHE'S portrait; 



[Eraser's Magazine, 1832.] 



Reader! thou here beholdest the Eidolon of 
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. So looks and 
lives, now in his eighty-third year, afar in the 
bright little friendly circle of Weimar, "the 
clearest, most universal man of his time." 
Strange enough is the cunning that resides in 
the ten fingers, especially what they bring to 
pass by pencil and pen ! Him who never saw 
England, England now sees: from Eraser's 
" Gallery" he looks forth here, wondering, 
doubtless, how he came into such Lichtsirassc 
(" light-street," or galaxy ;) yet with kind recog- 
nition of all neighbours, even as the moon 
looks kindly on lesser lights, and, were they 
but fish-oil cressets, or terrestrial Vauxhall 
stars, (of clipped tin,) forbids not their shining. 
Nay, the very soul of the man thou canst like- 
wise behold. Do but look well in those forty 
volumes of "musical wisdom," which, under 
the title of Goethe's Wcrke, Cotta of Tiibingen, 
or Black and Young of Covent Garden — once 
ofl^er them a trifle of drink-mone}' — will cheer- 
fully hand thee: greater sight, or more profit- 
able, thou wilt not meet with in this generation. 
The German language, it is presumable, thou 
knowesl; if not, shouldst thou undertake the 
study thereof for that sole end, it were well 
worth thy while. 

Croquis (a. man otherwise of rather satirical 
turn) surprises us, on this occasion, with a fit 
of enthusiasm. He declares often, that here 
is the finest of all living heads; speaks much 
of blended passion and repose; serene depths 
of eyes; the brow, the temples, royally arched, 
a very palace of thought; — and so forth. 

The writer of these Notices is not without 
decision of character, and can believe what he 
knows. He answers Brother Croquis, that it 
is no wonder the head should be royal and a 
palace; for a most royal work was appointed 



*By Stieler of Munich; the copy in Eraser's Maga- 
zine proved a total failure and involuntary caricature,— 
resembling, as was said at the time, a wretched old- 
clothesman carrying behind his back a hat which he 
seemed to have stolen. 



to be done therein. Reader! within that head 
the whole world lies mirrored, in such clear, 
ethereal harmony, as it has done in none since 
Shakspeare left us: even this Rag-fair of a 
world, wherein thou painfully strugglest, and 
(as is like) stumhlest — all lies transfigured 
here, and revealed authentically to be still holy, 
still divine. What alchymy was that: to find 
a mad universe full of skepticism, discord, 
desperation ; and transmute it into a wise uni- 
verse of belief, and melody, and reverence ! 
Was not there an opiis magmim, if one ever was 1 
This, then, is he who, heroically doing and en- 
during, has accomplished it. 

In this distracted time of ours, wherein men 
have lost their old loadstars, and wandered 
after .night-fires and foolish will-o'-wisps ; and 
all things, in that " shaking of the nations," 
have been tumbled into chaos, the high made 
low and the low high, and ever and anon some 
duke of this, and king of that, is gurgled aloft, 
to float there for moments ; and fancies him- 
self the governor and head-director of it all, 
and is but the topmost froth-bell, to burst again 
and mingle with the wild fermenting mass, — 
in this so despicable time, we say, there were 
nevertheless— be the bounteous heavens ever 
thanked for it! — two s>'eat men sent among us. 
The one, in the island of St. Helena now 
sleeps " dark and lone, amid the ocean's ever- 
lasting lullaby;" the other still rejoices in the 
blessed sunlight, on the banks of the Iline. 

Great was the part allotted each, great the 
talent given him for the same; yet, mark the 
contrast! Bonaparte walked through the war- 
convulsed world like an all-devouring earth- 
quake, heaving, thundering, hurling kingdom 
over kingdom ; Goethe was as the mild-shining, 
inaudible light, which, notwithstanding, can 
again make that chaos into a creation. Thus, 
too, we see Napoleon, with his Austerlitzes, 
Waterloos, and Borodinos, is quite gone — all 
departed, sunk to silence like a tavern-brawl. 
While this other! — he still shines with his 
direct radiance ; his inspired words are to abide 



BIOGRAPHY. 



311 



in living hearts, as the life and inspiration of 
thinkers, born and still unborn. Some titty 
years hence, his thinking will be found trans- 
lated, and ground down, even to the capacity 
of the diurnal press; acts of parliament will 
be passed in virtue of him :— this man, if we 
well consider of it, is appointed to be ruler ot 
the world. u u <- 

Reader! to thee thyself, even now, he has 



one counsel to give, the secret of his whole 
poetic alchymy: Gedenke zu leben. Yes, 
"think of living!" Thy life, wert thou the 
"pitifuliest of all the sons of earth," is no idle 
dream, but a solemn reality. It is thy own ; it 
is all thou hast to front eternity with. Work, 
then, even as he has done, and does— "Like a 

STAR UNHASTING, TET UNRESTING." StC VU- 

leas. 



BIOGEAPIIY/ 

[Frazer's Magazine, 1832.] 



Man's sociality of nature evinces itself, in 
spite of all that can be said, with abundant 
evidence by this one fact, were there no other : 
the unspeakable delight he takes in Biography. 
It is written, "The proper study of mankind is 
man;" to which study, let us candidly admit, , 
he by true or by false methods, applies him- , 
self, nothing loath. " Man is perennially mte- 1 
resting to man; nay, if we look strictly to it, . 
there is nothing else interesting.' How inex- , 
pressibly comfortable to know our lellow- , 
creature ; to see into him, understand his goings 
forth, decipher the whole heart of his mystery : j 
nay, not only to see into him, but even to see | 
out of him, to view the world altogether as he 
views it; so that we can theoretically construe 
him, and could almost practically personate 
him- and do now thoroughly discern both 
what manner of man he is, and what manner 
of thing he has got to work on and live on! 

A scientific interest and a poetic one alike 
inspire us in this matter. A scientific : because 
every mortal has a Problem of Existence set 
before him, which, were it only, what for the 
most it is, the Problem of keeping soul and 
body together, must be to a certain extent i 
original, unlike every other ; and yet, at the 
same time, so like every other; like our own, ] 
therefore ; instructive, moreover, since we also i 
are indentured to live. A poetic interest still j 
more : for precisely this same struggle of 
human Free-will against material Necessity, 
which every man's Life, by the mere circum- 
stance that the man continues alive, will more | 
or less victoriously exhibit,— is that which 
above all else, or rather inclusive of all else, 
calls the Sympathy of mortal hearts into ac- 
tion ; and whether as acted, or as represented 
and written of, not only is Poetry, but is the 
sole Poetry possible. Borne onwards by which 
two all-embracing interests, may the earnest 
Lover of Biography expand himself on all 
sides, and indefinitely enrich himself. Look- 
ing with the eyes of every new neighbour, he 
can discern a new world different for each: 
feeling with the heart of every neighbour, he 
lives with every neighbour's life, even as with 



♦ The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. : inchidinp a 
Tour to the Hebrides : By James Boswell, Esq. A new 
Edition, with numerous Additions and Notes By . ohn 
WUson Croker, LL.U., F. R. S. 5 vols. London, 18.1. 



his own. Of these millions of living men each 
individual is a mirror to us: a mirror both 
scientific and poetic; or, if you will, both nat- 
ural and magical ;— from which one would so 
gladly draw aside the gauze veil; and, peering 
Therein, discern the image of his own natural 
face, and the supernatural secrets that pro- 
phetically lie under the same ! 

Observe, accordingly, to what extent, in the 
actual course of things, this business of Bio- 
o-raphy is practised and relished. Define to 
! thyself, judicious Reader, the real significance 
i of these phenomena, named Gossip, Egotism, 
Personal Narrative, (miraculous or not,) Scan- 
I dal, Raillery, Slander, and such like ; the sum- 
total of which (with some fractional addition 
of a better ingredient, generally too small to be 
noticeable) constitutes that other grand pheno- 
menon still called "Conversation." Do they 
not mean whollv: Biography a.nA Julohiography ? 
Not only in the common Speech of men; but 
in all Art, too, which is or should be the con- 
centrated and conserved essence of what men 
can speak and show, Biography is almost the 
one thing needful. 

Even in the highest works of Art our interest, 
I as the critics complain, is too apt to be 
strongly or even mainly of a Biographic sort. 
I In the Art, we can nowise forget the Artist: 
I while looking on the Tran.ffig^iration, while 
studying the Iliad, we ever strive to figure to 
ourselves what spirit dwell in Raphael; what 
a head was that of Homer, wherein, woven of 
E'y-ian light and Tartarian gloom, that old 
! world fashioned itself together, of which these 
'written Greek characters are but a feeble 
' though perennial copy. The Painter and the 
Singer are present to us; we partially and lor 
thelime become the very Painter and the very 
Singer, while we enjoy the Picture and the 
Son''' Perhaps, too, let the critic say what he 
will^his is the highest enjoyment, the clearest 
recognition, we can have of these. Art indeed 
is Art; yet Man also is Man. Had the Tratis- 
fi^rvrnlwn been painted without human hand; 
had it grown merely on the canvas, sav by 
1 atmospheric influences, as lichen-pictures do 
on rocks,— it were a grand Picture doubtless; 
yet nothing like so grand as the Picture, which, 
on opening our eyes, we everywhere in 
I Heaven and in Earth see painted ; and every- 



.^12 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



where pass over with indifference, — because I 
the Painter was not a Man. Think of this; 
much lies in it. The Vatican is great; yet i 
poor to Chimborazo or the Peake of Teneriffe : ! 
its dome is but a foolish Big-endian or Little- j 
endian chip of an egg-shell, compared with 
that star-fretted Dome where Arcturus and 
Orion glance for ever; which latter, notwith- 
standing, who looks at, save perhaps some ne- ' 
cessitous star-gazer bent to make Almanacs, i 
some thick-quilted watchman, to see what wea- i 
ther it will prove? The Biographic interest , 
is wanting: no Michael Angelo was He who 
built that "Temple of Immensity;" therefore , 
do we, pitiful Littlenesses as we are, turn rather , 
to wonder and to worship in the little toybox 
of a Temple built by our like. 

Still more decisivel}^ still more exclusively 
does the Biographic interest manifest itself, as 
we descend into lower regions of spiritual 
communication; through the whole range of 
what is called Literature. Of History, for ex- 
ample, the most honoured, if not honourable 
species of composition, is not the whole pur- 
port biographic 1 " History," it has been said, 
"is the essence of innumerable Biographies." 
Such, at least, it should be : whether it is, 
might admit of question. But, in any case, 
what hope have we in turning over those old 
interminable Chronicles, with their garrulities 
and insipidities ; or still worse, in patiently ex- 
amining those modern Narrations, of the Phi- 
losophic kind, where "Philosophy, teaching 
by Experience," must sit like owl on house- 
top, seeing nothing, umkrstanding nothing, ut- 
tering only, with solemnity enough, her per- 
petual most wearisome hoo-hoo : — what hope 
have we, except for the most part fallacious 
one of gaining some acquaintance with our 
fellow-creatures, though dead and vanished, 
yet dear to us ; how they got along in those old 
days, suffering and doing; to what extent, and 
under what circumstances, they resisted the 
Devil and triumphed over him, or struck their 
colours to him, and were trodden under foot 
by him; how, in short, the perennial Battle 
went, which men name Life, which we also in 
these new days, with indifferent fortune, have 
to fight, and must bequeath to our sons and 
grandsons to go on fighting, — till the Enemy 
one day be quite vanquished and abolished, or 
else the great Night sink and part the combat- 
ants ; and thus, either by some Millennium or 
some new Noah's Deluge, the Volume of Uni- 
versal History wind itself up ! Other hope, in 
studying such Books, we have none: and that 
it is a deceitful hope, who that has tried knows 
not? A feast of widest Biographic insight is 
spread for us; we enter full of hungry antici- 
pation : alas ! like so many other feasts, which 
Life invites us to, a mere Ossian's " feast of 
shells," — the food and liquor being all emptied 
out and clean gone, and only the vacant dishes 
and deceitful emblems thereof left ! Your 
modern Historical Restaurateurs are indeed 
little better than high-priests of Famine; that 
keep choicest china dinner-sets, only no din- 
ner to serve therein. Yet such is our Biogra- 
phic appetite, we run trying from shop to 
.shop, with ever new hope; and, unless we 



could eat the wind, with ever new disappoint- 
ment. 

Again, consider the whole class of Fictitious 
Narratives ; from the highest category of epic 
or dramatic Poetry, in Shakspeare and Homer, 
down to the lowest of froth Prose in the Fash- 
ionable Novel. What are all these but so 
many mimic Biographies? Attempts, here by 
an inspired Speaker, there by an uninspired 
Babbler, to deliver himself, more or less inef- 
fectually, of the grand secret wherewith all 
hearts labour oppressed: The significance of 
Man's Life ; — which deliverance, even as 
traced in the unfurnished head, and printed at 
the Minerva Press, finds readers. For, ob- 
serve, though there is a greatest Fool, as a su- 
perlative in every kind; and the most Foolish 
man in the Earth is now indubitably living 
and breathing, and did this morning or lately 
eat breakfast, and is even now digesting the 
same ; and looks out on the world, with his 
dim horn-eyes, and inwardly forms some un- 
speakable theory thereof: yet where shall the 
authentically Existing be personally met with ! 
Can one of us, otherwise than by guess, know 
that we have got sight of him, have orally 
communed with him? To take even the nar- 
rower sphere of this our English metropolis, 
can any one confidently say to himself, that he 
has conversed with the identical, individual, 
Stupidest man now extant in London ? No 
one. Deep as we dive in the Profound, there 
is ever a new depth opens : where the ultimate 
bottom may lie, through what new scenes of 
being we must pass before reaching it, (except 
that we know it does lie somewhere, and might 
by human faculty and opportunity be reached,) 
is altogether a mystery to us. Strange, tan- 
talizing pursuit! We have the fullest assu- 
rance, not only that there is a Stupidest of 
London men actually resident, with bed and 
board of some kind, in London; but that seve- 
ral persons have beeti or perhaps are now 
speaking face to face with him: while for us, 
chase it as we may, such scientific blessedness 
will too probably be for ever denied ! — But the 
thing we meant to enforce w'as this comforta- 
ble fact, that no known Head was so wooden, 
but there might be other heads to which it 
were a genius and Friar Bacon's Oracle. Of 
no given Book, not even of a Fashionable 
Novel, can you predicate with certainty that 
its vacuity is absolute ; that there are not other 
vacuities which shall partially replenish them- 
selves therefrom, and esleem it k plenum. How 
knowest thou, may the distressed Novelwright 
exclaim, that I, here where I sit, am the Fool- 
ishest of existing mortals; that this my Long- 
ear of a Fictitious Biography shall not find 
one and the other, into whose still longer ears 
it may be the means, under Providence, of in- 
stilling somewhat? We answer, None knows, 
none can certainly know : therefore, write on, 
worthy Brother, even as thou canst, as it has 
been given thee. 

Here, however, in regard to " Fictitious Bio- 
graphies," and much other matter of like sort, 
which the greener mind in these days indiieth, 
we may as well insert some singular sen- 
tences on the importance and significance of 



BIOGRAPHY. 



313 



Reality, as they stand written for us in Professor 
Gottfried Sauerteig's ^slhctische Springwiiizel : 
a Work, perhaps, as yet new to most English 
readers. The Professor and Doctor is not a 
man whom we can praise without reserv^ation; 
neither shall we say that his Springivw-zel (a.sovl 
of magical pick-locks, as he affectedly names 
them) are adequate to "start" every bolt that 
locks up an Eesthetic mystery; nevertheless, in 
his crabbed, one-sided way, he sometimes hits 
masses of the truth. We endeavour to trans- 
late faithfully, and trust the reader will find it 
worth serious perusal : 

" The significance, even for poetic purposes," 
says Sauerteig, " that lies in Reality, is too 
apt to escape us ; is perhaps on!}' now begin- 
ning to be discerned. When we named Rous- 
seau's Confessions an elegiaco-didactic Poem, we 
meant more than an empty figure of speech; 
we meant an historical scientific fact. 

"Fiction, while the feigner of it knows that 
he is feigning, partakes, more than we suspect, 
of the nature of lying ; and has ever an, in some 
degree, unsatisfactory character. All Mytho- 
logies were once Philosophies; were believed: 
the Epic Poems of old time, so long as they 
continued epic, and had any complete impres- 
siveness, were Histories, and understood to be 
narratives of fads. In so far as Homer em- 
ployed his gods as mere ornamental fringes, 
and had not himself, or at least did not expect 
his hearers to have, a belief that they were 
real agents in those antique doings ; so far did 
. he fail to be genuine; so far was he a partially 
hollow and false singer; and sang to please only 
a portion of man's mind, not the whole thereof. 

" Imagination is, after all, but a poor matter 
when it must part company with Understand- 
ing, and even front it hostilely in flat contra- 
diction. Our mind is divided in twain : there 
is contest; wherein that which is weaker must 
needs come to the worse. Now of all feelings, 
states, principles, call it what you will, in man's 
mind, is not Belief the clearest, strongest ; 
against which all others contend in vain 1 
Belief is, indeed, the beginning and first con- 
dition of all spiritual Force whatsoever: only 
in so far as Imagination, were it but momen- 
tarily, is beliciwd, can there be any use or mean- 
ing in it, any enjoyment of it. And what is 
momentary Belief? The enjoyment of a mo- 
ment. Whereas a perennial Belief were en- 
joyment perennially, and with the whole united 
soul. 

" It is thus that I judge of the Supernatural 
in an Epic Poem; and would say, the instant 
it had ceased to be authentically supernatural, 
and become what you call 'Machinery;' sweep 
it out of sight {srhaff'es mir voni Hake) ! Of a 
truth, that same 'Machinery,' about which the 
V critics make such hubbub, was well named 
ik Machinery : for it is in very deed mechanical, no- 
^wise inspired or poetical. Neither for us is 
toere the smallest esthetic enjoyment in it ; 
s^ ,'e only in this way : that we believe it^o have 
been believed, — by the Singer or his Hearers ; into 
whose case we now laboriously struggle to 
transport ourselves; and so, with stinted 
enough result, catch some reflex of the Rea- 
lity, which for them was wholly real, and vi- 
sible face to face. Whenever it has come so 
40 



far that your ' Machinery' is avowedly mecha- 
nical and unbelieved, — what is it else, if we 
dare tell ourselves the truth, but a miserable, 
meaningless Deception kept up by old use and 
wont alone? If the gods of an Iliad are to us 
no longer authentic Shapes of Terror, heart- 
stirring, heart-appalling, but only vague-glit- 
tering Shadows, — what must the dead Pa- 
gan gods of an Epigoniad be, the dead-living 
Pagan-Christian gods of a Lusiad, the concrete- 
abstract, evangelical-metaphysical gods of a 
Paradise Lost ? Superannuated lumber ! Cast 
raiment, at best; in which some poor mime, 
strutting and swaggering, may or may not set 
forth new noble Human Feelings, (again a Rea- 
lity,) and so secure, or not secure, our pardon 
of such hoydenish masking, — for which, in any 
case, he has a pardon to ask. 

"True enough, none but the earliest Epic 
Poems can claim this distinction of entire cre- 
dibility, of Reality: after an Iliad, a Shaster, a 
Koran, and other the like primitive perform- 
ances, the rest seem, by this rule of mine, to be 
altogether excluded from the list. Accordingly, 
what are all the rest from Virgil's JEneul down- 
wards, in comparison 1 — Frost}', artificial, he- 
terogeneous things; more of gumflowers than 
of roses ; at best, of the two mixed incoherently 
together: to some of which, indeed, it were 
hard to deny the title of Poems ; yet to no one 
of which can that title belong in any sense evea 
resembling the old high one it, in those old days, 
conveyed, — when the epithet 'divine' or ' sa- 
cred,' as applied to the uttered Word of man^ 
was not a vain metaphor, a vain sound, but a 
real name with meaning. Thus, too, the farther 
we recede from those earh' days, when Poetry, 
as true Poetry is always, was still sacred or 
divine, and inspired, (wliat ours, in great part, 
only pretends to be,) — the more impossible 
becomes it to produce any, we say not true 
Poetry, but tolerable semblance o-f such ; the 
hoUower, in particular, grow all manner of 
Epics; till at length, as in this generation, the 
very name of Epic sets men a-yawning, the 
announcement of a new Epic is received as a 
public calamity. 

" But what if the impossible being once for all 
quite discarded, the prohabk be well adhered to ; 
how stands it with fiction tlien.'' Why, then, I 
would say, the evil is much mended, but no- 
wise completely cured. We have then, in place 
of the wholly dead modern Epic, the partially 
living modern Novel; to which latter it is much 
easier to lend that above-mentioned, so essen- 
tial ' momentary credence,' than to the former : 
indeed infinitely easier : for the former being 
flatly incredible, no mortal can for a moment 
credit it, for a moment enjoy it. Thus, here 
and there, a Tom Jones, a Meistcr, a Crusoe, will 
yield no little solacement to the minds of men : 
though still immeasurably less than a Reality 
would, were the significance thereof as im- 
pressively unfolded, were the genius that could 
so tmfold it once given us by the kind Heavens. 
Neither say ihoyi that proper Realities are 
wanting: for Man's Life, now as of old, is the 
genuine work of God ; wherever there is a 
Man, a God also is revealed, and all that is God- 
like : a whole epitome of the Infinite, with its 
meanings, lies enfolded in the Life of every 
2D 



314 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Man. Only, alas, that the Seer to discern this 
•same Godlike, and with fit utterance wnfold it 
for 'IS, is wanting, and may long be wanting! 

"Nay, a question arises on us here, wherein 
the whole German reading-world will eagerly 
join : Whether man can any longer be so in- 
terested by the spoken Word, as he often was 
in those primeval days, when, rapt away by its 
inscrutable power, he pronounced it, in such 
dialect as he had, to be transcendental, (to 
transcend all measure,) to be sacred, prophetic, 
and the inspiration of a god 1 For myself, I, 
(ich meines Ortes,) by faith or by in'sight, do 
heartily understand that the answer to such 
question will be, Yea ! For never, that I could 
in searching find out, has Man been, by Time 
which devours so much, deprivated of any fa- 
culty whatsoever that he in any era was pos- 
sessed of To my seeming, the babe born yester- 
day has all the organs of Body, Soul, and Spirit, 
and in exactly the same combination and entire- 
ness, that the oldest Pelasgic Greek, or Meso- 
potamian Patriarch, or Father Adam himself 
could boast of. Ten fingers, one heart with 
venous and arterial blood therein, still belong 
to man that is born of woman : when did he 
lose any of his spiritual Endowments either: 
above all, his highest spiritual Endowment, that 
of revealing Poetic Beauty, and of adequately 
receiving the same 1 Not the material, not the 
susceptibility is wanting ; only the poet, or long 
series of Poets, to work on these. True, alas 
too true, the Poet is still utterly wanting, or all 
but utterly: nevertheless have we not centuries 
enough before us to produce him in 1 Him and 
much else! — I, for the present, will but predict 
that chiefly by working more and more on 
Reality, and evolving more and more wisely 
its inexhaustible meanings ; and, in brief, speak- 
ing forth in fit utterance whatsoever our whole 
soul believes, and ceasing to speak forth what 
thing soever our whole soul does not believe, — 
will this high emprise be accomplished, or ap- 
proximated to." 

These notable, and not unfounded, though 
partial and f/fcy^-seeing rather than (ci^c-seeing 
observations on the great import of Reality, 
considered even as a poetic material, we have 
inserted the more willingly, because a tran- 
sient feeling to the same purpose may often 
have suggested itself to many readers; and, 
on the whole, it is good that every reader and 
every writer understand, with all intensity of 
conviction, what quite infinite \vorth lies in 
Truth ; how all-pervading, omnipotent, in 
man's mind, is the thing we name Belief. For 
the rest, Herr Sauerteig, though one-sided, on 
this matter of Reality, seems heartily per- 
suaded, and is not perhaps so ignorant as he 
looks. It cannot be unknown to him, for ex- 
ample, what noise is made about " Invention ;" 
what a supreme rank this faculty is reckoned 
to hold in the poetic endowment. Great truly 
is Invention ; nevertheless, that is but a poor 
exercise of it with which Belief is not con- 
cerned. "An Irishman Avith whisky in his 
head," as poor Byron said, will invent you, in 
this kind, till there is enough and to spare. 
Nay, perhaps, if we consider well, the highest 
r.xercise of Invention has, in very deed, nothing 
to do with Fiction ; but is an invention of new 



Truth, what we can call a Revelation; which 
last does undoubtedly transcend all other po- 
etic eftbrts, nor can Herr Sauerteig be too 
loud in its praises. But, on the other hand, 
whether such eflFort is still possible for man, 
Herr Sauerteig and the bulk of the world are 
probably at issue, — and will probably continue 
so till that same "Revelation" or new "Inven- 
tion of Reality," of the sort he desiderates, 
shall itself make its appearance. 

Meanwhile, quitting these airy regions, let 
any one bethink him how impressive the 
smallest historical fact may become, as con- 
trasted with the grandest fictitious eve^it ; what 
an incalculable force lies for us in this consi- 
deration : The Thing which I here hold imaged 
in my mind did actually occur; was, in very 
truth, an element in the system of the All, 
whereof I too form part; had therefore, and 
has, through all time, an authentic being; is 
not a dream, but a reality ! We ourselves can 
remember reading in Lord Clarendon, with feel- 
ings perhaps somehow accidentally opened to 
it, — certainly with a depth of impression 
strange to us then and now, — that insignifi- 
cant looking passage, where Charles, after the 
battle of Worcester, glides down, with Squire 
Careless, from the Royal Oak, at night-fall, 
being hungry : how, " making a shift to get 
over hedges and ditches, after walking at least 
eight or nine miles, which were the more 
grievous to the King by the weight of his 
boots, (for he could not put them off, when he 
cut off" his hair, for want of shoes,) before 
morning they came to a poor cottage, the owner 
whereof being a Roman Catholic was known to Care- 
less." How this poor drudge, being knocked 
up from his snoring, "carried them into a lit- 
tle barn full of hay, which was a better lodg- 
ing than he had for himself;" and by and by, 
not without difficulty, brought his Majesty "a 
piece of bread and a great pot of butter-milk," 
saying candidly that "he himself lived by his 
daily labour, and that what he had brought 
him was the fare he and his wife had :" on 
which nourishing diet his Majesty, " staying 
upon the haymow," feeds thankfully for two 
days ; and then departs, under new guidance, 
having first changed clothes down to the very 
shirt and " old pair of shoes," with his land- 
lord ; and so as worthy Bunyan has it, " goes 
on his way, and sees him no more."* Singu- 
lar enough if we will think of it ! This then 
was a genuine flesh-and-blood Rustic of the 
year 1651 : he did actually swallow bread and 
butter-milk (not having ale and bacon,) and 
do field labour; with these hob-nailed "shoes" 
has sprawled through mud-roads in winter, 
and, jocund or not, driven his team a-field in 
summer; he made bargains; had chafferings 
and higglings, now a sore heart, now a glad 
one ; was born ; was a son, was a father ; — 
toiled in many ways, being forced to it, till the 
strength was all worn out of him : and then — 
lay doVn " to rest his galled back," and sleep 
there till the long-distant morning ! — How 
comes it, that he alone of all the British rus- 
tics who tilled and lived along with him, 
on whom the blessed sun on that same "fifth 

♦History of tlie Rebellion, iii. 625. 



BIOGRAPHY. 



315 



day of September" was shining, should have 
chanced to rise on us; that this poor pair of 
clouted Shoes, out of a million million hides 
that have been tanned, and cut, and worn, 
should still subsist, and hang visibly together? 
We see him but for a moment ; for one mo- 
ment, the blanket of the Night is rent asun- 
der, so that we behold and see, and then 
closes over him — for ever. 

So too, in some Bosicell's Life of Johnson, tiow 
indelible, and magically bright, does many a 
little Reality dwell in our remembrance ! 
There is no need that the personages on the 
scene be a King and Clown ; that the scene 
be the Forest of the Royal Oak, " on the bor- 
ders of Staffordshire :" need only that the 
scene lie on this old firm Earth of ours, where 
we also have so surprisingl)^ arrived ; that the 
personages be men, and seen with the eyes of a 
man. Foolish enough, how some slight, per- 
haps mean and even ugly incident — if real, and 
well presented — will fix itself in a susceptive 
memory, and lie ennobled there; silvered over 
with the pale cast of thought, with the pathos j 
which belongs only to the Dead. For the 
Past is all holy to us; the Dead are all holy, 
even they that were base and wicked while 
alive. Their baseness and wickedness was 
not They, was but the heavy unmanageable 
Environment that lay round them, with which 
they fought unprevailing : they (the ethereal 
God-given Force that dwelt in them, and was 
their Self) have now shuffled off that heavy 
Environment, and are free and pure : their 
life-long Battle, go how it might, is all ended, 
with many wounds or with fewer ; they have 
been recalled from it, and the once harsh-jar- 
ring battle-field has become a silent awe-in- 
spiring Golgotha, and Gottesacker — Field of 
God! — Boswell relates this in itself smallest 
and poorest of occurrences: "As we walked 
along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a wo- 
man of the town accosted us in the usual en- 
ticing manner. 'No, no, my girl,' said John- 
son ; ' it won't do.' He, however, did not 
treat her with harshness, and we talked of the 
wretched life of such women." Strange power 
of Reality ! Not even this poorest of occur- 
rences, but now, after seventy years are come 
and gone, has a meaning for us. Do but con- 
sider that it is trve ; that it did in very deed 
occur ! That unhappy Outcast, with all her 
sins and woes, her lawless desires, too com- 
plex mischances, her wailings and her riot- 
ings, has departed utterly : alas ! her siren 
finery has got all besmutched ; ground, gene- 
rations since, into dust and smoke, of her de- 
graded body, and whole miserable earthly 
existence, all is away : she is no longer hei-e, 
but far from us, in the bosom of Eternity, — 
whence we too came, whither we too are 
bound! Johnson said, "No, no, my girl; it 
won't do ;" and then " we talked ;" — and here- 
with the wTetched one, seen but for the twink- 
ling of an eye, passes on into the utter Dark- 
ness. No high Calista, that ever issued from 
Story-teller's brain, will impress us more 
deeply than this meanest of the mean ; and 
for a good reason : That she issued from the 
Maker of Men. 

It is well worth the Artist's while to examine 



for himself what it is that gives such pitiful in- 
cidents their memorableness; his aim likewise 
is, above all things, to be ineinorahlc. Half the 
effect, we already perceive, depends on the 
object, on its being reoi, on its being really seen. 
The other half will depend on the observer; 
and the question now is : How are real objects 
to be so seen ; on what quality of observing, or 
of style in describing, does this so intense pic- 
torial power depend 1 Often a slight circum- 
stance contributes curiously to ihe result : some 
little, and perhaps to appearance accidental, fea- 
ture is presented ; a light-gleam, which instan- 
taneously excites the mind, and urges it to com- 
plete the picture, and evolve the meaning 
thereof for itself. By critics, such light-gleams 
and their almost magical influence have fre- 
quently been noted : but the power to produce 
such, to select such features as will produce 
them, is generally treated as a knack, or trick 
of the trade, a secret for being "graphic;" 
whereas these magical feats are, in truth, 
rather inspirations; and the gift of performing 
them, which acts unconsciously, without fore- 
thought, and as if by nature alone, is properly 
a genius for description. 

One grand, invaluable secret there is, how- 
ever, which includes all the rest, and, what is 
comfortable, lies clearly in every man's power: 
To have an open, loving heart, and vhtit follows 
from the possession of sttch .' Truly has it been 
said, emphatically in these days ought it to be 
repeated: A loving heart is the beginning of 
all Knowledge. This it is that opens the whole 
mind, quickens every faculty of the intellect to 
do its fit work, that of knowing ; and therefrom, 
by sure consequence, of vividly uttering forth. 
Other secret for being " graphic" is there none, 
worth having : but this is an all-sufficient one. 
See, for example, what a small Boswell can 
do ! Hereby, indeed, is the whole man made a 
living mirror, wherein the wonders of this ever- 
wonderful Universe are, in their true light, 
(which is ever a magical, miraculous one,) re- 
presented, and reflected back on us. It has 
been said, "the heart sees farther than the 
head:" but, indeed, without the seeing heart 
there is no true seeing for the head so much as 
possible; all is mere oversight, hallucination, 
and vain superficial phantasmagoria, which 
can permanently profit no one. 

Here, too, may we not pause for an instant, 
and make a practical reflection ] Considering 
the multitude of mortals that handle the Pen 
in these days, and can mostly spell, and write 
without daring violations of grammar, the 
question naturally arises : How is it, then, that 
no Work proceeds fronr them, bearing any 
stamp of authenticity and permanence ; of 
worth for more than one day 1 Ship-loads of 
Fashionable Novels, Sentimental Rhymes, 
Tragedies, Farces, Diaries of Travel, Taies by 
flood and field, are swallowed moi.lhly into the 
bottomless Pool; still does the Press toil: in- 
numerable Paper-makers, Compositors, Print- 
ers' Devils, Bookbinders, and Hawkers grown 
hoarse with loud proclaiming, rest not from 
their labour; and still, in torrents, rushes on 
the great array of Publications, unpausing, to 
their final home; and still Oblivion, like the 
Grave, cries : Give ! Give ! How is it that of 



316 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



all these countless multitudes, no one can attain 
to the smallest mark of excellence, or produce 
ought that shall endure longer than " snow- 
flake on the river," or the foam of penny-beer ? 
We answer: Because they are foam ; because 
there is no Reality in them. These Three 
Thousand men, Avomen, and children, that 
make up the array of British Authors, do not, 
if we will well consider it, see any thing what- 
ever ; consequently have nothing that they can 
record and utter, only moye or fewer things 
that they can plausibly pretend to record. The 
Universe, of Man and Nature, is still quite 
shut up from them ; the " open secret" still 
utterly a secret ; because no sympathy with 
Man or Nature, no love and free simplicity of 
heart has yet unfolded the same. Nothing 
but a pitiful Image of their own pitiful Self, 
with its vanities, and grudgings, and ravenous 
hunger of all kinds, hangs for ever painted in 
the retina of these unfortunate persons : so that 
the starry All, with whatsoever it embraces, 
does but appear as some expanded magic- 
lantern shadow of that same Image, — and natu- 
rally looks pitiful enough. 

It is vain for these persons to allege that 
they are naturally without gift, naturally stu- 
pid and sightless, and so am attain to no 
knowledge of any thing; therefore, in writing 
of any thing, must needs write falsehoods of 
it, there being in it no truth for them. Not so, 
good Friends. The stupidest of you has a 
certain faculty; were it but that of articulate 
speech, (say, in the Scottish, the Irish, the 
Cockney dialect, or even in " Governess-Eng- 
lish,") and of physically discerning what lies 
under your nose. The stupidest of you would 
perhaps grudge to be compared in faculty 
with James Boswell ; yet see what he has pro- 
duced! You do not use your faculty honestly ; 
your heart is shut up; full of greediness, ma- 
lice, discontent; so your intellectual sense 
cannot be open. It is vain also to urge that 
James Boswell had opportunities ; saw great 
men and great things, such as you can never 
hope to look on. What make ye of Parson 
White in Selborne 1 He had not only no great 
men to look on, but not even men ; merely 
sparrows and cock-chafers : yet has he left us 
a Biogriiphy of these ; which, under its title 
Natural History of Selborne, still remains valu- 
able to us ; which has copied a little sentence 
or two faithfully from ihe inspired volume of 
Nature, and so is itself not without inspiration. 
Go ye and do likewise. Sweep away utterly 
all frothiness and falsehood from 3'our heart ; 
struggle unweariedly to acquire, what is pos- 
sible for every god-created Man, a free, open, 
humble soul .- speak not at all, in any wise, till 
you have somewhat to speak ; care not for the 
reward of your speaking, but simply and with ; 
undivided mind for the triith of your speaking : j 
then be placed in what section of Space and 
of Time soever, do but open your eyes, and ^ 
they shall actually see, and bring you real j 
knowledge, wor.drous, worthy of belief; and in-. 



stead of one Boswell and one White, the world 
will rejoice in a thousand, — stationed on their 
thousand several watch-towers, to instruct us 
by indubitable documents, of whatsoever in 
our so stupendous world comes to light and is! 
O, had the Editor of this Magazine but a 
magic rod to turn all that not inconsiderable 
Intellect, which now deluges us with artificial 
fictitious soap-lather, and mere Lying, into the 
faithful study of Reality, — what knowledge of 
great, everlasting Nature, and of Man's ways 
and doings therein, would not every year bring 
us in ! Can we but change one single soap- 
latherer and mountebank Juggler, into a true 
Thinker and Doer, that even tries honestly to 
think and do — great will be our reward. 

But to return ; or rather from this point to 
begin our journey ! If now, what with Herr 
Sauerteig's Springwiirzel, what with so much lu- 
cubration of our own, it have become apparent 
how deep, immeasurable is the " worth that lies 
in Reality," and farther, how exclusive the in- 
terest which man takes in the Histories of 
Man, — may it not seem lamentable, that so few 
genuinely good Biographies have yet been accu- 
mulated in Literature ; that in the whole world, 
one cannot find, going strictly to work, above 
some dozen, or baker's dozen, and those chiefly 
of very ancient date "? Lamentable ; yet, after 
what we have just seen, accountable. An- 
other question might be asked : How comes it 
that in England we have simply one good 
Biography, this Boswell's Johnson: and of good, 
indiflerent, or even bad attempts at Biography, 
fewer than any civilized people 1 Consider 
the French and Germans, with their Moreris, 
Bayles, Jordenses, Jochers, their innumerable 
Mc/noires, and Schildernngen, and Biographies 
Univcrselles; not to speak of Rousseaus, Goethes, 
Schubarts, Jung-Stillings : and then contrast 
with these our poor Birches, and Kippises and 
Pecks, — the whole breed of whom, moreover, 
is now extinct ! 

With this question, as the answer might 
lead us far, and come out unflattering to patri- 
otic sentiment, we shall not intermeddle ; but 
turn rather, with greater pleasure, to the fact, 
that one excellent Biography is actually Eng- 
lish ; — and even now lies, in Five new Volumes, 
at our hand, soliciting a new consideration 
from us ; such as, age after age (the Peren- 
nial showing ever new phases as our position 
alters,) it may long be profitable to bestow on 
it ; — to which task we here, in this age, gladly 
address ourselves. 

First, however. Let the foolish April-fool 
day pass by ; and our Reader, during these 
twenty-nine days of uncertain weather that 
will follow, keep pondering, according to con- 
venience, the purport of BioGnAPHT in gene- 
ral : then, with the blessed dew of May-day, 
and in unlimited convenience of space, shall 
all that we have written on Johnson, and Bos- 
■welVs Johnson, and Crokcr's Boswell's Johnson, be 
faithfully laid before him. 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



317 



BOSWELUS LIFE OF JOHNSON.* 



[Fraser's Magazine, 1832.] 



./Esop's Fly, sitting on the axle of the cha- 
riot, has been much laughed at for exclaiming : 
What a dust I do raise ! Yet which of us, in 
his way, has not sometimes been guilty of the 
like ] Nay, so foolish are men, they often, stand- 
ing at ease and as spectators on tlie highway, 
■will volunteer to exclaim of the Fly (not being 
tempted to it, as he was) exactly to the same pur- 
port : What a dust thou dost raise ! Smallest of 
mortals, when mounted aloft by circumstances, 
come to seem great; smallest of phenomena 
connected with them are treated as important, 
and must be sedulously scanned, and com- 
mented upon with loud emphasis. 

That Mr. Croker should undertake to edit 
Bn^ireWs Life of Johnson, was a praiseworthy 
but no miraculous procedure: neither could 
the accomplishment of such undertaking be, 
in an epoch like ours, anywise regarded as an 
event in Universal History; the right or the 
■wrong accomplishment thereof was, in very 
truth, one of the most insignificant of things. 
However, it sat in a great environment, on the 
axle of a high, fast-rolling, parliamentary 
chariot; and all the world has exclaimed over 
it, and the author of it : What a dust thou dost 
raise! List to the Reviews, and " Organs of 
Public Opinion," from the National Omnibus 
upwards; criticisms, vituperative and laudato- 
ry, stream from their thousand throats of brass 
and leather; here chanting lo pceans : there 
grating harsh thunder, or vehement shrew- 
mouse squeaklets ; till the general ear is filled, 
and nigh deafened. Boswell's Book had a 
noiseless birth, compared wtth this Edition of 
Boswell's Book. On the other hand, consider 
with what degree of tumult Paradise Lost and 
the Iliad were ushered in ! 

To swell such clamor, or prolong it beyond 
the time, seems nowise our vocation here. At 
most, perhaps we are bound to inform simple 
readers, with all possible brevity, what manner 
of performance and Edition this is ; especial- 
ly, whether, in our poor judgment, it is worth 
laying out three pounds sterling upon, yea or 
not. The whole business belongs distinctly to 
the lower ranks of the trivial class. 

Let us admit, then, with great readiness, that 
as Johnson once said, and the Editor repeats, 
"all work's v/hich describe manners, require 
notes in sixty or seventy years, or less ;" that, 
accordingly, a new Edition of Boswell was de- 
sirable; and that Mr. Croker has given one. 
For this task he had various qualifications: 
his own voluntary resolution to do it; his high 
place in society unlocking all manner of ar- 
chives to him; not less, perhaps, a certain 
anecdotico-biographic turn of mind, natural 
or acquired; we mean, a love for the vnnnler 
events of History, and talent for investigating 

* Tne Life of Samuel .lohnsnn, I.T,.D. : inrliidin? a 
Tnur tn the llet)rides. Hy.IatiiPs Bd.swi'II, Esq. — A new 
Kdilion, with mimernus Additions and Notes. By John 
Wilson Croker, LL.D., F. R. S. 5 vols. London, 1831. 



these. Let us admit, too, that he has been very 
diligent ; seems to have made inquiries perse- 
venngly far and near; as well as drawn freely 
from his own ample stores ; and so tells us to 
appearance quite accurately, much that he has 
notfound lying on the highways, but has had to 
seek and dig for. Numerous persons, chiefly 
of quality, rise to view in these Notes; when 
and also where they came into this world, re- 
ceived office or promotion, died, and were 
buried (only what they did, except digest, re- 
maining often too mysterious,) — is faithfully 
enough set down. Whereby all that their va- 
rious and doubtless widely-scattered Tomb- 
stones could have taught us, is here presented, 
at once, in a bound Book. Thus is an indubi- 
table conquest, though a small one, gained 
over our great enemy, the all-destroyer Time ; 
and as such shall have welcome. 

Nay, let us say that the spirit of Diligence, 
exhibited in this department, seems to attend 
the Editor honestly throughout: he keeps 
everywhere a watchful outlook on his Text; 
reconciling the distant with the present, or at 
least indicating and regretting their irrecon- 
cilability ; elucidating, smoothing down; in 
all ways, exercising, according to ability, a 
strict editorial superintendence. Any little 
Latin or even Greek phrase is rendered into 
English, in general with perfect accuracy; 
citations are verified, or else corrected. On 
all hands, moreover, there is a certain spirit 
of Decency maintained and insisted on : if not 
good morals, yet good manners, are rigidly in- 
culcated ; if not Religion, and a devout Chris- 
tian heart, yet Orthodoxy, and a cleanly. Shovel- 
halted look, — which, as compared with flat 
Nothing, is something very considerable. 
Grant too, as no contemjitible triumph of this 
latter spirit, that though the Editor is known 
as a decided Politician anti Party-man, he has 
carefully subdued all temptations to transgress 
in that way: except by quite involuntary indi- 
cations, and rather as it were the pervading 
temper of the whole, you could not discover 
on which side of the Political Warfare he is 
enlisted and fights. This, as we said, is a 
great triumph of the Decency-principle: for 
this, and for these other graces and perform- 
ances, let the Editor have all praise. 

Herewith, however, must the praise unfor- 
tunately terminate. Diligence, Fidelity, De- 
cency, are good and indispensable; yet, with- 
out Faculty, without Light, they will not do 
the work. Along with that Tombstone infor- 
mation, perhaps even without much of it. we. 
could have liked to gain some answer, in one 
way or other, to this wide question : What and 
how was English Life \n Johnson's time ; 
wherein has ours grown to differ therefrom 1 
In other words: What things have we to for- 
get, what to fancy and remember, before we, 
from such distance, can put ourselves in 
Johnson's place; and so, in the full sense of 
2 D 2 



318 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the term, understand him, his sayings and his 
doings! This was indeed specially the prob- 
lem which a Commentator and Editor had to 
solve: a complete solution of it should have 
Jain in him, his whole mind should have been 
filled and prepared with perfect insight into it; 
then, whether in the way of express Disser- 
tation, of incidental Exposition and Indication, 
opportunities enough would have occurred of 
bringing out the same: what was dark in the 
figure of the Past had thereby been enlighten- 
ed; Boswell had, not in show and word only, 
but in very fact, been made neiu again, reada- 
ble to us who are divided from him, even as 
he was to those close at hand. Of all which 
very little has been attempted here; accom- 
plished, we should say, next to nothing, or 
altogether nothing. 

Excuse, no doubt, is in readiness for such 
omission; and, indeed, for innumerable other 
failings; — as where, for example, the Editor 
will punctually explain what is already sun- 
clear ; and then anon, not without frankness, 
declare frequently enough that "the Editor 
does not understand," that " the Editor cannot 
guess," — while, for most part, the Reader can- 
not help both guessing and seeing. Thus, if 
Johnson say, in one sentence, that " English 
names should not be used in Latin verses ;" 
and then, in the next sentence, speak blamingly 
of "Carteret being used as a dactyl," will the 
generality of mortals detect any puzzle there] 
Or again, where poor Boswell writes: "I 
always remember a remark made to me by a 
Turkish lady, educated in France : ' 3fa foi, 
monsieur, noire honhevr depend de la fu^nn rjuc no- 
ire sang circvlc ,' " — though the Turkish lady 
here speaks English-French, where is the call 
for a Note like this: "Mr. Boswell no doubt 
fancied these words had some meaning, or he 
would hardly have quoted them; but what that 
meaning is the Editor cannot guess 1" The 
Editor is clearly no witch at a riddle. — For 
these and all kindred deficiencies, the excuse, 
as we said, is at hand; but the fact of their 
existence is not the less certain and regretable. 
Indeed, it, from a very early stage of the 
business, becomes afflictively apparent, how 
much the Editor, so well furnished with all 
external appliances and means, is from within 
unfurnished with means for forming to him- 
self any just notion of Johnson, or of John- 
son's Life; and therefore of speaking on that 
subject with much hope of edifying. Too 
lightly is it from the first taken for granted 
that Hunger, the great basis of our life, is also 
its apex and ultimate perfection; that as 
"Neediness and Greediness and Vain-glory" 
are the chief qualities of most men, so no man, 
not even a Johnson, acts or can think of acting 
on any other principle. Whatsoever, there- 
fore, cannot be referred to the two former cate- 
gories, (Need and Greed,) is without scruple 
ranged under the latter. It is here properly 
that our Editor becomes burdensome; and, to 
the weaker sort, even a nuisance. "What 
good is it," will such cry, " when we had still 
some faint shadow of belief that man was bet- 
ter than a selfish Digesting-machine; what 
good is it to poke in, at every turn, and ex- 
j)lam how this and that which we thought 



noble in old Samuel, was vulgar, base ; that 
for him too there was no reality but in the 
Stomach; and except Pudding, and the finer 
species of pudding which is named Praise, life 
had no pabulum 1 Why, for instance, when 
we know that Johnson loved his good Wife, 
and says expressly that their marriage was "a 
love-match on both sides," — should two closed 
lips open to tell us only this: "Is it not pos- 
sible that the obvious advantage of having a 
woman of experience to superintend an estab- 
lishment of this kind (the Edial School) may 
have contributed to a match so disproportionate 
in point of age — Ed. 1" Or again, when in the 
Text, the honest cynic speaks freely of his 
former poverty, and it is known that he once 
lived on fourpence halfpenny a-day, — need a 
Commentator advance, and comment thus: 
" When we find Dr. Johnson tell unpleasant 
truths to, or of, other men, let us recollect that 
he does not appear to have spared himself, on 
occasions in which he might be forgiven for 
doing sol" "Why in short," continues the 
exasperated Reader, "should Notes of this 
species stand aflTronting me, when there might 
have been no Note at all]" — Gentle Reader, 
we answer. Be not wroth. What other could 
an honest Commentator do, than give thee the 
best he had] Such was the picture and 
theorem he had fashioned for himself of the 
world and of man's doings therein: take it, 
and drav/ wise inferences from it. If there 
did exist a Leader of Public Opinion, and 
Champion of Orthodoxy in the Church of 
Jesus of Nazareth, who reckoned that man's 
glory consisted in not being poor; and that 
a Sage, and Prophet of his time, must needs 
blush because the world had paid him at that 
easy rate of fourpence halfpenny per diem, — 
was not the fact of such existence worth 
knowing, worth considering] 

Of a much milder hue, yet to us practically 
of an all-defacing, and for the present enter- 
prise quite ruinous character, — is another 
grand fundamental failing; the last we shall 
feel ourselves obliged to take the pain of 
specifying here. It is that our Editor has 
fatally, and almost surprisingly, mistaken the 
limits of an Editor's function ; and so, instead 
of working on the margin with his Pen, to 
elucidate as best might be, strikes boldly into 
the body of the page with his Scissors, and 
there clips at discretion ! Four Books Mr. C. 
had by him, wherefrom to gather light for the 
fifth, which was Boswell's. What does he do 
but now, in the placidest manner, — slit the 
whole five into slips, and sew these together 
into a sexluin quid, exactly at his own con- 
venience; giving Boswell the credit of the 
whole! By what art-magic, our readers ask, 
has he united them ] By the simplest of all : 
by Brackets. Never before was the full virtue 
oif the Bracket made manilest. You begin a 
sentence under Boswell's guidance, thinking 
to be carried happily through it by the same: 
but no ; in the middle, perhaps after your semi- 
colon, and some consequent " for," — starts up 
one of these Bracket-ligatures, and stitches 
you in from half a page, to twenty or thirty 
pages of a Hawkins, Tyers, Murphy, Piozzi; 
so that often one must make the old sad re- 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



319 



flection, " where we are we know, whither we 
are going no man knoweth !" It is truly said 
also, "There is much between the cup and the 
lip;" but here the case is still sadder: for not 
till after consideration can you ascertain, now 
when the cup is at the lip, what liquor is it 
you are imbibing ; whether Boswell's French 
wine which you began with, or some Piozzi's 
ginger-beer, or Hawkins's entire, or perhaps 
some other great Brewer's penny-swipes or 
even alegar, which has been surreptitiously 
substituted instead thereof. A situation almost 
original; not to be tried a second time! But, 
in fine, what ideas Mr. Croker entertains of a 
literary whole and the thing called Eouk, and 
how the very Printer's Devils did not rise in 
mutiny against such a conglomeration as this, 
and refuse to print it, — may remain a problem. 

But now happily our say is said. All faults, 
the Moralists tell us, are properly t:ii(>rtcomiugs ; 
crimes themselves are nothing other than a 
not doing enough; a fighting, but with defective 
vigour. How much more a mere insufficiency, 
and this after good efforts, in handicraft prac- 
tice ! Mr. Croker says: "The worst that can 
happen is that all the present Editor has 
contributed may, if the reader so pleases, be 
rejected as surpiusage." It is our pleasant duty 
to take with hearty welcome what he has 
given ; and render thanks even for what he 
meant to give. Next and finally, it is our pain- 
ful duty to declare, aloud if that be necessary, 
that his gift, as weighed against the hard 
money winch the Booksellers demand for 
giving it you, is (in our judgment) very greatly 
the lighter. No portion, accordingly, of our 
small floating capital has been embarked in 
the business, or shall ever be ; indeed, were 
we in the market for such a thing, there is 
simply no Edition of Boswcll to which this last 
would seem preferable. And now enough, and 
more than enough ! 

We have next a word to say of James Bus- 
well. Boswell has already been much com- 
mented upon; but rather in the way of censure 
and vituperation, than of true recognition. He 
was a man that brought himself much before 
the world ; confessed that he eagerly coveted 
fame, or if that were not possible, notoriety; 
of which latter as he gained far more than 
seemed his due, the public were incited, not 
only by their natural love of scandal, but by a 
special ground of envy, to say whatever ill of 
him could be said. Out of the fifteen millions 
that then lived, and had bed and board, in the 
British Islands, this man has provided us a 
greater pleasure than any other individual, at 
whose cost we now enjoy ourselves; perhaps 
has done us a greater service than can be 
specially attributed to more than two or three: 
yet, ungrateful that we are, no written or 
spoken eulogy of James Boswell anywhere 
exists; his recompense in solid pudding (so 
far as copyright went) was not excessive ; and 
as for the empty praise, it has altogether been 
denied him. Men are unwiser than children; 
they do not know the hand that feeds. 

Boswell was a person whose mean or bad 
qualities lay open to the general eye ; visible, 
palpable to the dullest. His good qualities 
again, belonged not to the Time he lived in ; 



were far from common then, indeed, in such a 
degree, were almost unexampled ; not recognis- 
able therefore by every one; nay, apt even (so 
strange had they grown) to be confounded with 
the very vices they lay contiguous to, and had 
sprung out of. That he was a wine-bibber and 
gross liver; gluttonously fond of whatever 
would yield him a little solacement, were it 
only of a stomachic character, is undeniable 
enough. That he was vain, heedless, a bab- 
bler; had much of the sycophant, alternating 
with the braggadocio, curiously spiced too with 
an all-pervadmg dash of the coxcomb ; that he 
gloried much wheu the Tailor, by a court-suit, 
had made a new man of him ; that he appeared 
at the Shakspeare Jubilee with a riband, im- 
printed "Corsica Boswell," round his hat; 
and in short, if you will, lived no day of his 
life without doing and saying more than one 
pretentious ineptitude: all this unhappily is 
evident as the sun at noon. The very look of 
Boswell seems to have signified so much. In 
that cocked nose, cocked partly in triumph 
over his weaker fellow-creatures, partly to 
snuft' up the smell of coming pleasure, and 
scent it from afar; in those bag-cheeks, hang- 
ing like half-filled wine-skins, still able to con- 
tain more; in that coarsely protruded shelf- 
mouth, that fat dewlapped chin ; in all this, 
who sees not sensuality, pretension, boisterous 
imbecility enough; much that could not have 
been ornamental in the temper of a great man's 
overfed great man, (what the Scotch name 
flunky,) though it had been more natural there. 
The under part of Boswell's face is of a low, 
almost brutish character. 

Unfortunately, on the other hand, what great 
and genuine good lay in him was nowise so 
self-evident. That Boswell was a hunter after 
spiritual Notabilities, that he loved such, and 
longed, and even crept and crawled to be near 
them; that he first (in old Touchwood Auchin- 
leck's phraseology) " took on with Paoli," and 
then being off with " the Corsican landlouper,"^ 
took on with a schoolmaster, " ane that keeped 
a schule, and ca'd it an academe;" that he did 
all this, and could not help doing it, we account 
a very singular merit. The man, once for all, 
had an "open sense," an open loving heart, 
which so few have : where Excellence existed,, 
he was compelled to acknowledge it; was 
drawn towards it, and (let the old sulphur- 
brand of a Laird say what he liked) could not 
but walk with it, — if not as superior, if not as 
equal, then as inferior and lackey, better so 
than not at all. If we reflect now that this love 
of Excellence had not on\y such an evil nature 
to triumph over; but also what an education 
and social position withstood it and weighed 
it down, its innate strength, victorious overall 
these things, may astonish us. Consider what 
an inward impulse there must have been, how 
many mountains of impediment hurled aside, 
before the Scottish Laird could, as humble 
servant, embrace the knees (the bosom was 
not permitted him) of the English Dominie! 
" Your Scottish Laird," says an English na- 
turalist of these days, " may be defined as the 
hungriest and vainest of all bipeds yet known." 
Boswell too was a Tory; of quite peculiarly 
feudal, genealogical, pragmatical temper, had 



320 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. ' 



been nurtured in an atmosphere of Heraldry ; 
at the feet of a very Gamaliel in that kind ; 
within bare walls, adorned only with pedigrees, 
amid serving-men in threadbare livery ; all 
things teaching him, from birth upwards, to 
remember, that a Laird was a Laird. Perhaps 
there was a special vanity in his very blood: 
old Auchinleck had, if not the gay, tail-spread- 
ing, peacock vanity of his son, no little of the 
slow-stalking, contentious, hissing vanity of 
the gander; a still more fatal species. Scottish 
Advocates will yet tell you how the ancient 
man, having chanced to be the first sheriff ap- 
pointed (after the abolition of " hereditary 
jurisdiction ") by royal authority, was wont, 
in dull pompous tone, to preface many a de- 
liverance from the bench, with these words: 
" I, the first king's Sheriff in Scotland." 

And now behold the worthy Bozzy, so pre- 
possessed and held back by nature and by art, 
fly nevertheless like iron to its magnet, whither 
his better genius called! You may surround 
the iron and the magnet with what enclosures 
and encumbrances you please, — with wood, 
with rubbish, with brass : it matters not, the 
two feel each other, they struggle restlessly 
towards each other, they will be together. The 
iron may be a Scottish squirelet, full of gulosity 
and " gigmanity ;"* the magnet an English ple- 
beian, and moving rag-and-dust mountain, 
coarse, proud, irascible, imperious : neverthe- 
less, behold how they embrace, and insepara- 
bly cleave to one another! It is one of the 
strangest phenomena of the past century, that 
at a time when the old reverent feeling of Dis- 
cipleship (such as brought men from far 
■countries, with rich gifts, and prostrate soul, 
to the feet of the Prophets) had passed utterly 
away from men's practical experience, and 
was no longer surmised to exist, (as it does,) 
perennial, indestructible, in man's inmost heart, 
— James Boswell should have been the in- 
dividual, of all others, predestined to recall it, 
in such singular guise, to the wondering, and, 
for a long while, laughing, and unrecognising 
world. Ii has been commonly said. The man's 
vulgar vanity was all that attached him to 
Johnson ; he delighted to be seen near him, to 
be thought connected with him. Now let it be 
at once granted that no consideration spring- 
ing out of vulgar vanity could well be absent 
from the mind of James Boswell, in this his 
intercourse with Johnson, or in any consider- 
able transaction of his life. At the same lime 
ask yourself: Whether such vanity, and no- 
thing else, actuated him therein; whether this 
was the true essence and moving principle of 
the phenomenon, or not rather its outward 
vesture, and the accidental environment (and de- 
facement) in which it came to light 1 The man 
was, by nature and habit, vain; a sycophant- 
coxcomb, be it granted : but had there been 
nothing more than vanity in him, was Samuel 
Johnson the man of men to whom he must 
attach himself? At the date when Johnson 
was a poor rusty-coated "scholar," dwelling 



*Q" What do you mean by ' respectable "?' — J}. He 
always kept a gig."— (TAuWeH's Tria/.)— " Thus," it 
has been said, ''does society naturally divide itself 
into four classes : Noblemen, Gentlemen, Gigraen, and 
Men." 



in Temple-lane, and indeed throughout their 
whole intercourse afterwards, were there not 
chancellors and prime ministers enough; 
graceful gentlemen, the glass of fashion: hon- 
our-giving noblemen ; dinner giving rich men; 
renowned fire-eaters, swordsmen, gownsmen ; 
Quacks and Realities of all hues, — any one 
of whom bulked much larger in the world's 
eye than Johnson ever did? To any one of 
whom, by half that submissiveness and assi- 
duity, our Bozzy might have recommended 
himself; and sat there, the envy of surround- 
ing lickspittles ; pocketing now solid emolu- 
ment, swallowing now well-cooked viands and 
wines of rich vintage ; in each case, also, 
shone on by some glittering reflex of Renown 
or Notoriety, so as to be the observed of in- 
numerable observers. To no one of whom, 
however, though otherwise a most diligent 
solicitor and purveyor, did he so attach him- 
self: such vulgar courtierships were his paid 
drudgery, or leisure-amusement; the worship 
of Johnson was his grand, ideal, voluntary 
business. Does not the frothy-hearted yet 
enthusiastic man, doffing his Advocate's-wig, 
regularly take post, and hurry up to London, 
for the sake of his Sage chiefly; as to a Feast 
of Tabernacles, the Sabbath of his whole year ? 
The plate-licker and wine-bibber dives into 
Bolt Court, to sip muddy coffee with a cynical 
old man, and a sour-tempered blind old woman 
(feeling the cups, whether they are full, with 
her finger;) and patiently endured contradic- 
tions without end; too happy so he may but 
be allowed to listen and live. Nay, it does 
not appear that vulgar vanity could ever have 
been much flattered by Boswell's relation to 
Johnson. Mr. Croker says, Johnson was, to 
the last, little regarded by the great world ; 
from which, for a vulgar vanity, all honour, as 
from its fountain, descends. Bozzy, even 
among Johnson's friends and special admirers, 
seems rather to have been laughed at than 
envied : his officious, whisking, consequential 
ways, the daily reproofs and rebuffs he under- 
went, could gain from the world no golden, 
but only leaden, opinions. His devout Dis- 
cipleship seemed nothing more than a mean 
Spanielship, in the general eye. His mighty 
"constellation," or sun, round whom he, as 
satellite, observantly gyrated, was, for the mass 
of men, but a huge ill-snuffed tallow-light, and 
he a weak night-moth, circling foolishly, dan- 
gerously about it, not knowing what he wanted. 
If he enjoyed Highland dinners and toasts, as 
henchman to a new sort of chieftain, Henry 
Erskine, in the domestic " Outer-House," could 
hand him a shilling " for the sight of his Bear." 
Doubtless the man was laughed at, and often 
heard himself laughed at for his Johnsonism. 
To be envied, is the grand and sole aim of 
vulgar vanity; to be filled with good things is 
that of sensuality : for Johnson perhaps no 
man living envied poor Bozzy; and of good 
things (except himself paid for them) there 
was no vestige in that acquaintanceship. Had 
nothing other or better than vanity and sen- 
suality been there, Johnson and Boswell had 
never come together, or had soon and finally 
separated again. 

In fact, the so copious terrestrial Dross that 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



321 



-welters chaotically, as the outer sphere of this 
man's character, does but render for us more 
remarkable, more touching, the celestial spark 
of goodness, of light, and Reverence for Wis- 
dom, which dwelt in the interior, and could 
struggle through such encumbrances, and in 
some degree illuminate and beautify them. 
There is much lying yet undeveloped in tiie 
love of Bosvvell for Johnson. A cheering 
proof, in a time which else utterly wanted and 
still wants such, that living Wisdom is quite 
infinitely precious to man, is the symbol of the 
Godlike to him, which even weak eyes may 
discei-n; that Loyalty, Discipleship, all that 
was ever meant by Hero-worship, lives peren- 
nially in the human bosom, and waits, even in 
these dead days, only for occasions to unfold 
it, and inspire all men with it, and again make 
the world alive ! James Boswell we can re- 
gard as a practical witness (or real mariyr) to 
this high, everlasting truth. A wonderful 
martyr, if you will; and in a time which made 
such martyrdom doubly wonderl\il: yet the 
lime and its martyr perhaps suited each other. 
For a decrepit, death-sick Era, when Cant had 
first decisively opened her poison-breathing 
lips to proclaim that God-worship and Mam- 
mon-worship were one and the same, that Life 
was a Lie, and the Earth Beelzebub's, which 
the Supreme Quack should inherit ; and so all 
things were fallen into the yellow leaf, and fast 
hastening to noisome corruption: for such an 
Era, perhaps no better Prophet than a parti- 
coloured Zany-Prophet, concealing (from him- 
self and others) his prophetic significance in 
such unexpected vestures, — was deserved, or 
would have been in place. A precious medi- 
cine lay hidden in floods of coarsest, most 
composite treacle : the world swallowed the 
treacle, for it suited the world's palate; and 
now, after half a century, may the medicine 
also begin to show itself! James Boswell be- 
longed, in his corruptible part, to the lowest 
classes of mankind; a foolish, inflated creature, 
swimming in an element of self-conceit: but 
in his corruptible there dwelt an incorruptible, 
all the more impressive and indubitable for the 
strange lodging it had taken. 

Consider, too, with what force, diligence, 
and vivacity, he has rendered back, ali this 
which, in Johnson's neighbourhood, his "open 
sense" had so eagerly and freely taken in. 
That loose-flowing, careless-looking Work of 
his is as a picture by one of Nature's own 
Artists; the best possible resemblance of a 
Reality; like the very image thereof in a clear 
mirror. Which indeed it was: let but the 
mirror be clear, this is the great point ; the pic- 
ture must and will be genuine. How the bab- 
bling Bozzy, inspired only by love, and the 
recognition and vision which love can lend, 
epitomizes nightly the words of Wisdom, the 
deeds and aspects of Wisdom, and so, by little 
and little, unconsciously works together for us 
a whole Johnsoniad ; a more free, perfect, sun- 
lit, and spirit-speaking likeness, than for many 
centuries had been drawn by man of man! 
Scarcely since the days of Homer has the feat 
been equalled : indeed, in many senses, this 
also is a kind of Heroic Poem. The fit Odys- 
sey of our unheroic age was to be written, not 
41 



sung; of a Thinker, not of a Fighter; and (for 
want of a Homer) by the first open soul that 
might offer, — looked such even through the or- 
gans of a Boswell. We do the man's intel- 
lectual endowment great wrong, if we measure 
it by its mere logical outcome; though here, 
too, there is not wanting a light ingenuity, a 
figurativeness, and fanciful sport, with gliinp'-es 
of insight far deeper than the common. But 
Boswell's grand intellectual talent was (as 
such ever is) an wiconsrious one, of far higher 
reach and significance than Logic ; and showed, 
itself in the whole, not in parts. Here again 
we have that old saying verified, "The heart 
sees farther than the head." 

Thus does poor Bozzy stand out to us as an 
ill-assorted, glaring mixture of the highest and 
the lowest. What, indeed, is man's life gene- 
rally but a kind of beast-godhood; the god in 
us triumphing more and more over the beast; 
striving more and more to subdue it under his 
feet"! Did not the Ancients, in their wise, pe- 
rennially significant way, figure Nature itself, 
their sacred All, or Pan, as a portentous com- 
mingling of these two discords; as musical, 
humane, oracular in its upper part, yet ending 
below in the cloven hairy f'eet of a goati The 
union of melodious, celestial_ Freewill and 
Reason, with foul Irrationality and Lust; in 
which, nevertheless, dwelt a mysterious un- 
speakable Fear and half-mad panic Awe; as 
for mortals there well might! And is not maa 
a microcosm, or epitomized mirror of that 
same Universe; or, rather, is not that Uni- 
verse even Himself, the reflex of his own fear- 
ful and wonderful being, "the waste fantasy 
of his own dream 1" No wonder that man, that - 
each man, and James Boswell like the others, 
should resemble it! The peculiarity in his 
case was the unusual defect of amalgamation 
and subordination: the highest lay side by 
side with the lowest; not morally combined 
with it and spiritually transfiguring it; but 
tumbling in half-mechanical juxtaposition 
with it, and from time to time, as the mad al- 
ternation chanced, irradiating it, or eclipsed 
by it. 

The world, as we said, has been but unjust 
to him; discerning only the outer terrestrial 
and often sordid mass ; without eye, as it 
generally is, for his inner divine secret; and 
thus figuring him nowise as a god Pan, but 
simply of the bestial species, like the cattle 
on a thousand hills. Nay, sometimes a strange 
enough hypothesis has been started of him ; 
as if it were in virtue even of these same bad 
qualities that he did his good work; as if it 
were the very fact of his being among the 
worst men in this world that had enabled him 
to write one of the best books therein ! Falser 
hypothesis, we may venture to say, never rose 
in human soul. Bad is by its nature negative, 
and can do noihmg : whatsoever enables us to 
do any thing is by its very nature s^ood. Alas, 
that there should be teachers in Israel, or even 
learners, to whom this world-ancient fact is 
still problematical, or even deniable! Bos- 
well wrote a good Book because he had a 
heart and an eye to discern Wisdom, and an 
utterance to render it forth ; because of his free 
insight, his lively talent, above all, of his Love 



322 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and childlike Open-mindedness. His sneaking 
sycophancies, his greediness and forwardness, 
whatever was bestial and earthy in him, are 
so many blemishes in his Book, which still 
disturb us in its clearness: wholly hindrances, 
Dot helps. Towards Johnson, however, his 
feeling was not Sycophancy, which is the low- 
est, but Reverence, which is the highest of 
human feelings. None but a reverent man 
(which so unspeakably few are) could have 
found his way from Boswell's environment to 
Johnson's: if such worship for real God-made 
superiors showed itself also as worship for 
apparent Tailor-made superiors, even as hol- 
low, interested mouth-worship for such, — the 
case, in this composite human nature of ours, 
"was not miraculous, the more was the pity! 
But for ourselves, let every one of us cling to 
this last article of Faith, and know it as the 
beginning of all knowledge worth the name: 
That neither James Boswell's good Book, nor 
any other good thing, in any time or in any 
place, was, is, or can be performed by any 
man in virtue of his liadncss, but always and 
solely in spite thereof. 

As for the Book itself, questionless the uni- 
versal favour entertained for it is well merited. 
In worth as a Book we have rated it beyond 
any other product of the eighteenth century : 
all Johnson's own Writings, laborious and in 
their kind genuine above most, stand on a 
quite inferior level to it; already, indeed, they 
are becoming obsolete for this generation ; and 
for some future generation, mav 1"' valuable 
chiefly as Prolegomena and expsitory Scholia 
to this Johiisoniad of Bosweli. Which of us 
but remembers, as one of the sunny spots in 
his existence, the day when he opened these 
airy volumes, fascinating him by a true natural- 
magic ! It was as if the curtains of the Past 
■were drawn aside, and we looked mysteriously 
into a kindred country, where dwelt our 
Fathers ; inexpressibly dear to us, but which 
had seemed for ever hidden from our eyes. 
For the dead Night had engulfed it; all was 
gone, vanished as if it had not been. Never- 
theless, wondrously given back to us, there 
once more it lay; all bright, lucid, blooming; 
a little island of Creation amid the circumam- 
bient Void. There it still lies; like a thing 
stationary, imperishable, over which change- 
ful Time were now accumulating itself in 
vain, and could not, any longer, harm it, or 
hide it. 

If we examine by what charm it is that men 
are siill held to this Life of Johnson, now when 
so much else has been forgotten, the main part 
of the answer will perhaps be found in that 
speculation "on the import of Ixeality," com- 
municated to the world, last Month, in this 
Magazine. The Johnsoniad of Bosweli turns 
on objects that in very deed existed; it is all 
truf. So far other in melodiousness of tone, it 
vies with the Odyxsey or surpasses it, in this 
one point: to us these read pages, as those 
chanted hexameters were to the first Greek 
heroes, are in the fullest, deepest sense, 
■wholly credible. All the wit and wisdom, lying 
embalmed in Boswell's Book, plenteous as 
these are, could not have saved it. Far more 
JBcientiiic instru^iion (mere excitement and 



enlightenment of the thinking power) can be 
found in twenty other works of that time, which 
make but a quite secondary impression on us. 
The other works of that time, however, fall 
under one of two classes: Either they are pro- 
fessedly Didactic; and, in that way, mere Ab- 
stractions, Philosophic Diagrams, incapable 
of interesting us much otherwise than as 
Euclid's Elrmciils may do : Or else, with all 
their vivacity, and pictorial richness of colour, 
they are Fictions and not r.calitics. Deep, truly, 
as Herr Sauerteig urges, is the force of this 
ccmsideration : The thing here stated is a fact; 
these figures, that local habitation, are not 
shadow but substance. In virtue of such ad- 
vantages, see how a very Bosweli may become 
Poetical ! 

Critics insist much on the Poet that he 
should communicate an "Infinitude" to his 
delineation ; that by intensity of conception, 
by that gift of " transcendental Thought," 
which is fitly named genius, and inspiration, he 
should inform the Finite with a certain Infini- 
tude of significance; or as they sometimes say, 
ennoble the Actual into Idealness. They are 
right in their precept; they mean rightly. But 
in cases like this of the Johnsoniad, (such is 
the dark grandeur of that "Time-element," 
wherein inan's soul here below lives impri- 
soned,) the Poet's task is, as it were, done to 
his hand: Time itself, which is the outer veil 
of Eternity, invests, of its own accord, with an 
authentic, felt "infinitude," whatsoever it has 
once embraced in its mysterious folds. Con- 
sider all that lies in that one word. Post! 
What a pathetic, sacred, in every sense poetic, 
meaning is implied in it; a meaning growing 
ever the clearer, the farther we recede in Time, 
— the more of that same Past we have to look 
through ! — On which ground indeed must 
Sauerteig have built, and not without plausi- 
bility, in that strange thesis of his : "that His- 
tory after all is the true Poetry; that Reality 
if rightly interpreted is grander than Fiction; 
nay, that even in the right interpretation of 
Reality and History does genuine Poetry con- 
sist."' 

Thus for FosirelVs Life of Johnson has Time 
done, is Time still doing, what no ornament 
of Art or Artifice could have done for it. Rough 
Samuel and sleek wheedling James ivcre, and 
are not. Their Life and whole personal Envi- 
ronment has melted into air. The Mitre 
Tavern still stands in Fleet Street: but where 
now is its scot-and-lot paying, beef-and-ale 
loving, cocked-hatted, potbellied Landlord; its 
rosy-faced, assiduous Landlady, with all her 
shining brass-pans, waxed tables, well-filled 
larder-shelves; her cooks, and bootjacks, and 
errand-boys, and watery-mouthed hangers-on? 
Gone! Gone! The becking waiter, that with 
wreathed smiles, wont to spread for Samuel 
and Bozzy their "supper of the gods," has long 
since pocketed his last sixpence; and vanish- 
ed, sixpences and all, like a ghost at cock- 
crowing. The Bottles they drank out of are 
all broken, the Chairs they sat on all rotted 
and burnt; the very Knives and Forks they 
ate with have rusted to the heart, and become 
brown oxide of iron, and mingled with the in- 
discriminate clay. All, all, has vanished ; in 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



335- 



very deed and truth, like that baseless fabric 
of Prospero's air-vision. Of the Mitre Tavern 
nothing but the bare walls remain there: of 
London, of England, of the World, nothing but 
the bare walls remain ; and these also decay- 
ing, (were they of adamant,) only slower. The 
mysterious River of Existence rushes on : a 
new Billow thereof has arrived, and lashes 
wildly as ever round the old embankments; 
but the former Billow with its loud, mad eddy- 
ings, where is it? — Where! — Now this Book 
of Bosweli's, this is precisely a Revocation of 
the Edict of Destiny; so that Time shall not 
utterly, not so soon by several centuries, have 
dominion over us. A little row of Naphtha- 
lamps, with its line of Naphtha-light, burns 
clear and holy through the dead Night of the 
Past : they who are gone are still here ; though 
hidden they are revealed, though dead they yet 
speak. There it shines, that little miraculously 
lamp-lit Pathway; shedding its feebler and 
feebler twilight into the boundless dark Ob- 
livion, for all that our Johnson touched has 
become illuminated for us : on which miracu- 
lous little Pathway we can still travel, and see 
■wonders. 

It is not speaking with exaggeration, but 
with strict measured sobriety, to say that this 
Book of Bosweli's will give us more real in- 
sight into the History of England during those 
days than twenty other Books, falsely entitled 
"Histories," which take to themselves that 
special aim. What good is it to me though 
innunaerable Smolletts and Belshams keep 
dinning in my ears that a man named George 
the Third was born and bred up, and a man 
named George the Second died ; that Walpole, 
and the Pelhams, and Chatham, and Rocking- 
ham, and Shclburne, and North, with their 
Coalition or their Separation Ministries, all 
ousted one another ; and vehemently scrambled 
for "the thing they called the Rudder of Go- 
vernment, but which was in reality the Spigot 
of Taxation T" That debates were held, and 
infinite jarring and jargoning took place ; and 
road-bills and enclosure-bills, and game-bills 
and India-bills, and Laws which no man. can 
number, which happily few men needed to 
trouble their heads with beyond the passing 
moment, were enacted, and printed by the 
King's Stationer? That he who sat in Chan- 
cery, and rayed out speculation from the 
Woolsack, was now a man that squinted, now 
a man that did not squint? To the hungry 
and thirsty mind all this avails next to nothing. 
These men and these things, we indeed know, 
did swim, by strength or by specific levity, (as 
apples or as horse-dung,) on the top of the 
current : but is it by painfully noting the 
courses, eddyings, and bobbings hither and 
thither of such drift-articles, that you will un- 
fold to me the nature of the current itself; of 
that mighty-rolling, loud-roaring. Life-current, 
bottomless as the foundations of the Universe, 
mysterious as its Author? The thing I want 
to see is not Redbook Lists, and Court Calen- 
dars, and Parliamentary Registers, but the 
Life of Man in England: what men did, 
thuught, suffered, enjoyed ; the form, especially 
the spirit, of their terrestrial existence, its out- 
ward environment, its inward principle; how 



and whal it was; whence it proceeded, whither 
it was tending. 

Mournful, in truth, is it to behold what the 
business called " History," in these so enlight- 
ened and illuminated times, still continues to 
be. Can you gather from it, read till your 
eyes go out, any dimmest shadow of an an- 
swer to that great question : How men lived 
and had their being; were it but economically, 
as what wages they got, and what they bought 
with these? Unhappily you cannot. History 
will throw no light on any such matter. At 
the point where living memory fails, it is all 
darkness ; Mr. Senior and Mr. Sadler must 
still debate this simplest of all elements in the 
condition of the past: Whether men were bet- 
ter otr, in their mere larders and pantries, or 
were worse ofl' than now ! History, as it stands 
all bound up in gilt volumes, is but a shade 
more instructive than the wooden volumes of 
a Backgammon-board. How my Prime Minis- 
ter was appointed is of less moment to me 
than How my House Servant was hired. In 
these days, ten ordinary Histories of Kings 
and Courtiers were well exchanged against 
the tenth part of one good History of Book- 
sellers. 

For example, I would fain know the His- 
tory of Scotland ; who can tell it me ? " Ro- 
bertson," cry innumerable voices ; "Robertson 
against the world." I open Robertson ; and 
find there, through long ages too confused for 
narrative, and fit only to be presented in the 
way of epitome and distilled essence, a cun- 
ning answer and hypothesis, not to this ques- 
tion : By whom, and by what means, when 
and how, was this lair broad Scotland, with 
its Arts and Manufactures, Temples, Schools, 
Institutions, Poetry, Spirit, National Charac- 
ter, created and made arable, verdant, pecu- 
liar, great, here as I can see some fair section 
of it lying, kind and strong, (like some Bac- 
chus-tamed Lion,) from the Castle-hill of Edin- 
burgh ? — but to this other question : How did 
the King keep himself alive in these old days; 
and restrain so many Butcher-Barons and 
ravenous Henchmen from utterly extirpating, 
one another, so that killing v^ent on in some 
sort of moderation ? In the one little Letter 
of jEneas Sylvius, from old Scotland, there is 
more of History than in all this.— At length, 
however, we come to a luminous age, interest- 
ing enough; to the age of the Reformation^- 
All Scotland is awakened to a second higher 
life: the Spirit of the highest stirs in every 
bosom, agitates every bosom; Scotland is 
convulsed, fermenting, struggling to body 
itself forth anew. To the herdsman among 
his cattle in remote woods ; to the craftsman, 
in his rude, heath-thatched workshop, among 
his rude guild-brethren ; to the great and to 
the little, a new light has arisen: in town and 
hamlet groups are gathered, with eloquent 
looks, and governed or ungovernable tongues; 
the great and the little go forth together to do 
battle for the Lord against the mighty. We 
ask, with breathless eagerness: How was it; 
how went it on ? Let us understand it, let us 
see it, and know it ! — In reply, is handed us a- 
really graceful, and most dainty little Scanda- 
lous Chronicle (as for some Journal of Fash- 



324 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ion) of two persons : Mary Stuart, a Beauty, 
but over lightheaded; and Henry Darnley, a 
Booby, who had fine legs. How these first 
courted, billed and cooed, according to nature; 
then pouted, fretted, grew utterly enraged, and 
blew one another up with gunpowder : this, 
and not the History of Scotland, is what we 
goodnaturedly read. Nay, by other hands, 
something like a horseload of other Books 
have been written to prove that it was the 
Beauty who blew up the Booby, and that it was 
not she. Who or what it was, the thing once 
for all being so effectually done, concerns us 
little. To know Scotland, at that great epoch, 
were a valuable increase of knowledge: to 
know poor Darnley and see him with burning 
candle, from centre to skin, were no increase 
of knowledge at all. — Thus is History written. 

Hence, indeed, comes it that History, which 
should be " the essence of innumerable Bio- 
graphies," will tell us, question it as we like, 
less than one genuine Biography may do, 
pleasantly and of its own accord! The time 
is approaching when History will be attempted 
on quite other principles; when the Court, the 
Senate, and Battle-field, receding more and 
more into the background, the Temple, the 
Workshop, and Social Hearth, will advance 
more and more into the foreground ; and His- 
tory will not content itself with shaping some 
answer to that question : How are men taxed 
and kept qivid then? but will seek to answer 
this other infinitely wider and higher question : 
How and what were men then 1 Not our Go- 
vernment only, or the " Honsc wherein our life 
was led," but the Life itself we led there, will 
be inquired into. Of which latter it may be 
found that Government, in any modern sense 
of the word, is after all but a secondary con- 
dition : in the mere sense of Taxation and 
Keeping quiet, a small, almost a pitiful one. — 
Meanwhile let us welcome such Boswells, 
each in his degree, as bring us any genuine 
contribution, were it never so inadequate, so 
inconsiderable. 

An exception was early taken against this 
Life of Johnson, and all similar enterprises, 
which we here recommend ; and has been 
transmitted from critic to critic, and repeated 
in their several dialects, uninterruptedly, ever 
since : That such jottings down of careless 
conversation are an infringement of social 
privacy ; a crime against our highest Free- 
dom, the Freedom of man's intercourse with 
man. To this accusation, which we have 
read and heard ofiener than enough, might it 
not be well for once to offer the flattest con- 
tradiction, and plea of Not at all gtnl y ? Not 
that conversation is noted down, but that con- 
versation should not deserve noting down, is 
the evil. Doubtless, if conversation be falsely 
recorded, then is it simply a Lie; and worthy 
of being swept, with all despatch, to the Fa- 
ther of Lies. But if, on the other hand, con- 
versation can be authentically recorded, and 
any one is ready for the task, let him by all 
means proceed with it; let conversation be 
kept in remembrance to the latest date possi- 
ble. Nay, should the consciousness that a 
roan may be among us " takmg notes" tend, 
^i any measure, to restrict those floods of idle 



insincere ^ecch with which the thought of man- 
kind is well nigh drowned, — were it other than 
the most indubitable benefit? He who speaks 
honestly cares not, needs not care, though his 
words be preserved to remotest time: for him 
who speaks riishonestly, the fittest of all punish- 
ments seems to be this same, which the na- 
ture of the case provides. The dishonest 
speaker, not he only who purposely utters 
falsehoods, but he who does not purposely, 
and with sincere heart, utter Truth, and Truth 
alone; who babbles he knows not what, and 
has clapped no bridle on his tongue, but lets it 
run racket, ejecting chatter and futility, — is 
among the most indubitable malefactors omit- 
ted, or inserted, in the Criminal Calendar. 
To him that will well consider it, idle speak- 
ing is precisely the beginning of all Hollow- 
ness, Halfness, Infaklily, (want of Faithful- 
ness ;) the genial atmosphere in which rank 
weeds of every kind attain the mastery over 
noble fruits in man's life, and utterly choke 
them out: one of the most crying maladies 
of these days, and to be testified against, and 
in all ways to the uttermost withstood. Wise, 
of a wisdom far beyond our shallow depth, 
was that old precept : Watch thy tongue : out 
of it are the issues of Life ! " Man is properly 
an incarnated word ." the ivord that he speaks is 
the mini himself. Were eyes put into our 
head, that we might see; or only that we might 
fancy, and plausibly pretend, we had seen':' 
Was the tongue suspended there, that it might 
tell truly what we had seen, and make man 
the soul's brother of man ; or only that it 
might utter vain sounds, jargon, soul-confus- 
ing, and so divide man, as by enchanted walls 
of Darkness, from union with man ? Thou 
who wearest that cunning. Heaven-made or- 
gan, a Tongue, think well of this. Speak not, 
I passionately entreat thee, till th}' thought 
have silently matured itself, till thou have 
other than mad and mad-making noises to 
emit: hold thy tongue (thou hast it a-holding) 
till some meaning lie behind, to set it wagging. 
Consider the significance of SitExcK : it is 
boundless, never by meditating to be exhaust- 
ed ; unspeakably profitable to thee ! Cease 
that chaotic hubbub, wherein thy own soul 
runs to waste, to confused suicidal dislocation 
and stupor: out of Silence comes thy strength. 
"Speech is silvern, Silence is golden; Speech 
is human. Silence is divine." Fool ! thinkest 
thou that because no Boswell is there with 
ass-skin and black-lead to note thy jargon, it 
therefore dies and is harmless? Nothing dies, 
nothing can die. No idlest word thou speak- 
est but is a seed cast into Time, and grows 
through all Eternity! The Recording Angel, 
consider it well, is no fable, but the truest of 
truths : the paper tablets thou canst burn ; of 
the "iron leaf" there is no burning. — Truly, 
if we can permit God Almighty to note down 
our conversation, thinking it good enough for 
Him, — any poor Boswell need not scruple to 
work his will of it. 

Leaving now this our English Odysey, with 
its Singer and Scholiast, let us come to the 
Ulysses: that great Samuel .'ohnson himself, 
the far-experienced, "much-enduring man,"' 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



825 



whose labours and pilgrimage are here sung. 
A full-length image of his Existence has been 
preserved for us: and he, perhaps of all living 
Englishmen, was the one who best deserved 
that honour. For if it is true and now almost 
proverbial, that " the Life of the lowest mortal, 
if faithfully recorded, would be interesting to 
the highest;" how much more when the mor- 
tal in question was already distinguished in 
fortune and natural quality, so that his think- 
ings and doings were not significant of himself 
only, but of large masses of mankind ! " There 
is not a man whom I meet on the streets," says 
one, " but I could like, were it otherwise con- 
venient, to know his Biography :" neverthe- 
less, could an enlightened curiosity be so far 
gratified, it must be owned the Biography of 
most ought to be, in an extreme degree, sum- 
mary. In this world, there is so wonderfully 
little self-subsistence among men ; next to no 
originality, (though never absolutely lionc :) 
one Life is too servilely the copy of another; 
and so in whole thousands of them you find 
little that is properly new; nothing but the old 
song sung by a new voice, with better or 
worse execution, here and there an ornamen- 
tal quaver, and false notes enough : but the 
fundamental tune is ever the same ; and for 
the ivords, these, all that they meant stands 
written generally on the Churchyard stone : 
Natus sum : esuricbnni, querreham : -nunc repktus 
requiesco. Mankind sail their Life-voyage in 
huge fleets, following some single whale-fish- 
ing or herring-fishing Commodore: the log- 
book of each differs not, in essential purport, 
from that of any other; nay the most have no 
legible log-book (reflection, observation not 
being among their talents;) keep no reckon- 
ing, only keep in sight of the flagship, — and fish. 
Read the Commodore's Papers, (know his Life ;) 
and even your lover of that street Biography 
will have learned the most of what he sought 
after. 

Or, the servile imitancy, and yet also a nobler 
relationship and mysterious union to one 
another which lies in such imitancy, of Man- 
kind might be illustrated under the different 
figure (itself nowise original) of a Flock of 
Sheep. Sheep go in flocks for three reasons : 
First, because they are of a gregarious temper, 
and love to be together: Secondly, because of 
their cowardice ; they are afraid to be left 
alone : Thirdly, because the common run of 
them are dull of sight, to a proverb, and can 
have no choice in roads ; sheep can in fact see 
nothing; in a celestial Luminary, and a scour- 
ed pewter Tankard, would discern only that 
both dazzled them, and were of unspeakable 
glory. How like their fellow-creatures of the 
human species! Men, too, as was from the 
first maintained here, are gregarious: then 
surely faint-hearted enough, trembling to be 
5eft by themselves: above all, dull-sighted, 
down to the verge of utter blindness. Thus 
are we seen ever running in torrents, and 
mobs, if we run at all; and after what foolish 
scoured Tankards, mistaking them for Suns ! 
Foolish Turnip-lanterns likewise, to all ap- 
pearance supernatural, keep whole nations 
quaking, their hair on end. Neither know 
we, except by blind habit, where the good pas- 



tures lie: solely when the sweet grass is be* 
tween our teeth, we know it, and chew it; also 
when grass is bitter and scant, we know it, — • 
and bleat and butt: these last two facts we 
know of a truth, and in very deed. — Thus do 
Men and Sheep play their parts on this Nethet 
Earth ; wandering restlessly in large masses, 
they know not whither; for most part, each 
following his neighbour, and his own nose. 

Nevertheless, not always ; look better, you 
shall find certain that do, in some small de- 
gree, k)wiv whither. Sheep have their Bell." 
wether; some ram of the folds, endued with 
more valour, with clearer vision than othei' 
sheep; he leads them through the wolds, by 
height and hollow, to the woods and water-* 
courses, for covert or for pleasant provender; 
courageously marching, and if need be, leap-* 
ing, and with hoof and horn doing battle, in 
the van: him they courageously, and with as- 
sured heart, follow. Touching it is, as every 
herdsman will inform yon, with what chival- 
rous devotedness these woolly Hosts adhere to 
their Wether; and rush after him, through 
good report and through bad report, were it 
into safe shelters and green thymy nooks, or 
into asphaltic lakes and the jaws of devouring 
lions. Ever also must we recall that fact 
which we owe Jean Paul's quick eye: "If you 
hold a stick before the Wether, so that he, by 
necessitj', leaps in passing you, and then with- 
draw your stick, the Flock will nevertheless 
all leap as he did; and the thousandth sheep 
shall be found impetuously vaulting over air^ 
as the first did over an otherwise impassable 
barrier." Reader, wouldst thou understand 
Society, ponder well those ovine proceedings; 
thou wilt find them all curiously significant. 

Now if sheep always, how much more must 
men always, have their Chief, their Guide ! 
Man, too, is by nature quite thoroughly gregu' 
lious : nay, ever he struggles to be something 
more, to be social: not even when Society has 
become impossible, does that deep-seated ten- 
dency and effort forsake him. Man, as if by 
miraculous magic, imparts his Thoughts, his 
Mood of mind to man; an unspeakable com- 
munion binds all past, present, and future men 
into one indissoluble whole, almost into one 
living individual. Of which high, mysterious 
Truth, this disposition to imitate, to lead and 
be led, this impossibility not to imitate, is the 
most constant, and one of the simplest mani- 
festations. To " imitate !" which of us all can 
measure the significance that lies in that one 
word"! By virtue of which the infant Man, 
born at Woolsthorpe, grows up not to be a 
hairy Savage, and chewer of Acorns, but an 
Isaac Newton, and Discoverer of Solar Sys- 
tems ! — Thus both in a celestial and terrestrial 
sense, are we a Flock, such as there is no 
other: nay, looking away from the base and 
ludicrous to the sublime and sacred side of the 
matter, (since in every matter there are tw6 
sides,) have not we also a Shkpherd, "if we 
will but hear his voice 1" Of those stupid 
multitudes there is no one but has an immor 
tal Soul within him ; a reflex, and living image 
of God's whole Universe: strangely, from its 
dim environment, the light of the Highest 
looks through him ; for which reason, indeed/ 
3E 



526 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



it is that we claim a brotherhood with him, 
and so love to know his History, and come 
into clearer and clearer union with all that he 
feels, and says, and does. 

However, the chief thing to be noted was 
this : Amid those dull millions, who, as a dull 
flock, roll hither and thither, whithersoever they 
are led, and seem all sightless and slavish, ac- 
complishing, attempting little save what the 
animal instinct (in its somewhat higher kind) 
might teach, (to keep themselves and their 
young ones alive,) — are scattered here and 
there superior natures, whose eye is not desti- 
tute of free vision, nor their heart of free voli- 
tion. These latter, therefore, examine and 
determine, not what others do, but what it is 
right to do; towards which, and which only, 
will they, with such force as is given them, 
resolutely endeavour: for if the Machine, 
living or inanimate, is merely fed, or desires 
to be fed, and so works ; the Person can will, 
and so do. These are properly our Men, our 
Great Men ; the guides of the dull host, — which 
follows them as by an irrevocable decree. 
They are the chosen of the world : they had 
this rare faculty not only of "supposing" and 
"inclining to think," but oC knouring and believ- 
ing; the nature of their being was, that they 
lived not by Hearsay but by clear Vision ; 
while others hovered and swam along, in the 
grand Vanity-fair of the World, blinded by the 
mere " Shows of things," these saw into the 
Things themselves, and could walk as men 
having an eternal load-star, and with their feet 
on sure paths. Thus was there a Reality in 
their existence ; something of a perennial 
character; in virtue of which indeed it is that 
the memory of them is perennial. Whoso 
belongs only to his own age, and reverences 
only iis gilt Popinjays or soot-smeared Mum- 
bojumbos, must needs die with it : though he 
have been crowned seven times in the Capitol, 
or seventy and seven times, and Rumour have 
blown his praises to all the four winds, deafen- 
ing every ear therewith, — it avails not; there 
was nothing universal, nothing eternal in him; 
he must fade away, even as the Popinjay- 
gildings and Scarecrow-apparel, which he 
could not see through. The great man does, 
in good truth, belong to his own age; nay, 
more so than any other man ; being properly 
the synopsis and epitome of such age with its 
interests and influences : but belongs likewise 
to all ages, otherwise he is not great. What 
was transitory in him passes away; and an 
immortal part remains, the significance of 
which is in strict speech inexhaustible, — as 
that of every renl object is. Aloft, conspicuous, 
on his enduring basis, he stands there, serene, 
unaltering; silently addresses to every new 
generation a new lesson and monition. Well 
is his Life worth writing, worth interpreting; 
and ever, in the new dialect of new times, of 
re-writing and re-interpreting. 

Of such chosen men was Samuel Johnson : 
not ranking among the highest, or even the 
high, yet distinctly admitted into that sacred 
band; whose existence was no idle Dream, 
but a Reality which he transacted awake ; no- 
wise a Clothes-horse and Patent Digester, but 
a genuine Man. By nature he was gifted for 



the noblest of earthly tasks, that of Priesthood, 
and Guidance of mankind; by destiny, more- 
over, he was appointed to this task, and did 
actually, according to strenv^lh, fulfil the same: 
so that always the question. How; in what 
spirit ; under what shape? remains for us to be 
asked and answered concerning him. For as 
the highest Gospel was a Biography, so is the 
Life of every good man still an indubitable 
Gospel, and preaches to the eye and heart and 
whole man, that Devils even must believe and 
tremble, these gladdest tidings: "Man is 
heaven-born ; not the thrall of Circumstances, 
of Necessity, but the victorious subduer 
thereof: behold how he can become the 
'Announcer of himself and of his Freedom;' 
and is ever wliat the Thinker has named him, 
'the Messias of Nature!'" — Yes, Reader, all 
this that thou hast so often heard about " force 
of circumstances," " the creature of the time," 
" balancing of motives," and who knows what 
melancholy stuff to the like purport, wherein 
thou, as in a nightmare Dream, sittest paralyz- 
ed, and hast no force left, — was in very truth, 
if Johnson and waking men are to be credited, 
little other than a hag-ridden vision of death- 
sleep : some An//-fact, more fatal at times than 
a whole- falsehood. Shake i.t off; awake; up 
and be doing, even as it is given thee ! 

The Contradiction which yawns wide enough 
in every Life, which it is the meaning and task 
of Life to reconcile, was in Johnson's wider 
than in most. Seldom, for any man, has the 
contrast between the ethereal heavenward side 
of things, and the dark sordid earthward, been 
more glaring: whether we look at Nature's 
work with him or Fortune's, from first to last, 
heterogeneity, as of sunbeams and miry clay, 
is on all hands manifest. Whereby indeed, 
only this was declared. That tnvch Life had 
been given him ; many things to triumph over, 
a great work to do. Happily also he did it; 
better than the most. 

Nature had given him a high, keen-visioned, 
almost poetic soul ; yet withal imprisoned it in 
an inert, unsightly body: he that could never 
rest had not limbs that would move with him, 
but only roll and waddle: the inward eye, all- 
penetrating, all embracing, must look through 
bodily windows that were dim, half-blinded ; 
he so loved men, and " never once sa?y the 
human face divine !" Not less did he prize the 
love of men; he was eminently social; the 
approbation of his fellows was dear to him, 
" valuable," as he owned, " if from the meanest 
of human beings:" 3'-et the first impression he 
produced on every man was to be one of aver- 
sion, almost of disgust. By Nature it was 
farther ordered that the imperious Johnson 
should be born poor: the ruler-soul, strong in 
its native royalty, generous, uncontrollable, 
like the lion of the woods, was to be housed, 
then, in such a dwelling-place: of Disfigure- 
ment, Disease, and lastly of a Poverty which 
itself made him the servant of servants. Thus 
was the born King likewise a born Slave: the 
divine spirit of Music must awake imprisoned 
amid dull-croaking universal Discords; the 
Ariel finds himself encased in the coarse hulls 
of a Caliban. So is it more or less, we know, 
(and thou, Reader, knowest and feelest even 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



327 



now,) with all men : yet with the fewest men 
in any such degree as with Johnson. 

Fortune, moreover, which had so managed 
his first appearance in the world, lets not her 
hand lie idle, or turn the other way, but works 
unweariedly in the same spirit, while he is 
journeying through the world. What such a 
mind, stamped of Nature's noblest metal, 
though in so ungainly a die, was specially 
and best of all fitted for, might still be a ques- 
tion. To none of the world's few Incorporated 
Guilds could he have adjusted himself without 
difficulty, without distortion; in none been a 
Guild-Brother well at ease. Perhaps, if we 
look to the strictly practical nature of his 
faculty, to the strength, decision, method that 
manifests itself in him, we may say that his 
calling was rather towards Active than Specu- 
lative life; that as Statesman, (in the higher, 
now obsolete sense,) Lawgiver, Ruler: in 
short, as Doer of the Work, he had shone even 
more than as Speaker of the Word. His hon- 
esty of heart, his courageous temper, the value 
he set on things outward and material, might 
have made him a King among Kings. Had 
the golden age of those new French Prophets, 
when it shall be : ji chacun selon sa capacile ; a 
chaque capacile selon scs ccnvrca, but arrived ! In- 
deed even in our brazen and Birmingham-lacker 
age, he himself regretted that he had not be- 
come a Lawyer, and risen to be Chancellor, 
which he might well have done. However, it 
was otherwise appointed. To no man does 
Fortune throw open all the kingdoms of this 
world, and say : It is thine ; choose where thou 
wilt dwell ! To the most she opens hardly the 
smallest cranny or doghutch, and says, not 
without asperity: There, that is thine whilst 
thou canst keep it: nestle thyself there, and 
bless Heaven ! Alas, men must fit themselves 
into many things : some forty years ago, for 
instance, the noblest and ablest man in all the 
British lands might be seen not swaying the 
royal sceptre, or the pontiff's censer, on the 
pinnacle of the World, but gauging ale-tubs in 
the little burgh of Dumfries ! Johnson came a 
little nearer the mark than Burns : but with 
him too, "Strength was mournfully denied its 
arena;" he too had to fight Fortune at strange 
odds, all his life long. 

Johnson's disposition for royalty, (had the 
Fates so ordered it,) is well seen in early boy- 
hood. '" His favourites," says Buswell, " used 
to receive very liberal assistance from him ; 
and such was the submission and deference 
with which he was treated, that three of the 
boys, of whom Mr. Hector was sometimes one, 
used to come in the morning as his humble 
attendants, and carry him to school. One in 
the middle stooped, while he sat upon his back, 
and one on each side supported him ; and thus 
was he borne triumphant." The purfiy, sand- 
blind lubber and blubber, with his open mouth 
and his face of bruised honeycomb: yet al- 
ready dominant, imperial, and irresistible ! Not 
in the " King's chair" (of human arms) as we 
see, do his three satellites carry him along: 
rather on the Tyrant' s-saddle, the back of his 
fellow-creature, must he ride prosperous ! — 
The child is father of the man. He who had 
seen fifty years into coming Time, would have 



felt that little spectacle of mischievous school- 
boys to be a great one. For us, who look back 
on it, and what followed it, now from afar, there 
arise questions enough: How looked these 
urchins 1 What jackets and galligaskins had 
they; felt headgear, or of dogskin leather? What 
was old Lichfield doing then ; what thin king 1 
— and so on, through the whole series of Cor- 
poral Trim's "auxiliary verbs." A picture of 
it all fashions itself together ; — only unhappily 
we have no brush, and no fingers. 

Boyhood is now past; the ferula of Peda- 
gogue waves harmless, in the distance: Sam- 
uel has struggled up to uncouth bulk and 
youthhood, wrestling with Disease and Pov- 
erty, all the way; which two continue still his 
companions. At College we see little of him: 
yet thus much, that things went not well. A 
rugged wild-man of the desert, awakened to 
the feeling of himself; proud as the proudest, 
poor as the poorest : stoically shut up, silently 
enduring the incurable : what a world of black- 
est gloom, with sun-gleams, and pale, tearful 
moon-gleams, and flickerings of a celestial and 
an infernal splendour, was this that now opened 
for him ! But the weather is wintry ; and the 
toes of the man are looking through his shoes. 
His muddy features grow of a purple and sea- 
green colour; a flood of black indignation 
mantling beneath. A truculent, raw-boned 
figure! Meat he has probably little; hope he 
has less ; his feet, as we said, have come into 
brotherhood with the cold mire. 

" Shall I be particular," inquires Sir John 
Hawkins, " and relate a circumstance of his 
distress, that cannot be imputed to him as an 
effect of his own extravagance or irregularity, 
and consequently reflects no disgrace on his 
memory ! He had scarce any change of rai- 
ment, and, in a short time after Corbet left him, 
but one pair of shoes, and those so old that his 
feel were seen through them : a gentleman of 
his college, the father of an eminent clergy- 
man now living, diiected a servitor one morn- 
ing to place a new pair at the door of Johnson's 
chamber; who seeing them upon his first 
going out, so far forgot himself and the spirit 
which must have actuated his unknown bene- 
factor, that, with all the indignation of an in- 
sulted man, he threw them away." 

How exceedingly surprising ! — The Rev. Dr. 
Hall remarks : " As far as we can judge from 
a cursory view of the weekly account in the 
buttery books, Johnson appears to have lived 
as well as other commoners and scholars." 
Alas! such "cursory view of the buttery 
books," now from the safe distance of a cen- 
tury, in the safe chair of a College Mastership, 
is one thing ; the continual view of the empty 
(or locked) buttery itself was quite a different 
thing. But hear our Knight, how he fariher 
discourses. " Johnson," quoth Sir John, " could 
not at this early period of his life divest him- 
self of an idea that poverty was disgraceful ; 
and was very severe in his censures of that 
economy in both our Universities, which ex- 
acted at meals the attendance of poor scholars, 
under the several denominations of Servitors 
in the one and Sizers in the other : he thought 
that the Scholar's, like the Christian life, le- 
velled all distinctions of rank and worldly pre- 



328 



CARLYLE'S MISCELIiANEOUS WRITINGS. 



eminence ; but in this he was mistaken : civil 
polity," &c., &c. — Too true ! it is man's lot to 
err. 

However, Destiny, in all ways, means to 
prove the mistaken Samuel, and see what stuff 
is in him. He must leave these butteries of 
Oxford, Want like an armed man compelling 
him ; retreat into his father's mean home ; 
and there abandon himself for a season to in- 
action, disappointment, shame, and nervous 
melancholy nigh run mad ; he is probably the 
wretchedest man in wide England. In all 
ways, he too must " become perfect through 
suffering." — High thoughts have visited him ; 
his College Exercises have been praised 
beyond the walls of College ; Pope himself 
has seen that Translation, and approved of it : 
Samuel had whispered to himself: I too am 
" one and somewhat." False thoughts ; that 
leave only misery behind! The fever-fire of 
Ambition is too painfully extinguished (but not 
cured) in the frost-bath of Poverty. Johnson 
has knocked at the gate, as one having a 
right; but there was no opening: the world 
lies all encircled as with brass ; nowhere can 
he find or force the smallest entrance. An 
ushership at Market Bosworth, and " a dis- 
agreement between him and Sir Wolstan Dixie, 
the Patron of the school," yields him bread of 
affliction and water of affliction ; but so bitter, 
that unassisted human nature cannot swallow 
them. Young Samson will grind no more in 
the Philistine mill of Bosworth ; quits hold of 
Sir Wolstan and the " domestic chaplaincy, so 
far at least as to say grace at table," and also 
to be " treated with what he represented as 
intolerable harshness;" and so, after "some 
months of such complicated misery," feeling 
doubtless that there are worse things in the 
world than quick death by Famine, " relin- 
quishes a situation, which all his life after- 
wards he recollected with the strongest aver- 
sion, and even horror." Men like Johnson are 
properly called the Forlorn Hope of the World : 
judge whether his hope was forlorn or not, by 
this letter to a dull oily Printer, who called 
himself Sylvanus Urban: 

"Sir, — As you appear no less sensible than 
your readers, of the defect of your poetical 
article, you will not be displeased if (in order 
to the improvement of it) I communicate to 
you the sentiments of a person who will under- 
take, on reasonable terms, sometimes to fill a 
column. 

"His opinion is, that the public would," 
»&c., &c. 

" If such a correspondence will be agreeable 
to you, be pleased to inform me in two posts, 
what the conditions are on which you shall 
expect it. Your late offer (for a Prize Poem) 
gives me no reason to distrust your generosity. 
If you engage in any literary projects besides 
this paper, I have other designs to impart." 

Reader, the generous person, to whom this 
Letter goes addressed, is "Mr. Edmund Cave, 
at St. John's Gate, London;" the addresser of 
it is Samuel Johnson, in Birmingham, War- 
wickshire. 

Nevertheless, Life rallies in the man ; re-as- 
serts its right to be lived, even to be enjoyed. 
" Better a small bush," say the Scotch, " than 



no shelter:" Johnson learns to be contented 
with humble human things ; and is there not 
already an actually realized human Existence, 
all stirring and living on every hand of him 1 
Go thou and do likewise ! In Birmingham 
itself, with his own purchased goose-quill, he 
can earn " five pounds ;" nay, finally, the 
choicest terrestrial good : a Friend, who will 
be Wife to him ! Johnson's marriage with the 
good Widow Porter has been treated with ridi- 
cule by many mortals, who apparently had no 
understanding thereof That the purblind, 
seamy-faced Wildman, stalking lonely, wo- 
stricken, like some Irish Gallow-glass with 
peeled club, whose speech no man knew, 
whose look all men both laughed at and shud- 
dered at, should find any brave female heart, 
to acknowledge, at first sight and hearing of 
him, " This is the most sensible man I ever 
met with ;" and then, with generous courage, 
to take him to itself, and say, Be thou mine ; 
be thou warmed here, and thawed into life ! — 
in all this, in the kind Widow's love and pity 
for him, in Johnson's love and gratitude, there 
is actually no matter for ridicule. Their wed- 
ded life, as is the common lot, was made up of 
drizzle and dry weather; but innocence and 
worth dwelt in it; and when death had ended 
it, a certain sacredness : Johnson's deathless 
affection for his Tetty was always venerable- 
and noble. However, be this as it might, 
Johnson is now minded to wed ; and will live 
by the trade of Pedagogy, for by this also may 
life be kept in. Let the world therefore take 
notice : " jlt Edial near Lichfield, in Stafford- 
shire, young gentlemen are boarded, and taught the 
Latin and Greek languages, by Satsivt.j.Ioh'sso's." 
Had this Edial enterprise prospered, how dif- 
ferent might the issue have been ! Johnson 
had lived a life of unnoticed nobleness, or 
swoln into some amorphous Dr. Parr, of no 
avail to us ; Bozzy would have dwindled into 
official insignificance, or risen by some other 
elevation ; old Auchinleck had never been af- 
flicted with " ane that kept a schule," or obliged 
to violate hospitality by a " Cromwell do 1 God, 
sir, he gart kings ken that there was a lith in 
their neck I" But the Edial enterprise did not 
prosper; Destiny had other work appointed for 
Samuel Johnson; and young gentlemen got 
board where they could elsewhere find it. 
This man was to Isecome a Teacher of grown 
gentlemen, in the most surprising way; a 
man of Letters, and Ruler of the British 
Nation for some time, — not of their bodies 
merely, but of their minds ; not over them, 
but in them. 

The career of Literature could not, in John- 
son's day, any more than now, be said to lie 
along the shores of a Pactolus : whatever else 
might be gathered there, gold-dust was nowise 
the chief produce. The world, from the times 
of Socrates, St. Paul, and far earlier, has al- 
ways had its Teachers ; and always treated 
them in a peculiar way. A shrewd Town- 
clerk, (not of Ephesus,) once, in founding 
a Burgh-Seminaiy, when the question came, 
How the Schoolmasters should be maintainedl 
delivered this brief counsel : " D — n them,, 
keep them poor .'" Considerable wisdom may 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



329 



lie in this aphorism. At all events, we see, the 
world has acted on it long, and indeed im- 
proved on it, — putting many a Schoolmaster 
of its great Burgh-Seminary to a death, which 
even cost it something. The world, it is true, 
had for some time been too busy to go out of 
its way, and put any Author to death; however, 
the old sentence pronounced against them was 
found to be pretty sufficient. The first Writers 
(being Monks) were sworn to a vow of Po- 
verty; the modern Authors had no need to 
swear to it. This was the epoch when an 
Otway could still die of hunger: not to speak 
of your innumerable Scrogginses, whom "the 
Muse found stretched beneath a rug," with 
"rusty grate unconscious of a fire," stocking- 
nightcap, sanded floor, and all the other es- 
cutcheons of the craft, time out of mind the 
heirlooms of Authorship. Scroggins, how- 
ever, seems to have been but an idler ; not at all 
so diligent as worthy Mr. Boyce, whom we 
might have seen silting up in bed with his 
wearing apparel of Blanket about him, and a 
hole slit in the same, that his hand might be at 
liberty to work in its vocation. The worst 
was, that too frequently a blackguard reckless- 
ness of temper ensued, incapable of turning 
to account what good the gods even here had 
provided : your Boyces acted on some stoico- 
epicurean principle of carpe diem, as men do 
in bombarded towns, and seasons of raging 
pestilence ; — and so had lost not only their 
life, and presence of mind, but their status as 
persons of respectability. The trade of Au- 
thor was about one of its lowest ebbs, when 
Johnson embarked on it. 

Accordingly we find no mention of Illumi- 
nations in the city of London, when this same 
Ruler of the British nation arrived in it : no 
cannon-salvoes are fired; no flourish of drums 
and trumpets greets his appearance on the 
scene. He eiiters quite quietly, with some 
copper half-pence in his pocket; creeps into 
lodgings in Exeter Street, Strand ; and has a 
Coronation PoniifT also, of not less peculiar 
equipment, whom, with all submissiveness, he 
must wait upon, in his Vatican of St. John's Gate. 
This is the dull oily Printer alluded to above. 

" Cave's temper," says our Knight Hawkins, 
"was phlegmatic: though he assumed, as the 
publisher of the Magazine, the name of Syl- 
vanus Urban, he had few of those qualities 
that constitute urbanity. Judge of his want 
of them by this question, which he once put 

to an author: "Mr. , I hear you have just 

published a pamphlet, and am told there is a 
very good paragraph in it upon the subject of 
music: did you write that yourself!" His 
discernment was also slow ; and as he had 
already at his command some writers of prose 
and verse, who.in the language of Booksellers, 
are called good hands, he was the backvvarder 
in making advances, or courting an intimacy 
with Johnson. Upon the first approach of a 
stranger, his practice was to continue sitting ; 
a posture in which he was ever to be found, 
and for a few minutes to continue silent: if at 
any time he was inclined to begin the discourse, 
it was generally by putting a leaf of the Maga- 
zine, then in the press, into the hand of his visi- 
tor, and asking his opinion of it. * * * 
42 



" He was so incompetent a judge of John- 
son's abilities, that meaning at one time to 
dazzle him with the splendour of some of those 
luminaries in Literature, who favoured him 
with their correspondence, he told him that 
if he would, in the evening, be at a certain 
alehouse in the neighbourhood of Clerken- 
well, he might have a chance of seeing Mr. 
Browne and another or two of those illustri- 
ous contributors : Johnson accepted the invi- 
tation; and being introduced by Cave, dressed 
in a loose horseman's coat, and such a great 
bushy wig as he constantly wore, to the sight 
of Mr. Browne, whom he found sitting at the 
upper end of a long table, in a cloud of to- 
bacco-smoke, had his curiosity gratified." — 
Hawkins, 46—50. 

In fact, if we look seriously into the condi- 
tion of Authorship at that period, we shall find 
that Johnson had undertaken one of the rug- 
gedest of all possible enterprises; that here, as 
elsewhere. Fortune had given him unspeaka- 
ble Contradictions to reconcile. For a man 
of Johnson's stamp, the Problem was twofold: 
First, not only as the humble but indispensa- 
ble condition of all else, to keep himself, if so 
might he, alive : but scmndly, to keep himself 
alive by speaking forth the IVuih that was in 
him, and speaking it truly, that is, in the clear- 
est and fittest utterance the Heavens had ena- 
bled him to give it, let the earth say to this 
what she liked. Of which twofold Problem 
if it be hard to solve either member separate- 
ly, how incalculably more so to solve it, when 
both are conjoined, and work with endless 
complication into one another ! He that finds 
himself already kept alive can sometimes un- 
happily not always speak a little truth; he 
that finds himself able and willing, to all 
lengths, to speak lies, may, by watching how 
the wind sits, scrape together a livelihood, 
sometimes of great splendour: he, again, who 
finds himself provided with /(t'iV/fer endowment, 
has but a ticklish game to play, and shall have 
praises if he win it. Let us look a little at 
both faces of the matter; and see what front 
they then offered our Adventurer, what front 
he offered them. 

At the time of Johnson's appearance on the 
field. Literature, in many senses, was in a 
transitional state; chiefly in this sense, as 
respects the pecuniary subsistence of its cul- 
tivators. It was in the very act of passing 
from the protection of Patrons into that of the 
Public; no longer to supply its necessities by 
laudatory Dedications to the Great, but by- 
judicious Bargains with the Booksellers. This 
happy change has been much sung and cele- 
brated; many a "lord of the lion heart and 
eagle-eye" looking back with scorn enough on 
the bygone system of Dependency : so that now 
it were perhaps well to consider, for a moment, 
what good might also be in it, what gratitude 
we owe it. That a good was in it, admits not 
of doubt. Whatsoever has existed has had its 
value: without some truth and worth lying in 
it, the thing coujd not have hung together, and 
been the organ and sustenance, and method of 
action, for men that reasoned and were alive. 
Translate a Falsehood which is wholly false 
1 into Practice, the result comes out zero ; the*e 
2 E 2 



330 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



is no fruit or issue to be derived from it. That 
in an age, when a Nobleman was still noble, 
still, with his wealih the protector of worthy 
and humane things, and still venerated as such, 
a poor man of Genius, his brother in noble- 
ness, should, with unfeigned reverence, ad- 
dress him and say: "I have found Wisdom 
here, and would fain proclaim it abroad ; wilt 
thou, of thy abundance, afford me the means V 
— in all this there was no baseness; it was 
■wholly an honest proposal, which a free man 
might make, and a free man listen to. So 
might a Tasso, with a Gerusuknwie in his hand 
or in his head, speak to a Duke of Ferrara; 
so might a Shakspeare to his Southampton; 
and Continental Artists generally to their rich 
Protectors, — in some countries, down almost 
to these days. It was only when the reverence 
became feigned, that baseness entered into the 
transaction on both sides ; and, indeed, flou- 
rished there with rapid luxuriance, till that be- 
came disgraceful for a Dryden, which a Shak- 
speare could once practise without offence. 

Neither, it is very true, was the new way 
of Bookseller Moecenasship worthless; which 
opened itself at this juncture, for the most im- 
portant of all transport-trades, now when the old 
way had become too miry and impassable. Re- 
mark, moreover, how this second sort of Msece- 
nasship, after carrying us through nearly a cen- 
tury of Literary Time, appears now to have 
wellnigh discharged its functions also; and to 
be working pretty rapidly towards some third 
method, the exact conditions of which are yet 
nowise visible. Thus all things have their 
end; and we should part with them all, not in 
anger but in peace. The Bookseller System, 
during its peculiar century, the whole of the 
eighteenth, did carry us handsomely along; 
and many good Works it has left us, and 
many good Men it maintained : if it is now 
expiring, by Puffery, as the Patronage Sj^stem 
did by Flattehy, (for Lying is ever the fore- 
runner of Death, nay is itself Death,) let us 
not forget its benefits; how it nursed Litera- 
ture through boyhood and school-years, as 
Patronage had wrapped it in soft swaddling- 
bands ; — till now we see it about to put on the 
toga virilis, could it hui find any such! 

There is tolerable travelling on the beaten 
road run how it may; only on the new road, 
not yet levelled and paved, and on the old 
ro-dtd, all broken into ruts and quagmires, is 
the travelling bad or impracticable. The 
difficulty lies always in the transition from one 
method to another. In which state it was that 
Johnson now found Literature; and out of 
which, let us also say, he manfully carried it. 
What remarkable mortal first paid copyright in 
England we have not ascertained ; perhaps 
for almost a century before, some scarce visi- 
ble or ponderable pittance of wages had occa- 
sionally been yielded by the Seller of Books to 
the Writer of them : the original Covenant, 
stipulating to produce Parof/Lse Lost on the one 
hand, and Five Pounds Sterling on the other, 
still lies, (we have been told,) in black-on- 
white for inspection and purchase by the 
curious, at a Bookshop in Chancery Lane. 
Thus had the matter gone on, in a mixed, con- 
fused way, for some threescore years ; — as 



ever, in such things, the old system overlapt 
the new, by some generation or two, and only 
dies quiie out when the new has got a com- 
plete organization, and weather-worthy surface 
of its own. Among the first authors, the very 
first of any significance, who lived by the 
day's wages of his craft, and composedly 
faced the World on that basis, was Samuel 
Johnson. 

At the time of Johnson's appearance, there 
were still two ways, on which an Author might 
attempt proceeding; there were the Mascenases 
proper in the West End of London; and the 
MfTcenases virtual of St. John's Gate and 
Paternoster Row. To a considerate man it 
might seem uncertain which methods were 
preferable: neither had very high attractions; 
the Patron's aid was now wellnigh necessarily 
polluted by sycophancy, before it could come 
to hand ; the Bookseller's was deformed with 
greedy stupidity, not to say entire wooden- 
headedness and disgust, (so that an Osborne 
even required to be knocked down, by an 
author of spirit,) and could barely keep the 
thread of life together. The one was the 
wages of suflering and poverty; the other, 
unless you gave strict heed to it, the wages of 
sin. In time, Johnson had opportunity of 
looking into both methods, and ascertaining 
what they were; but found, at first trial, that 
the former would in no wise do for him. Lis- 
ten, once again, to that far-famed Blast of 
Doom, proclaiming into the ear of Lord Ches- 
terfield, and, through him, of the listening 
world, that Patronage should be no more! 

" Seven years, my Lord, have now passed, 
since I waited in your outward rooms, or was 
repulsed from your door; during which time 
I have been pushing on. my work* through 
difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, 
and have brought it at last to the verge of 
publication, without one act of assistance,-j- 
one word of encouragement, or one smile of 
favour. 

"The shepherd in Virgil grew at last ac- 
quainted with Love, and found him a native 
of the rocks. 

"Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks 
with unconcern on a man struggling for life 
in the water, and when he has reached ground, 
encumbers him with help 1 The notice which 
you have been pleased to take of my labours, 
had it been early, had been kind: but it has 
been delayed till I am indifferent and cannot 
enjoy it; till I am solitary and cannot impart 
it; till I am known and do not want it. I 
hope, it is no very cynical asperity, not to con- 
fess obligations, where no benefit has been 
received, or to be unwilling that the public 
should consider me as owing that to a patron 
which Providence has enabled me to do for 
myself. 



♦ The Ens^lish Dictiovarij. 

t Were time and printer's space of no value, it were 
easy to vvasli away certain foolisli snot-stains dropped 
here as " Notes ;" especiaJly two : the one on this word 
(and on Boswell's Note to it ;) the other on the para- 
graph which follows. Let "Ed." look a second time; 
he will find that Johnson's sacred reeard for Truth is 
the only thing to be "noted," in the former case; also, 
in the latter, that this of " Love's being a native of the 
rocks" actually has a "meaning." 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



331 



"Having carried on my Work thus far with 
so little obligation to any favourer of learning ; 
I shall not be disappointed though I should 
conclude it, if less be possible, with less: for 
I have long been awakened from that dream 
■of hope, in which I once boasted myself with 
so much exultation. 

" My Lord, your Lordship's most humble, 
most obedient servant, 

" SaIW. Jo»TfSO?f." 

And thus must the rebellious " Sam. Johnson" 
turn him to the Bookselling guild, and the 
wondrous chaos of " Author by trade ;" and, 
though ushered into it only by that dull oily 
Printer, " with loose horseman's coat, and such 
a great bushy wig as he constantly wore," and 
only as subaltern tr some commanding-officer, 
"Browne, sitting amid tobacco-smoke at the 
head of a long table in the alehouse at Clerk- 
enwell," — gird himself together for the war- 
fare; having no alternative! 

Little less contradictory was ihatother branch 
of the two-fold Problem now set before John- 
son : the speaking forth of Trulh. Nay, taken 
by Itself, it had in those days become so com- 
plex as to puzzle strongest heads, with nothing 
«lse imposed on them for solution ; and even 
to turn high heads of that sort into mere hollow 
vizards, speaking neither truth nor falsehood, 
nor any thing but what the Prompter and Player 
(^vTrcHgnm) put into them. Alas ! for poor 
Johnson, Contradiction abounded ; in spirituals 
and in temporals, within and without. Born 
with the strongest unconquerable love of just 
Insight, he must begin to live and learn in a 
scene where Prejudice flourishes with rank 
luxuriance. England was all confused enough, 
sightless and yet restless, take it where you 
would ; but figure the best intellect in England 
nursed up to manhood in the idol-cavern of a 
poor Tradesman's house, in the cathedral city 
of Lichfield ! What is Truth ] said jesting 
Pilate; What is Truth? might earnest John- 
son much more emphatically say. Truth, no 
longer, like the Phcenix, in rainbow plumage, 
"poured, from her glittering beak, such tones 
of sweetest melody as took captive every ear :" 
the Phcenix (waxing old) had wellnigh ceased 
her singing, and empty wearisome Cuckoos, 
and doleful monotonous Owls, innumerable 
Jays also, and twittering Sparrows on the 
housetop, pretended they were repeating her. 

It was wholly a divided age, that of Johnson ; 
Unity existed nowhere, in its Heaven, or in its 
Earth. Society, through every fibre, was rent 
asunder: all things, it was then becoming 
visible, but could not then be understood, were 
moving onwards, with an impulse received 
ages before, yet now first with a decisive ra- 
pidity, towards that great chaotic gulf, where, 
whether in the shape of French Revolutions, 
Reform Bills, or what shape soever, bloody or 
bloodless, the descent and engulfment assume, 
we now see them weltering and boiling. Al- 
ready Cant, as once before hinted, had begun 
to play its wonderful part (for the hour was 
come) : two ghastly Apparitions, unreal sinm- 
lana both, Hypocrist and Atheism, are al- 
ready, in silence, parting the world. Opinion 
and Action, which should live together as 
wedded pair, " one flesh," more properly as 



Soul and Body, have commenced their open 
quarrel, and are suing for a separate mainte- 
nance, — as if they could exist separately. To 
the earnest mind, in any position, firm footing 
and a life of Truth was becoming daily more 
ditficuli: in Johnson's position, it was more 
difficult than in almost any other. 

If, as for a devout nature was inevitable and 
indispensable, he looked up to Religion, as to 
the pole-star of his voyage, already there was 
no yzx«(f pole-star any longer visible ; but two 
stars, a whole constellation of stars, each pro- 
claiming itself as the true. There was the red 
portentous comet-star of Infidelity; the dim- 
mer and dimmer-burning fixed-star (uncertain 
now whether not an atmospheric mc'.eor) of 
Orthodoxy : which of these to choose 1 The 
keener intellects of Europe had, almost with- 
out exception, ranged themselves under the 
former: for some half-century, it had been 
the general eflort of European Speculation to 
proclaim that Destruction of Falsehood was 
the only Truth ; daily had Denial waxed 
stronger and stronger. Belief sunk more and 
more into decay. From our Bolingbrokes and 
Tolands, the skeptical fever had passed into 
France, into Scotland; and already it smoul- 
dered, far and wide, secretly eating out the 
heart of England. Bayle had played his part; 
Voltaire, on a wider theatre, was playing his, — 
Johnson's senior by some fifteen years : Hume 
and Johnson were children of the same year. 
To this keener order of intellects did Johnson's 
indisputably belong: was he to join them 1 Was 
he to oppose them 1 A complicated question : 
for, alas ! the Church itself is no longer, even to 
him, wholly of true adamant, but of adamant 
and baked mud conjoined : the zealously De- 
vout must find his Church tottering; and 
pause amazed to see, instead of inspired 
Priest, many a swine-feeding TruUiber minis- 
tering at her altar. It is not the least curious 
of the incoherences which Johnson had to 
reconcile, that, though by nature contemp- 
tuous and incredulous, he was, at that time 
of day, to find his safety and glory in defend- 
ing, with his whole might, the traditions of the 
elders. 

Not less perplexingly intricate, and on both 
sides hollow or questionable, was the aspect 
of Politics. Whigs struggling blindly for- 
ward, Tories holding blindly back; each with 
some forecast of a half truth; neither with 
any forecast of the whole ! Admire here this 
other Contradiction in the life of Johnson: 
that, though the most ungovernable, and in 
practice the most independent of men, he must 
be a Jacobite, and worshipper of the Divine 
Right. In politics also there are Irreconcila- 
bles enough for him. As, indeed, how could 
it be otherwise 1 For when religion is torn 
asunder, and the very heart of man's exist- 
ence set against itself, then, in all subordinate 
departments there must needs be hollowness, 
incoherence. The English Nation had re- 
belled against a Tyrant; and, by the hands of 
religious tyrannicides, exacted stern vengeance 
of him: Democracy had risen iron-sinewed, 
and "like an infant Hercules, strangled ser- 
pents in its cradle." But as yet none knew 
the meaning or extent of the phenomenon. 



$S2 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Europe "was not ripe for it ; not to be ripened 
for it, but by the culture and various experi- 
ence of another century and half. And now, 
when the King-killers were ail swept away, 
and a milder second picture was painted over 
the canvas of the first, and betitled "Glorious 
Revolution," who doubted but the catastrophe 
was over, the whole business finished, and 
Democracy gone to its long sleep? Yet was 
it like a business finished and not finished; a 
lingering uneasiness dwelt in all minds : the 
deep-lying, resistless Tendency, which had 
still to be obeyed, could no longer be recognised ; 
thus was there half-ness, insincerity, uncer- 
tainty in men's ways ; instead of heroic Puritans 
and heroic Cavaliers, came now a dawdling 
set of argumentative Whigs, and a dawdling 
set of deaf-eared Tories ; each half-foolish, 
each half-false. The Whigs were false and 
without basis; inasmuch as their whole object 
was Resistance, Criticism, Demolition, — they 
knew not why, or towards what issue. In 
Whiggism, ever since a Charles and his 
Jefl!"ries had ceased to meddle with it, and to 
have any Russel or Sidney to meddle with, 
there could be no divineness of character; not 
till, in these latter days, it took the figure of a 
thorough-going, all-defying Radicalism, was 
there any solid footing for it to stand on. Of 
the like uncertain, half-hollow nature had 
Toryism become, in Johnson's time; preaching 
forth indeed an everlasting truth, the duty of 
Loyalty ; yet now (ever since the final expul- 
sion of the Stuarts), having no Person but only 
an Office to be loyal to, no living Smd to wor- 
ship, but only a dead velvet-cushioned Chair. 
Its altitude, therefore, was stiff-necked refusal 
to move ; as that of Whiggism was clamorous 
command to move, — let rhyme and reason, on 
both hands, say to it what they might. The 
consequence was : Immeasurable Hoods of 
contentious jargon, tending nowhither ; false 
conviction; false resistance to conviction; 
decay (ultimately to become decease) of what- 
soever was once understood b}^ the words. 
Principle, or Honesty of heart; the louder and 
louder triumph of Half-ness and Plausibility 
over Whok-ness and Truth ; — at last, this all- 
overshadowing efflorescence of QuAcicEnr, 
which we now see, with all its deadening and 
killing fruits, in all its innumerable branches, 
down to the lowest. How, between these jar- 
ring extremes, wherein the rotten lay so inex- 
tricably intermingled with the sound, and as 
yet no eye could see through the ulterior 
meaning of the matter, was a faithful and true 
man to adjust himself! 

That Johnson, in spite of all, drawbacks, 
adopted the Conservative side; stationed him- 
self as the unyielding opponent of Innovation, 
resolute to hold fast the form of sound words, 
could not but increase, in no small measure, 
the difficulties he had to strive with. We 
mean, the moral difficulties; for in economical 
respects, it might be pretty equally balanced ; 
the Tory servant of the Public had perhaps 
about the same chance of promotion as the 
Whig: and ali the promotion Johnson aimed 
at was the privilege to live. But, for what, 
though unavowed, was no less indispensable, 
for his peace of conscience, and the clear 



ascertainment and feeling of his Duty as an 
inhabitant of God's world, the case was hereby 
rendered much more complex. To resist In- 
novation is easy enough on one condition : that 
you resist Inquiry. This is, and was, the 
common expedient of your common Conserva- 
tives ; but it would not do for Johnson : he was 
a zealous recommender and practiser of In- 
quiry; once for all, could not and would not 
believe, much less speak and act, a Falsehood; 
the form of sound words, which he held fast, 
must have a meaning in it. Here lay the diffi- 
culty: to behold a portentous mixture of True 
and False, and feel that he must dwell and 
fight there; yet to love and defend only the 
True. How worship, when you cannot and 
will not be an idolater ; yet cannot help dis- 
cerning that the Symbol of your Divinity has 
half become idolatrous 1 This was the ques- 
tion, which Johnson, the man both of clear eye 
and devout believing heart, must answer, — at 
peril of his life. The Whig or Skeptic, on the 
other hand, had a much simpler part to play. 
To him only the idolatrous side of things, 
nowise the divine one, lay visible : not worship, 
therefore, nay in the strict sense not heart- 
honesty, only at most lip, and hand-honesty, is 
required of him. What spiritual force is his, 
he can conscientiously employ in the work of 
cavilling, of pulling down what is False. For 
the rest, that there is or cau be any Truth of a 
higher than sensual nature, has not occurred 
to him. The utmost, therefore, that he as man 
has to aim at, is Respectabilitt, the suff'rages 
of his fellow-men. Such suffrages he may 
weigh as well as count; or count only: ac- 
cording as he is a Burke, or a Wilkes. But 
beyond these there lies nothing divine for him ; 
these attained, all is attained. Thus is his 
whole world distinct and rounded in ; a clear 
goal is set before him ; a firm path, rougher or 
smoother ; at worst a firm region wherein to 
seek a path: let him gird up his loins, and 
travel on without misgivings ! For the honest 
Conservative, again, nothing is distinct, nothing 
rounded in : Respectability can nowise be 
his highest Godhead; not one aim, but two 
conflicting aims to be continually reconciled 
by him, has he to strive after. A difficult posi- 
tion, as we said ; which accordingly the most 
did, even in those days, but half defend, — by 
the surrender, namely, of their own too cum- 
bersome honesty or even understanding; after 
which the completest defence was worth little. 
Into this difficult position Johnson, neverthe- 
less, threw himself: found it indeed full of 
difficulties; yet held it out manfully, as an 
honest-hearted, open-sighted man, while the 
life was in him. 

Such was that same " twofold Problem" set 
before Samuel Johnson. Consider all these 
moral difficulties ; and add to them the fearful 
aggravation, which lay in that other circum- 
stance, that he needed a continual appeal to 
the Public, must continually produce a certain 
impression and conviction on the Public; that 
if he did not, he ceased to have " provision for 
the day that was passing over him," he could 
not any longer live ! How a vulgar character, 
once launched into this wild element; driven 
onwards by Fear and Famine: without other 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



333 



aim than to clutch what Provender (of Enjoy- 
ment in any kind) he could get, always if pos- 
sible keeping cjuite clear of the Gallows and 
Pillory, (that is to say, minding heedfully both 
" person" and " character,") — would have 
floated hither and thither in it ; and contrived to 
eat some three repasts daily, and wear some 
three suits yearly, and then to depart, and dis- 
appear, having consumed his last ration: all 
this might be worth knowing, but were in 
itself a trivial knowledge. How a noble man, 
resolute for the Truth, to whom Shams and 
Lies were once for all an abomination, — was 
to act in it : here lay the mystery. By what 
methods, by what gifts of eye and hand, does 
a heroic Samuel Johnson, now when cast forth 
into that waste Chaos of Authorship, maddest 
of things, a mingled Phlegethon and P'leet- 
ditch, with its floating lumber, and sea-krakens, 
and mud-spectres, — shape himself a voyage; 
of the li-an$ient driftwood, and the enduring fron, 
built him a seaworthy Life-boat, and sail there- 
in, undrowned, unpolluted, through the roaring 
"mother of dead dogs," onwards to an eternal 
I-andmark, and City that hath foundations? 
This high question is even the one answered 
in Boswell's Book ; which Book we, therefore 
not so falsely, have named a Heroic Poem: for 
in it there lies the whole argument of such. 
Glory to our brave Samuel ! He accomplished 
this wonderful Problem ; and now through 
long generations, we point to him, and say: 
Here also was a Man ; let the world once more 
have assurance of a Man ! 

Had there been in Johnson, now when afloat 
on that confusion worse confounded of grandeur 
and squalor, no light but an earthly outward 
one, he too must have made shipwreck. With 
his diseased body, and vehement voracious 
heart, how easy for him to become a carpc-diem 
Philosopher, like the rest, and live and die as 
miserably as any Boyce of that Brotherhood! 
But happily there was a higher light for him; 
shining as a lamp to his path; which, in all 
paths, would teach him to act and walk not as 
a fool, but as wise in those evil days also, 
"redeeming the time." Under diimmer or 
clearer manifestations, a Truth had been re- 
vealed to him : I also am a Man ; even in this 
unutterable element of Authorship, I may live 
as beseems a Man ! That Wrong is not only 
different from Right, but that it is in strict 
scientific terms, infinitely different; even as the 
gaining of the whole world set against the 
losing of one's own soul, or (as Johnson had 
it) a Heaven set against a Hell; that in all 
situations (out of the Pit of Tophet), wherein 
a living Man has stood or can sland, there is 
actually a Prize of quite infinite value placed 
within his reach, namely a Duty for him to do: 
this highest Gospel, which forms the basis and 
worth of all other Gospels whatsoever, had 
been revealed to Samuel Johnson ; and the 
man had believed it, and laid it faithfully to 
heart. Such knowledge of the lrannrcndenial,\m- 
measnrable characterof Duty, we call the basis 
of all Gospels, the essence of all Religion : he 
who with his whole soul knows not this, as yet 
knows nothing, as yet is properly nothing. 

This, happily for him, Johnson was one of 
those that knew : under a certain authentic 



Symbol, it stood for ever present to his eyes: 
a Symbol, indeed, waxing old as doth a gar- 
ment; yet which had guided forward, as their 
Banner and celestial Pillar of Fire, innumer- 
able saints and witnesses, the fathers of our mo- 
dern world ; and for him also had still a sacred 
significance. It does not appear that, at any 
time, Johnson was what we call irreligious : 
but in his sorrows and isolation, when hope 
died awa}', and only a long vista of suffering 
and toil lay before him to the end, then first 
did Religion shine forth in its meek, everlast- 
ing clearness ; even as the stars do in black 
night, which in the daytime and dusk were 
hidden by inferior lights. How a true man, 
in the midst of errors and uncertainties, shall 
work out for himself a sure Life-truth ; and 
adjusting the transient to the eternal, amid 
the fragments of ruined Temples build up, 
with toil and pain, a little Altar for himself, 
and worship there ; how Samuel Johnson, in 
the era of Voltaire, can purify and fortify his 
soul, and hold real communion with the High- 
est, " in the Church of St. Clement Danes:" 
this too stands all unfolded in his Biography, 
and is among the most touching and me- 
morable things there; a thing to be looked 
at with pity, admiration, awe. Johnson's 
Religion Avas as the light of life to him ; with- 
out it, his heart was all sick, dark, and had 
no guidance left. 

He is now enlisted, or impressed, into that 
unspeakable shoe-black seraph Army of Au- 
thors ; but can feel hereby that he fights under 
a celestial flag, and will quit him like a man. 
The first grand requisite, an assured heart, 
he therefore has : what his outward equip- 
ments and accoutrements are, is the next 
question ; an important, though inferior one. 
His intellectual stock, intrinsically viewed, is 
perhaps inconsiderable: the furnishings of an 
English School and English University ; good 
knowledge of the Latin tongue, a more uncer- 
tain one of Greek: this is a rather slender 
stock of Education wherewith to front the 
world. But then it is to be remembered that 
his world was England; that such was the 
culture England commonly supplied and ex- 
pected. Besides, Johnson has been a vora- 
cious reader, though a desultory one, and often- 
est in strange scholastic, too obsolete Libra- 
ries ; he has also rubbed shoulders with the 
press of actual Life, for some thirty years 
now: views or hallucinations of innunjerable 
things are weltering to and fro in him. Above 
all, be his weapons what they may, he has an 
arm that can wield them. Nature has given 
him her choicest gift : an open eye and heart. 
He will look on the world, wheresoever he 
can catch a glimpse of it, with eager curi- 
osity : to the last, we find this a striking cha- 
racteristic of him : for all human interests he 
has a sense ; the meanest handicraftsman 
could interest him, even in extreme age, by 
speaking of his craft: the ways of men are 
all interesting to him; any human thins, that 
he did not know, he wished to know. Reflec- 
tion, moreover. Meditation, was what he prac- 
tised incessantly, wiih or without his will: for 
the mind of the man was earnest, deep as well 
as humane. Thus would the world, such 



334 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fragments of it as he could survey, form itself, 
or continually tend to form itself, into a cohe- 
rent Whole ; on any and on all phases of which, 
his vote and voice must be well worth listen- 
ing to. As a Speaker of the Word, he will 
speak real words; no idle jargon, no hollow 
triviality will issue from him. His aim too is 
clear, attainable, that of working for his wages : 
let him do this honestly, and all else will fol- 
low of its own accord. 

With such omens, into such a warfare, did 
Johnson go forth. A rugged, hungry Kerne, 
or Gallowglass, as we called him : yet indomi- 
table ; in whom lay the true spirit of a Soldier. 
With giant's force he toils, since such is his 
appointment, were it but at hewing of wood 
and drawing of water for old sedentary, bushy- 
wigged Cave ; distinguishes himself by mere 
quantity, if there is to be no other distinction. 
He can write all things ; frosty Latin verses, 
if these are the saleable commodity ; Book- 
prefaces, Political Philippics, Review Articles, 
Parliamentary Debates : all things he does 
rapidly; still more surprising, all things he 
does thoroughly and well. How he sits there, 
in his rough-hewn, amorphous bulk, in that 
upper room at St. John's Gate, and trundles 
off sheet after sheet of those Senate-of-Lilliput 
Debates, to the clamorous Printer's Devils 
■waiting for them, with insatiable throat, down 
stairs ; himself perhaps impransus all the 
■while ! Admire also the greatness of Litera- 
ture ; how a grain of mustard-seed cast into 
its Nile- .'/Piars, shall settle in the teeming 
mould, ^nd be found, one day, as a Tree, in 
whose branches all the fowls of heaven may 
lodge. Was it not so with these Lilliput De- 
bates ? In that small project and act, began 
the stupendous Fourth Estate ; whose wide 
world-embracing influences what eye can take 
in; in whose boughs are there not already 
fowls of strange feather lodged? Such things, 
and far stranger, were done in that wondrous 
old Portal, even in latter times. And then 
figure Samuel dining "behind the screen," 
from a trencher covertly handed in to him, at a 
preconcerted nod from the "great bushy wig;" 
Samuel, too ragged to show face, yet "made a 
happy man of" by hearing his praise spoken. 
If to Johnson himself, then much more to us, 
may that St. John's Gate be a place we can 
"never pass without veneration."* 



♦ All Johnson's places of resort and abode are vene- 
rable, and now indeed to the many as well as to the 
few ; for his name has become great: and, as we must 
often with a kind of sad admiration recognise, there is, 
even to the rudest man, no greatness so venerable as 
intellectual, as spiritual greatness; nay properly there 
is no other venerable at all. For example, what soul- 
subduins magic, for the very clown or craftsman of our 
Enijland, lies in the word "Scholar !" "He is a Scho- 
lar :" he is a man wiser than we ; of a wisdom to us 
boundless., infinite : who shall speak his worth ! Such 
things, we say, (ill us with a certain pathetic admira- 
tion of def iced and obstructed yet glorious man ; arch- 
angel though in ruins, — or rather, though in rubbish, of 
encumbrances and mud-incrustations, which also are 
not to be perp-^tual. 

Nevertheless, in this mad-whirlini; all-forgetting Lon- 
don, the haunts of the mighty that were, can seldom 
without a strange dilficulty be discover'^d. Will any 
man, for instance, tell us which bricks \t was in Lin- 
coln's Inn Buildings, that Ben Jonson's hand and 
trowel laid 7 No man, it is to bf feared, — and also 
gruuibled at. Wiih Samuel Johnson may it p'rove other- 
wise ! A Gentlemao of the British Museum is said to 



Poverty, Distress, and as yet Obscurity, are 
his companions: so poor is he that his Wife 
must leave him, and seek shelter among other 
relations ; Johnson's household has accom- 
modation for one inmate only. To all his 
ever-varying, ever-recurring troubles, more- 
over, must be added this continual one of ill 
health, and its concomitant depressiveness : a 
galling load, which would have crushed most 
common mortals into desperation, is his ap- 
pointed ballast and life-burden; he "could not 
remember the day he had passed free from 
pain." Nevertheless, Life, as we said before, 
is always Life: a healthy soul, imprison it as 
you will, in squalid garrets, shabby coat, 
bodily sicknes.s, or whatever else, will assert 
its heaven-granted indefeasible Freedom, its 
right to conquer diihculties, to do work, even 
to feel gladness. Johnson does not whine over 
his existence, but manfully makes the most 
and b%st of it. "He said, a man mi?ht live in 
a garret at eighteen-pence a week; few people 
would inquire where he lodged; and if they 
did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found 
at such a place.' By spending threepence in 
a coffee-house, he might be for some hours 
every day in very good company; he might 
dine for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk 
for a penny, and do without supper. On 
rlean-shirl-dayhe went abroad, and paid visits." 
Think by whom, and of whom this was uttered, 
and ask then. Whether there is more pathos 
in it than in a whole circulating-library of 
Giaours and Harolds, or less pathos 1 On 
another occasion, " when Dr. Johnson, one day, 
read his own Satire, in which the life of a 
scholar is painted with the various obstruc- 
tions thrown in his way to fortune and to fame, 
he burst into a passion of tears : Mr. Thrale's 
family and Mr. Scott only were present, wh«, 
in a jocose way, clapped him on the back, and 
said, 'What's all this, my dear sir? Why 
you, and I, and Hercules, you know, were all 
troubled with nielancholy.' He was a very 
large man, and made out the triumvirate with 
Johnson and Hercules comically enough." 
These were sweet tears ; the sweet victormus 
remembrance lay in them of toils indeed fright- 
ful, yet never flinched from, and now triumphed 
over. "One day it shall delight you to re- 



have made drawings of all his residences : the blessing 
of Old Mortality be upon him ! We our.=elves, not 
without labour and risk, lately discovered GnuoH 
Square, between Fleet Street and Holborn (adjoining 
both to Bolt Court and Johnson's Court;) and, 
on the second day of search, the very House there, 
wherein the Evglish Dictionari/ was composed. It is 
the first or corner house on the right hand, as you enter 
through the arched way from the North-west. The ac- 
tual occupant, an elderly, well-washed, decent-looking 
man, invited us to enter; and courteously undertook to 
be cicerone ; thnugh in his memory lay nothing hut (he 
foolishest jumble and hallucination. It is a stout old- 
fashioned, oak-balustrnded house : " I have spent many 
a pound and penny on it since then," said (he worthy 
Landlord : " here, you see, this Bedroom was the Doc- 
tor's study; that was the garden" (a plot of delved 
ground somewhat larger than a bed-quilt) "where he 
walked for exercise ; these three garret Bedrooms" 
(where his three Copyists sat and wrote) '■ were the 
pi ice he kept his— Pupi/s in!" Tewpiis edux rervm I 
Yet ferax also : for our friend now added, with a wist- 
ful look, which strove to seem merely hisiorical : "I let 
it all in I.odiings, to respectable gentlemen ; by the 
quarter, or the month; it's all one to me."— " To m« 
also." whi.spered the Ghost of Samuel, as we went pen- 
sively our ways. 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON, 



335 



member labour done !" — Neither, though John- j 
son is obscure and poor, need the highest 
enjoyment of existence, that of heart freely 
communing with heart, be denied him. Sa- 
vage and he wander homeless through the 
streets ; without bed, yet not without friendly 
converse; such another conversation not, it is 
like, producible in tlie proudest drawing-room 
of London. Nor, under the void Night, upon 
the hard pavement, are their own woes the 
only topic : nowise; they "will stand by their 
country," the two "Back-woods-men" of the 
Brick besart ! 

Of all outward evils Obscurity is perhaps in 
itself the least. To Johnson, as to a healthy- 
minded man, the fantastic article, sold or given 
under the title o{ Fdme, had little or no value 
but its intrinsic one. He prized it as the 
means of getting him employment and good 
wages ; scarcely as any thing more. His light 
and guidance came from a loftier source; of 
which, in honest aversion to all hypocrisy or 
pretentious talk, he spoke not to men; nay, 
perhaps, being of a healthy mind, had never 
spoken to himself. We reckon it a striking 
fact in Johnson's history, this carelessness of 
his to Fame. Most authors speak of their 
"Fame" as if it were a quite priceless matter; 
the grand ultimatum, and heavenly Constan- 
tine's-Banner they had to follow, and conquer 
under. — Thy " Fame !" Unhappy mortal, where 
will it and thou both be in some fifty years'! 
Shakspeare himself has lasted but two hun- 
dred; Homer (partly by accident) three thou- 
sand : and does not already an Eternity 
encircle every Mc and every Thcc? Cease, 
then, to sit feverishly hatching on that " Fame" 
of thine; and flapping, and shrieking with 
fierce hisses, like brood-gnose on her last egg, 
if man shall or dare approach it! Quarrel 
not with me, hate me not, my Brother; make 
what thou canst of thy egg, and welcome: God 
knows, I will not steal it; I believe it to be 
addlr. — Johnson, for his part, was no man to 
be killed "by a review;" concerning which 
matter, it was said by a benevolent person : 
"If any author can be reviewed to death, let it 
be, with all convenient despatch, dmie." John- 
son thankfully receives any word spoken in 
his favour ; is nowise disobliged by a lampoon, 
but will look at it, if pointed out to him, and 
show how it might have been done better: the 
lampoon itself is indeed nothing, a soap-bubble 
that, next moment, will become a drop of sour 
suds ; but in the meanwhile, if it do any thing, 
it keeps him more in the world's eye, and the 
next hargui?i will be all the richer: "Sir, if 
they should cease to talk of me, I must starve." 
Sound heart and understanding head ! these 
fail no man, not even a man of Letters. 

Obscurity, however, was, in Johnson's case, 
whether a light or heavy evil, likely to be no 
lasting one. He is animated by the spirit of a 
true workman, resolute to do his work well ; 
and he does his work well; all his work, that 
of writing, that of living. A man of this 
stamp is unhappily not so common in the 
literary or in any other department of the 
world, that he can continue always unnoticed. 
By slow degrees, Johnson emerges ; looming, 
at first, huge and dim in the eye of an observant 



few; at last disclosed, in his real proportions, 
to the eye of the whole world, and encircled 
with a " light-nimbus" of glory, so that whoso 
is not blind must and shall behold him. By 
slow degrees, we said; for this also is notable; 
slow but sure: as his fame waxes not by ex- 
aggerated clamour of what he seems to be, but 
by better and belter insight of what he is, so it 
will last and stand wearing, being genuine. 
Thus indeed is it always, or nearly always, 
with true fame. The heavenly Luminary rises 
amid vapours : star-gazers enough must scan 
it, with critical telescopes ; it makes no blaz- 
ing, the world can either look at it, or forbear 
looking at it ; not till after a lime and times, 
does its celestial, eternal nature become indu- 
bitable. Pleasant, on the other hand, is the- 
blazing of a Tarbarrel ; the crowd dance 
merrily round it, with loud huzzaing, universal 
ihree-times-three, and, like Homer's peasants, 
"bless the useful light:" but unhappily it so 
soon ends in darkness, foul choking smoke, 
and is kicked into the gutters, a nameless 
imbroglio of charred slaves, pitch-cinders, and 
comissement du Diable ! 

But indeed, from the old, Johnson has enjoyed 
all or nearly all that Fame can yield any man : 
the respect, the obedience of those that are 
about him and inferior to him; of those whose 
opinion alone can have any forcible impres- 
sion on him. A little circle gathers round the 
Wise man; which gradually enlarges as the 
report thereof spreads, and more can come to 
see. and to believe; for Wisdom is precious, 
and of irresistible attraction to all. " An in- 
spired-idiot," Goldsmith, hangs strangely about 
him ; though, as Hawkins says, " he loved not 
Johnson, but rather envied him for his parts ; 
and once entreated a friend to desist from 
praising him, 'for in doing so,' said he, 'you 
harrow up my very soul !'" Yet on the whole, 
there is no evil in the " gooseberry-fool ;" but 
rather much good; of a finer, if of a weaker, 
sort than Johnson's; and all the more genuine 
that he himself co'u'd never become /onsrious 
of it, — though unhappily never cease aitcnipiing 
to become so : the Author of the genuine Virar 
of Wakcfeltl. nill he, will he, must needs fly 
towards such a mass of genuine Manhood; 
and Dr. Minor keep gyrating round Dr. Major, 
alternately attracted and repelled. Then there 
is the chivalrous Topham Beauclerk, with his 
sharp wit, and gallant, courtly ways: there is 
Bennct Langfon, an orthodox gentleman, and 
worthy ; though Johnson once laughed, louder 
almost than mortal, at his last will and testa- 
ment; and " could not stop his merriment, but 
continued it all the way till he got without the 
Temple-gate; then burst into such a fit of 
laughter that he appeared to be almost in a 
convulsion ; and, in order to support himself, 
laid hold of one of the posts at the side of the 
foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud 
that, in the silence of the night, his voice 
seemed to resound from Temple-bar to Fleet- 
ditch !" Lastly comes his solid-thinking, solid- 
feeding Thrale, the well-beloved man; with 
Thrnlui, a bright papilionaceous creature, 
whom the elepliant loved to p'av with, and 
wave to and fro upon his tnirik. Not to speak 
of a reverent Bozzy, for what need is there 



336 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



farther! — Or of the spiritual Luminaries, with 
tongue or pen, who made that age remarkable; 
or of Highland Lairds drinking, in fierce 
usquebaugh, "Your health, Tocior Shonson!" 
— still less of many such as that poor "Mr. F. 
Lewis," older in date, of whose birth, death, 
and whole terrestrial res g£s!a; this only, and 
strange enough this actually, survives : "Sir, 
he lived in London, and hung loose upon 
society !" stat Pahvi noininis umbra. — . 

In his fifiy-third year, he is beneficed, by the 
royal bounty, with a Pension of three hundred 
pounds. Loud clamour is always more or less 
insane: but probably the insanest of all loud 
clamours in the eighteenth century, was this 
that was raised about Johnson's Pension. Men 
seem to be led by the noses ; but in reality, it 
is by the ears, — as some ancient slaves were, 
■who had their ears bored ; or as some modern 
quadrupeds may be, whose ears are long. Very 
falsely was it said, " Names do not change 
Things ;" Names do change Things; nay for 
most part they are the only substance, which 
mankind can discern in Things. The whole 
sum that Johnson, during the remaining twenty- 
two years of his life, drew from the public 
funds of England, would have supported some 
Supreme Priest for about half as many weeks; 
it amounts very nearly to the revenue of our 
poorest Church-Overseer for one twelvemonth. 
Of secular Administrators of Provinces, and 
Horse-subduers, and Game-destroyers, we shall 
not so much as speak : but who were the 
Primates of England, and the Primates of all 
England, during Johnson's days? No man 
has remembered. Again, is the Primate of 
all England something, or is he nothing? 
If something, then what but the man who, 
in the supreme degree, teaches and spiritu- 
ally edifies, and leads towards Heaven by 
guiding wisely through the Earth, the living 
souls that inhabit England? We touch here 
upon deep matters; which but remotely con- 
cern us, and might lead us into still deeper: 
clear, in the meanwhile, it -is that the true 
Spiritual Edifier and Soul's-Father of all Eng- 
land was, and till very lately continued to be, 
the man named Samuel Johnson, — whom this 
scot-and-lot-paying world cackled reproachfully 
to see remunerated like a Supervisor of Excise ! 

If Destiny had beaten hard on poor Samuel, 
and did never cease to visit him too roughly, 
yet the last section of his Life might be pro- 
nounced victorious, and on the whole happy. He 
■was not Idle; but now no longer goaded on by 
want; the light which had shone irradiating the 
dark haunts of Poverty, now illuminates the 
circles of Wealth, of a certain culture and ele- 
gant intelligence ; he who had once been ad- 
mitted to speak with Edmund Cave and To- 
bacco Browne, now admits a Reynolds and a 
Burke to speak with him. Loving friends are 
there ; Listeners, even Answerers : the fruit 
•of his long labours lies round him in fair 
legible Writings, of Philosophy, Eloquence, 
Morality, Philo'cgy ; some excellent, all worthy 
and genuine Works ; for which, too, a deep, 
earnest murmur of thanks reaches him from 
all ends of his Fatherland. Nay, there are 
works of Goodness, of undying Mercy, which 
even he has possessed the power to do : 



"What I gave I have; what I spent I had !" 
Early friends had long sunk into the grave; 
yet in his soul they ever lived, fresh and clear, 
with soft pious breathings towards them, not 
without a still hope of one day meeting tliem 
again in purer union. Such was Johnson's 
Life : the victorious Battle of a free, true 
Man. Finally he died the death of the free 
and true : a dark cloud of Death, solemn, and 
not untinged with haloes of immortal Hope 
" took him away," and our eyes could no longer 
behold him ; but can still behold the trace and 
impress of his courageous, honest spirit, deep- 
legible in the World's Business, wheresoever 
he walked and was. 

To estimate the quantity of Work that John- 
son performed, how much poorer the World 
were had it wanted him, can, as in all such 
cases, never be accurately done; cannot, till 
after some longer space, be approximately 
done. All work is as seed sown ; it grows 
and spreads, and sows itself anew, and so, in 
endless palingenesia, lives and works. To 
Johnson's Writings, good and solid, and still 
profitable as they are, we have already rated 
his Life and Conversation as superior. By the 
one and by the other, who shall compute what 
eflTects have been produced, and are still, and 
into deep Time, producing? 

So much, however, we can already see : It is 
now some three quarters of a century that 
Johnson has been the Prophet of the English; 
the man by whose light the English people, 
in public and in private, more than by any 
other man's, have guided their existence. 
Higher light than that immediately practical 
one; higher virtue than an honest Phudence, 
he could not then communicate; nor perhaps 
could they have received: such light, such 
virtue, however, he did communicate. How to 
thread this labyrinthic Time, the fallen and 
falling Ruin of Times ; to silence vain Scru- 
ples, hold firm to the last the fragments of old 
Belief, and with earnest eye still discern some 
glimpses of a true path, and go forward there- 
on, " in a world where there is much to be done, 
and little to be known:" this is what Samuel 
Johnson, by act and word, taught his nation, 
what his nation received and learned of him, 
more than of any other. We can view him as 
the preserver and transmitter of whatsoever 
was genuine in the spirit of Toryism ; which 
genuine spirit, it is now becoming manifest, 
must again imbody itself in all new forms of 
Society, be what they may, that are to exist, 
and have continuance — elsewhere than on 
Paper. The lasl in many things, Johnson was 
the last genuine Tory; the last of Englishmen 
who, with strong voice, and wholly-believing 
heart, preached the Doctrine of Standing still; 
who, without selfishness or slavishness, reve- 
renced the existing Powers, and could assert 
theprivilegesof rank, though himself poor, neg- 
lected, and plebeian; who had heart-devout- 
ness with heart-hatred of cant, was orthodox- 
religious with his eyes open ; and in all things 
and everywhere spoke out in plain English, 
from a soul wherein Jesuitism could find no 
harbour, and with the front and tone not of a 
diplomatist but of a man. 



BOSWELL'S LrFE OF JOHNSON. 



337 



This last of the Tories was Johnson : not 
Burke, as is often said; Burke was essentially 
a Whig, and onij-, on reaching the verge of ihe 
chasm towards which Whiggism from the first 
•was inevitably leading, recoiled ; and,likeaman 
vehement rather than earnest, a resplendent far- 
sighted Rhetorician rather than a deep sure 
Thinker, lecoiled with no measure, convul- 
sively, and damaging what he drove back 
with him. 

In a world which exists by the balance of 
Antagonisms, the respective merit of the Con- 
servator and the Innovator must ever remain 
debaleable. Great, in the meanwhile, and un- 
doubted, for both sides, is the merit of him who, 
in a day of Change, walks wisely, honestly. 
Johnson's aim was in itself an impossible one; 
this of stemming the eternal Flood of Time; 
of clutching all things, and anchoring them 
down, and saying, Move not ! — how con id it, or 
should it, ever have success 1 The strongest 
man can but retard the current partially and 
for a short hour. Yet even in such shortest 
retardation, may not an estimable value Iie1 If 
England has escaped the blood-bath of a French 
Revolution ; and may yet, in virtue of this delay 
and of the experience it has given, work out her 
•deliverance calmly into a new Era, let Samuel 
Johnson, beyond all contemporary or succeed- 
ing men, have the praise for it. We said above 
that he was appointed to be Ruler of the British 
nation fora season : whoso will look beyond the 
surface,intotheheartof the world's movements, 
may find that all Pitt Administrations, and Con- 
tinental Subsidies, and Waterloo victories, rest- 
ed on the possibility of making England, yet a 
little while, Tonjish, Loyal to the Old; and this 
again on the anterior reality, that the Wise had 
found such Loyalty still practicable, and recom- 
mendable. England had its Hume, as France 
had its Voltaires and Diderots ; but the John- 
son was peculiar to us. 

If we ask now by what endowment it mainly 
was that Johnson realized such a Life for him- 
self and others; what quality of character the 
main phenomena of his Life may be most na- 
turally deduced from, and his other qualities 
most naturally subordinated to, in our concep- 
tion of him, perhaps the answer were : The 
quality of Courage, of Valour; that Johnson was 
a Brave Man. The Courage that can go forth, 
once and away, to Chalk-Farm, and have itself 
shot, and snuffed out, with decency, is nowise 
wholly what we mean here. Such Courage 
we indeed esteem an exceeding small matter; 
capable of coexisting with a life full of false- 
hood, feebleness, poltroonery,and despicability. 
Nay oftener it is Cowardice rather that pro- 
duces the result: for consider. Is the Chalk- 
Farm Pistnleer inspired with any reasonable 
Belief and Determination ; or is he hounded on 
by haggard, indefinable Fear, — how he will be 
cut at public places, and " plucked geese of the 
neighbourhood" will wag their tongues at him i 
a ))lucked goose"! If he go then, and be shot 
without shrieking, or audible uproar, it is well 
for him : nevertheless there is nothing amazing 
in it. Courage to manage all this has not per- 
haps been den ied to any man, or to any woman. 
Thus, do not recruiting sergeants drum through 
43 



the streets of manufacturing towns, and collect 
ragged losels enough ; every one of whom, if 
once dressed in red. and trained a little, will re- 
ceive fire cheerfully for the small sum of one 
shilling per diem, and have the soul blown out 
of him at last, with perfect propriety. The 
Courage that dares only rlie, is on the whole no 
sublime affair; necessary indeed, yet univer- 
sal : pitiful when it begins to parade itself. On 
this Globe of ours, there are some thirty-six 
persons that manifest it, seldom with the small- 
est failure, during every second of time. Nay 
look at Newgate: do not the offscourings of 
Creation, when condemned to the gal'ows, as 
if they were not men but vermin, walkthither 
with decency, and even to the scowls and hoot- 
ings of the whole Universe give theirstern good- 
night in silence? What is to be undergone 
only once, we may undergo; what must be, 
comes almost of its own accord. Considered 
as Duelist, what a poor figure does the fiercest 
Irish Whiskerando make, compared with any 
English Game-cock, such as you may buy for 
fifteen-pence ! 

The Courage we desire and prize is not the 
Courage to die decently, but to live manfully. 
This, when by God's grace it has been given, 
lies deep in the soul ; like genial heat, fosters 
all other virtues and gifts; without it they 
could not live. In s])ite of our innumerable 
Waterloos and Peterloos, and such campaign- 
ing as there has been, this Courage we allude 
to, and call the only true one, is perhaps rarer 
in these last ages, than it has been in any 
other since the Saxon Invasion under Hengist. 
Altogelher extinct it can never be among men; 
otherwise the species Man were no longer for 
this world: here and there, in all times, under 
various guises, men are sent hither not only 
to demonstrate but exhibit it, and testify, as 
from heart lo heart, that it is still possible, 
still practicable. 

Johnson, in the eighteenth century, and as 
Man of Letters, was one of such; and, in good 
truth. " the bravest of the brave." What mortal 
could have more to war with] Yet, as we 
saw, he yielded not, faltered not; he fi>ught, 
and even, such was his blessedness, prevailed. 
Whoso will understand what it is to have a 
man's heart, may find that, since the lime of 
John Milton, no braver heart had beat in any 
English bosom than Samuel Johnson now 
bore. Observe too that he never called him- 
self brave, never felt himself to be so; the 
more completely iv is so. No Giant Despair, 
no Golgotha-Death-dance or Sorcerer's-S.ib- 
bath of "Literary Life in London," appals this 
pilgrim; he works resiilutely for deliverance ; 
in still defiance, steps stouily along. The thing 
that is given him to do he can make him-elf do ; 
what is to be endured he can endure in silence. 

How the great soul of old Samuel, consum- 
ing daily his own bitter unalleviable allotment 
of misery and toil, shou-s beside the poor rliinsy 
little soul of young Bos well ; one day flaunting 
in the ring of v.Tuity, tarrying by the wine-cup, 
and crying. Aha, the wine is red; the next 
day deploring his downpressed, iiighi-shnded, 
quite poor estate; and thinking it unkitni 
that the whole movement of the Universe 
should go on, while hi." digestive-apparatus havl 
2F' 



338 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



stopped! We reckon Johnson's "talent of si- 
lence" to be among his great and too rare gifts. 
Where there is nothing farther to be done, there 
shall nothing farther be said : like his own poor 
blind Welshwoman, he accomplished some- 
what, and also "endured fifty years of wretched- 
ness with unshaken I'ortitude." How grim was 
Life to him ; a sick Prison-house and Doubt- 
ing-castle ! "His great business," he would 
profess, " was to escape from himself." Yet 
towards all this he has taken his position and 
resolution; can dismiss it all " with frigid in- 
difference, having little to hope or to fear." 
Friends are stupid and pusillanimous and parsi- 
monious ; " wearied of his stay, yet offended at 
his departure :" it is the manner of the world. 
" By popular delusion," remarks he with a 
gigantic calmness, "illiterate writers will rise 
into renown :" it is portion of the History of 
English Literature; a perennial thing, this 
same popular delusion ; and will — alter the 
character of the Language. 

Closely connected with this quality of Valour, 
partly as springing from it, partly as protected 
by it, are the more recognisable qualities of 
Truthfulness in word and thought, and Hones- 
ty in action. There is a reciprocity of in- 
fluence here : for as the realizing of 'J'ruthful- 
ness and Honesty is the Life-light and great 
aim of Valour, so without Valour they cannot, 
in anywise, be realized. Now, in spite of all 
practical shortcomings, no one that sees into 
the significance of Johnson, will say that his 
prime object was va Truth. In conversation, 
doubtless, you Juay observe him, on occasion, 
fighting as if for victory; — and must pardon 
these ebulliences of a careless hour, which 
were not without temptation and provocation. 
Remark likewise two things; that such prize- 
arguings were ever on merely superficial debat- 
able questions; and then that they were argued 
generally by the fair laws of battle, and 
logic-fence, by one cunning in that same. If 
their purpose was excusable, their effect was 
harmless, perhaps beneficial: that of taming 
Doisy mediocrity, and showing it another side 
of a debatable matter; to see boh siiles of 
which was, for the first time, to see the Truth 
of it. In his Writings themselves, are errors 
enough, crabbed prepossessions enough, yet 
these also of a quite extraneous and accidental 
nature; nowhere a wilful shutting of the eyes 
1o the Truth. Nay, is there not everywhere 
a heartfelt discernment, singular, almost ad- 
mirable, if we consider through what confused 
conflicting lights and hallucinations it had to 
be attained, of the highest everlasting Truth, 
and beginning of all Truths: this, namely, that 
man is ever, and even in the age ofVV^ilkes 
and Whitfield, a Revelation of God to man ; 
and lives, moves, and has his being in Truth 
only; is either true, or, in strict speech, is not 
at ain 

Quite spotless, on the other hand, is John- 
son's love of Truth, if we look at it as ex- 
pressed in Practice, as what we have named 
Honesty of action. " Clear your mind of Cant ;" 
cle.r it, throw Cant utterly away : such was 
his emphatic, repeated precept ; and did not he 
himself faithfully conform to it! The Life of 
this man has been, as it were, turned inside 



out, and examined with microscopes by friend 
and foe; yet was there no Lie found in him. 
His Doings and Writings are not sh(ni:$ huipcr- 
fonnanrcs : you may weigh them in the balance, 
and they will stand weight. Not a line, not a 
sentence is dishonestly done, is other than it 
pretends to be. Alas I and he wrote not out 
of inward inspiration, but to earn his wages : 
and with that grand perennial tide of" popular 
delusion" flowing by ; in whose waters he 
nevertheless refused to fish, to whose rich 
oyster-beds the dive was too muddy for him. 
Observe, again, with what innate hatred of 
Cant, he takes for himself, and offers to others 
the lowest possible view of his business, which 
he followed with such nobleness. Motive for 
writing he had none, as he often said, but 
money; and yet he wrote so. Into the region, 
of Poetic Art he indeed never rose; there was 
no ideal without him avowing itself in his 
work: the nobler was that unavowed ideal 
which lay within him, and commanded, saying. 
Work out thy Artisanship in the spirit of an 
Artist! They who talk loudest about the dig- 
nity of Art, and fancy that they too are Artistic 
guild-brethren, and of the Celestials, — let them 
consider well what manner of man this was, 
who felt himself to be only a hired day-labourer. 
A labourer that was worthy of his hire; that 
has laboured not as an eye-servant, but as one 
found faithful ! Neither was Johnson in those 
days perhaps wholly a unique. Time was 
when, for money, you might have ware: and 
needed not, in all departments, in that of the 
Epic Poem, in that of the Blacking Bottle, to 
rest content with the mere persuasion that you 
had ware. It was a happier time. But as yet 
the seventh Apocalyptic Bladder (of Puffery) 
had not been rent open, — to whirl and grind, as 
in a West-Indian Tornado, all earthly trades 
and things into wreck, and dust, and consum- 
mation, — and regeneration. Be it quickly, since 
it must be ! — 

That Mercy can dwell only with Valour, is 
an old sentiment or proposition ; which, in 
Johnson, again receives confirmation. Few 
men on record have had a more merciful, ten- 
derly afleclionate nature than old Samuel. He 
was called the Bear; and did indeed too often 
look, and roar, like one ; being forced to it in 
his own defence: yet within that shaggy ex- 
terior of his, there beat a heart warm as a 
mother's, soft as a little child's. Nay general- 
ly, his very roaring was but the anger of 
affection : the rage of a Bear, if you will ; but 
of a Bear bereaved of her whelps. Touch his 
Religion, glance at the Church of England, or 
the Divine Right; and he was upon you! 
These things were his Symbols of all that was 
good, and precious for mfen ; his very Ark of 
the Covenant: whoso laid hand on them tore 
asunder his heart of hearts. Not out of hatred 
to the opponent, but of love to the thing opposed, 
did Johnson grow cruel, fiercely contradictory: 
this is an important distinction ; never to be 
forgotten in our censure of his conversational 
outrages. But observe also with what hu- 
manity, what openness of love, he can attach 
himself to all things: to a blind old woman, to 
a Doctor Levett, to a Cat "Hodge." "His 
thoughts in the latter part of his life wen; 



BOSWELL'S LIFE OF JOHNSON. 



33S!- 



frequently employed on his deceased friends ; 
he often muttered these or such-like sentences: 
" Poor man ! and then he died." How he 
patiently converts his poor home into a Laza- 
retto; endures, for long years, the contradic- 
tion of the miserable and unreasonable; with 
him unconnected, save that they had no other 
to yield them refuge ! Generous old man ! 
Worldly possession he has little; yet of this 
he gives freely; from his own hard-earned 
shilling, the half-pence for the poor, that 
"waited his coming out," are not withheld: 
the poor " waited the coming out" of one not 
quite so poor! A Sterne can write sentiment- 
alities on Dead Asses: Johnson has a rough 
voice; but he finds the wretched Daughter of 
Vice fallen down in the streets; carries her 
home, on his own shoulders, and like a good 
Samaritan, gives help to the help-needing, 
worthy or unworthy. Ought not Charity, even 
in that sense, to cover a multitude of Sins'! 
No Penny-a-week Committee-Lady, no man- 
ager of Soup-Kitchens, dancer at Charity Balls, 
was this rugged, stern-visaged man: but where, 
in all England, could there have been found 
another soul so full of Pity, a hand so heaven- 
like bounteous as his? The widow's mite, we 
know, was greater than all the other gifts. 

Perhaps it is this divine feeling of AtTection, 
throughout manifested, that principally attracts 
us towards Johnson. A true brother of men 
is he ; and filial lover of the Earth ; who, with 
little bright spots of Attachment, " where lives 
and works some loved one," has beautified 
"this rough Solitary Earth into a peopled gar- 
den." Litchfield, with its mostly dull and 
limited inhabitants, is to the last one of the 
sunny islets fur him : Salve 7nagna parens! Or 
read those Letters on his Mother's death : what 
a genuine solemn grief and pity lies recorded 
there; a looking back into the Past, unspeak- 
ably mournful, unspeakably tender. And yet 
calm, sublime; for he must now act, not look: 
his venerated Mother has been taken from 
him; but he must now write a Ras^elas to de- 
fray her interment! Again'in this little inci- 
dent, recorded in his Book of Devotion, are not 
the tones of sacred Sorrow and Grentness 
deeper than in many a hlank-verse Tragedy ; 
as, indeed, " the fifth act of a Tragedy" (though 
unrhymed) does " lie in every death-bed, were 
it a peasant's, and of straw:" 

"Sunday, October 18, 1767. Yesterday, at 
about ten in the morning, I took my leave for 
ever of my dear old friend, Catherine Cham- 
bers, who came to live with my mother about 
1724, and has been but little parted from us 
since. She buried my father, my brother, and 
my mother. She is now fifty-eight years old. 
"I desired all to withdraw; then told her 
that we were to part for ever; that as Chris- 
tians, we should part with prayer; and that 
I would, if she was willins:, say a short prayer 
beside her. She expressed great desire to hear 
me; and held up her poor hands as she lay in 
bed, with great fervour, while I prayed kneel- 
ing by her. * » * 

" I then kissed her. She told me that to part 
was the greatest jiain she had ever felt, and 
that she hoped we should meet again in a bet- 
ter place. I expressed with swelled eyes, and 



great emotion of tenderness, the same hopes. 
We kissed and parted ; I humbly hope, to meet 
again, and to part no more." 

Tears trickling down the granite rock: a 
soft swell of Pity springs within ! Still more 
tragical is this other scene: "Johnson men- 
tioned that he could not in genei-al accuse 
himself of having been an undutiful son. 
"Once indeed," said he, "I was disobedient: 
I refused to attend my father to Uttoxeter mar- 
ket. Pride was the source of that refusal, and 
the remembrance of it was painful. A few 
years ago I desired to atone for this fault." — ■ 
But by what method 1 — What method was now 
possible ? Hear it ; the words are again given 
as his own, though here evidently by a less 
capable reporter: 

" Madam, I beg your pardon for the abrupt- 
ness of my departure in the morning, but I 
was compelled to do it by conscience. Fifty 
years ago, Madam, on this day, I committed a 
breach of filial piety. My father had been in 
the habit of attending Uttoxeter market, and 
opening a stall there for the sale of his Books. 
Confined by indisposition, he desired me, that 
day, to go and attend the stall in his place. 
My pride prevented me; I gave my father a 
refusal. — And now to-day I have been at Ut- 
toxeter; I went into the market, at the time of 
business, uncovered my head, and stood with 
it bare, for an hour, on the spot where my 
father's stall used to stand. In contrition I 
stood, and I hope the penance was expiatory.'" 

Who does not figure to himself this specta- 
cle, amid the " rainy weather, and the sneers," 
or wonder, "of the by-standers 1" The me- 
mory of old Michael .Tohnson, rising from the 
far distance ; sad-beckoning in the " moonlight 
of memory:" how he had toiled faithfully 
hither and" thither; patiently among the lowest 
of the low; been bufletled and beaten down, 
yet ever risen again, ever tried it anew — And 
oh ! when the wearied old man, as Bookseller, 
or Hawker, or Tinker, or whatsoever it was 
that Fate had reduced him to, begged help of 
/hce for one day, — how savage, diabolic, was 
that mean Vanity, which answered, No ! He 
sleeps now; after life's fitful fever, he sleeps: 
but thou, O Mei-ciless, how now wilt thou still 
the sting of that remembrance?— The picture 
of Samuel Johnson standing bareheaded in the 
market there, is one of the grandest and saddest 
we can paint. "Repentance! Repentance!" 
he proclaims, as with passionate sobs : — but 
only to the ear of Heaven, if Heaven will give 
him audience: the earthly ear, and heart, that 
should have heard it, are now closed, unre- 
sponsive for ever. 

That this so keen-loving, soft-trembling 
Afl"ectionateness, the inmost essence of his 
being, must have looked forth, in one form or 
another, through Johnson's whole character, 
practical and intellectual, modifying both, is 
not to be doubted. Yet through what singular ; 
distortions and superstitions, moping melan- 
cholies, blind habits, whims about "entering 
with the right foot," and " t.mching every post 
as he walked along;" and all the other mad 
chaotic lumber of a brain that, with snn-clear •• 
intellect, hove ed for ever on the verge of in 
sanity, — must that same inmost essence haye 



340 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



looked forth; unrecognisable to all but the 
most observant! Accordingly it was not re- 
cognised ; Johnson passed not for a fine nature, 
but for a dull, almost brutal one. Might not, 
for example, the first-fruit of such a Loving- 
ness, coupled with his quick Insight, have 
been expected to be a peculiarly courteous 
demeanour as man among menl In John- 
son's " Politeness," which he often, to the 
wonder of some, asserted to be great, there was 
indeed somewhat that needed explanation. 
Nevertheless, if he insisted always on handing 
lady-visitors to their carriage ; though with the 
certainty of collecting a mob of gazers in Fleet 
Street, — as might well be, the beau having on, 
by way of court dress, " his rusty brown morn- 
ing suit, a pair of old shoes for slippers, a little 
shrivelled wig slicking on the top of his head, 
and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of 
his breeches hanging loose:" — in all this we 
can see the spirit of true Politeness, only 
shining through a strange medium. Thus 
again, in his apartments, at one time, there 
were unfortunately no chairs. "A gentleman 
who frequently visited him whilst writing his 
Jdlers, constantly found him at his desk, sitting 
on one with three legs ; and on rising from it, 
he remarked that Johnson never forgot its 
defect ; but would either hold it in his hand, or 
place it with great composure against some 
support; taking no notice of its imperfection 
to his visitor," — who meanwhile, we suppose, 
sat upon .''olios, or in the sartorial fashion. 
•,' It was remarkable in Johnson," continues 
Miss Reynolds, ("Renny dear,") "that no ex- 
ternal circumstances ever prompted him to 
make any apology, or to seem even sensible 
(f their existence. Whether this was the 
effect of philosophic pride, or of some partial 
notion of his respecting high breeding, is doubt- 
ful." That it tvas, for one thing, the effect of 
genuine Politeness, is nowise doubtful. Not of 
the Pharisaical Brummellian Politeness, which 
would suffer crucifixion rather than ask twice 
for soup: but the noble universal Politeness 
of a man, that knows the dignity of men, and 
feels his own ; such as may be seen in the 
patriarchial bearing of an Indian Sachem ; 
such as Johnson himself exhibited, when a 
sudden chance brought him into dialogue with 
his King. To us, with our vieu' of the man, 
it nowise appears ''strange" that he should 
have boasted himself cunning in the laws of 
Politeness; nor "stranger still," habitually 
attentive to practise them. 

More legibly is this influence of the Loving 
heart to be traced in his intellectual character. 
vVhat, indeed, is the beginning of intellect, the 
first inducement to the exercise thereof, but 
attraction towards somewhat, nffertion for it? 
Thus too, who ever saw, or will see, any true 
talent, not to speak of genius, the foundation 
of which is not goodness, love? From John- 
son's strength of Affection, we deduce many 
of his intellectual peculiarities; especially that 
threatening array of perversions, known under 
the name of "Johnson's Prejudices." Looking 
well into the root from which these sprung, we 
have long ceased to view them with hostility, 
fan pardon and reverently pity them. Con- 
iiUer with what force early -imbibed opinions 



must have clung to a soul of this Affection. 
Those evil-famed Prejudices of his, that 
Jacobitism, Church-of-Englandism, hatred of 
the Scotch, belief in Witches, and such like, 
what were they but the ordinary beliefs of 
well-doing, well-meaning provincial English- 
men in that day? First gathered by his 
Father's hearth; round the kind "country 
fires" of native Staffordshire; they grew with 
his growth and strengthened with his strength; 
they were hallowed by fondest sacred recollec- 
tions : to part with them was parting with his 
heart's blood. If the man who has no strength 
of A ffeciion, strength of Belief, have no strength 
of Prejudice, let him thank Heaven for it, but 
to himself take small thanks. 

Melancholy it was, indeed, that the noble 
Johnson could not work himself loose from 
these adhesions; that he could only purify 
them, and wear them with some nobleness. 
Yet let us understand how they grew out from 
the very centre of his being: nay, moreover, 
how they came to cohere in him with what 
formed the business and worth of his Life, the 
sum of his whole Spiritual Endeavour. For it 
is on the same ground that he became through- 
out an Edifier and Repairer, not, as the others 
of his make were, a Puller-down ; that in an age 
of universal Skepticism, England was still to 
produce its Believer. Mark too his candour 
even here; while a Dr. Adams, with placid 
surprise, asks, "Have we not evidence enough 
of the soul's immortality ?" Johnson answers, 
" I wish for more." But the truth is, in Pre- 
judice, as in all things, Johnson was the pro- 
duct of England; one of those e;ond yeomen 
whose limbs were made in England : alas, the 
last of surh Invincibles, their day being now 
done ! His culture is wholly English ; that not 
of a Thinker but of a " Scholar :" his interests 
are wholly English ; he sees and knows no- 
thing but England; he is the John Bull of 
Spiritual Europe: let him live, love him, as he 
was and could not but be ! Pitiable it is, no 
doubt, that a Samuel Johnson must confute 
Hume's irreligiou'S Philosophy by some " story 
from a Clergyman of the Bishopric of Dur- 
ham;" should see nothing in the great Fred- 
crick but "Voltaire's lackey ;" in Voltaire him- 
self but a man arcrrimi ingenii, paucarum li'cra- 
rum : in Rousseau but one worthy to be hanged ; 
and in the universal, long-prepared, inevitable 
Tendency of European Thought but a green- 
sick milkmaid's crotchet of (for variety's sake) 
"milking the Bull." Our good, dear John! 
Observe too what it is that he sees in the oily 
of Paris: no feeblest glimpse of those D'Alein- 
berts and Diderois, or of the strange question- 
able work they did; solely some Benedictine 
Priests, to talk kitchen-latin with them about 
Ediimes Pi-iiiripes. ^- Mo i. sheer Nongloi/gpaw!'" 
— Our dear, foolish John ; yet is there a linn's 
heart within him ! — Pitiable all these things 
were, we say; yet nowise inexcusable; nay, as 
basis or as foil to much else that was in John- 
son, almost venerable. Ought we not, indeed, 
to honour England, and English Institutions 
and Way of Life, that they could si ill equip 
such a man ; could furnish him in heart and 
head to be a Samuel Johnson, and yet to love 
them, and unyieldingly fight for them? What 



DEATH OF GOETHE. 



S41 



trnth and living vigour must such Institutions 
once have had, when, in the middle of the 
Eighteenth century, there was still enough left 
in them for this ! 

It is worthy of note that, in our little British 
Isle, the two grand Antagonisms of Europe 
should have stood imbodied, under their very 
highest concentration, in two men produced 
simultaneously among ourselves. Samuel 
Johnson and David Hume, as was observed, 
were children of the same year: through life 
they were spectators of the same Life-move- 
ment; often inhabitants of the same city. 
Greater contrast, in all things, between two 
great men, could not be. Hume, well-born, 
competently provided for, whole in body and 
mind, of his own determination forces a way 
into Literature: .Tohnson, poor, moonstruck, 
diseased, forlorn, is forced into it " with the 
bayonet of necessity at his back." And what 
a part did they severally play there ! As John- 
son became the father of all succeeding Tories ; 
so was Hume the father of all succeeding 
Whigs, for his own Jacobitism was but an 
accident, as worthy to be named Prejudice as 
any of Johnson's. Again, if Johnson's culture 
was exclusively English; Hume's, in Scotland, 
became European; — for which reason too we 
find his influence spread deeply over all quar- 
ters of Europe, traceable deeply in all specula- 
tion, French, German, as well as domestic; 
while Johnson's name, out of England, is hardly 
anywhere to be met with. In spiritual stature 
they are almost equal; both great, among the 
greatest: yet how unlike in likeness! Hume 
has the widest methodizing, comprehensive 
eye; Johnson the keenest for perspicacity and 
minute detail : so had, perhaps chiefly, their 
education ordered it. Neither of the two rose 
into Poetry ; yet both to some approximation 
thereof: Hume to something of an Epic clear- 
ness and method, as in his delineation of the 
Commonwealth Wars ; Johnson to many a 
deep Lyric tone of plaintiveness, and impetu- 
ous graceful power, scattered over his fugitive 
compositions. Both, rather to the general sur- 
prise, had a certain rugged Humour shining 
through their earnestness : the indication, in- 



deed, that they were earnest men, and had sub' 
dticd their wild world into a kind of temporary 
home, and safe dwelling. Both were, by prin' 
ciple and habit. Stoics: yet Johnson with the 
greater merit, for he alone had very much to 
Triumph over; farther, he alone ennobled his 
Stoicism into Devotion. To Johnson Life was 
as a Prison, to be endured with heroic faith! 
to Hume it was little more than a foolish Bar" 
tholomew-Fair Show-booth, with the foolish 
crowdings and elbowings of which it was not 
worth while to quarrel; the whole would break 
up, and be at liberty, so soon. Both rpalized 
the highest task of Manhood, that of living like 
men ; each died not unfitly, in his way : Humo 
as one, with factitious, half-false gayety, taking 
leave of what was itself wholly but a Liei 
Johnson as one, with awe-struck, yet resolute 
and piously expectant heart, taking leave of a 
Reality, to enter a Reality still higher. John- 
son had the harder problem of it, from first to 
last: whether, with some hesitation, we can 
admit that he was intrinsically the better-gifted^ 
— may remain undecided. 

These two men now rest; the one in West- 
minster Abbey here ; the other in the Calton 
Hill Churchyard of Edinburgh. Through Lifri 
they did not meet : as contrasts, " like in un-" 
like," love each other ; so might they two have 
loved, and communed kindly, — had not the! 
terrestrial dross and darkness, that was in 
them, withstood ! One day their spirits, what 
truth was in each, will be found working, liv'' 
ing in harmony and free union, even here be^ 
low. They Avere the two half-men of theii* 
time : whoso should combine the intrepid Can-! 
dour, and decisive scientific Clearness of 
Hume, with the Reverence, the Love, and de-" 
vout Humility of Johnson, were the whole 
man of a new time. Till such whole man ar-» 
rive for us, and the distracted time admit of. 
such, might the heavens but bless poor Eng- 
land with half-men worthy to tie the shoe- 
latchets of these, resembling these even from 
afar! Be both attentively regarded, let the 
true Eflbrt of both prosper ; — and for the pre- 
sent, both take our aflectionate farewell ! 



DEATH OF GOETHE. 



[New Monthly Magazine, 1832.] 



Iw the obituary of these days stands one 
article of quite peculiar import; the time, the 
place, and particulars of which will have to 
be often repeated, and re-written, and continue 
in remembrance many centuries: this,namel}% 
that Johann Wolfgang von Goethe died at 
Weimar, on the 22d March, 1832. It was 
about eleven in the morning; "he expired," 
says the record, " without any apparent suffer- 
ing, having a fe-w minutes previously, called 
for paper for the purpose of writing, and ex- 
pressed his delight at the arrival of spring." 



A beautiful death; like that of a soldier found 
faithful at his post, and in the cold hand his 
arms still grasped ! The Poet's last words are 
a greeting of the new-awakened earth ; his 
last movement is to work at his appointed 
task. Beautiful : what we might call a Clas- 
sic, sacred death; if it were not rather an 
Elijah-translation, — in a chariot, not of fire 
and terror, but of hope and soft vernal sun- 
beams ! It was at Frankfcrt on the Mayn, on 
the 28th of August, 1749, that this man entered 
the world — and now, gently welcoming the 
2e2 



-mn 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



^irlh-day of his eighty-second spring, he closes 
his eyes, and takes farewell. 

So then, onr greatest has departed. That 
anelody of life, with its cunning tones, which 
took captive ear and heart, has gone silent; 
the heavenly force that dwelt here viciorious 
over so much, is here no longer ; thus far, not 
farther, by speech and by act, shall the wise 
man utter himself forth. The End ! What 
solemn meaning lies in that sound, as it peals 
snournfully through the soul, when a living 
friend has passed away ! All now is closed, 
irrevocable; the changeful life-picture, grow- 
ing daily into new coherence, under new 
touches and hues, has suddenly become com- 
pleted and unchangeable ; there, as it layj it is 
dipped, from this moment, in the sether of the 
Heavens, and shines transfigured, to endure 
even so — for ever, Time and Time's Empire; 
stern, wide devouring, yet not without their 
grandeur! The week-day man, who was one 
of us, has put on the garment of Eternity, and 
become radiant and triumphant; the present 
is all at once the past ; Hope is suddenly cut 
away, and only the backward vistas of Me- 
mory remain, shone on by a light that pro- 
ceeds not from this earthly sun. 

The death of Goethe, even for the many 
liearts that personally loved him, is not a thing 
to be lamented over; is to be viewed, in his 
own spirit, as a thing full of greatness and 
sacredness. " For all men it is appointed 
once to die." To this man the full measure 
of a man's life had been granted, and a course 
and task such as to only a few in the whole 
generations of the world ; what else could we 
hope or require but that now he should be 
called hence and have leave to depart, "hav- 
ing finished the work that was given him to 
do]" If his course, as we may say of him 
more justly than of any other, was like the 
Sun's, so also -was his going down. For in- 
deed, as the material Sun is the eye and re- 
vealer of all things, so is Poetry, so is the 
World-Poet in a spiritual sense. Goethe's 
life, too, if we examine it, is well represented 
in that emblem of a solar Day. Beautifully 
rose our summer sun, gorgeous in the red 
fervid East, scattering the spectres and sickly 
■damps (of both of which there were enough 
to scatter) — strong, benignant in his noon-day 
clearness, walking triumphant through the up- 
per realms ; and now, mark .also how he sets ! 
So Stirbt eiii. Held: anbetungsvoll .' "So dies a 
hero ; sight to be worshipped." 

And yet, when the inanimate, material sun 
has sunk and disappeared, it will happen that 
we stand to gaze into the still glowing West ; 
and here rise great, pale, motionless clouds, 
like coulisses or curtains, to close the flame- 
theatre within; and then, in that death-pause 
of the Day, an unspeakable feeling will come 
over us; it is as if the poor sounds of Time, 
those hammerings of tired Labour on his an- 
vils, those voices of simple men, had become 
awful and supernatural ; as if in listening, we 
could hear them " mingle with the ever-pealing 
♦ones of old Eternity." In such moments the 
secrets of Life lie opener to us; mysterious 
things flit over the soul ; Life itself seems ho- 
sier, wonderful, and fearful. How much more 



when our sunset was of a living sun ; and it* 
bright countenance and shining return to us, 
not on the morrow, but " no more again, at all, 
for ever !" In such a scene, silence, as over 
the mysterious great, is for him that has some 
feeling thereof, the fittest mood. Nevertheless 
by silence, the distant is not brought into com- 
munion : the feeling of each is without re- 
sponse from the bosom of his brother. There 
are now, what some years ago there were not, 
English hearts that know something of what 
those three words, "Death of Goethe," mean; 
to such men, among their many thoughts on 
the event, which are not to be translated into 
speech, may these few, through that imperfect 
medium, prove acceptable. 

"Death," says the Philosopher, "is a com- 
mingling of Eternity with Time ; in the death 
of a good man, Eternity is seen looking 
through Time." With such a sublimity here 
olfered to eye and heart, it is not unnatural 
to look with new earnestness before and be- 
hind, and ask, what space in those years and 
DBons of computed Time, this man with his 
activity may influence ; what relation to the 
world of change and mortality, which the 
earthly name Life, he who is even now called 
to the Immortals has borne and may bear. 

Goethe, it is commonly said, made a new 
era in Literature ; a Poetic era began with 
him, the end or ulterior tendencies of which 
are yet nowise generally visible. This com- 
mon saying is a true one, and true with a far 
deeper meaning than, to the most, it conveys. 
Were the Poet but a sweet sound and singer, 
solacing the ear of the idle with pleasant songs, 
and the new Poet one who could sing his idle, 
pleasant song, to a new air, we should account 
him a small matter, and his performance 
small. But this man, it is not unknown to many, 
was a Poet in such a sense as the late genera- 
tions have witnessed no other; as it is, in this 
generation, a kind of distinction to believe in 
the existence of, in the possibility of. The 
true Poet is ever, as of old, the Seer ; whose 
eye has been gifted to discern the godlike mys- 
tery of God's universe, and decipher some 
new lines of its celestial writing; we can still 
call him a J'utcs and Seer; for he sees into this 
greatest of secrets " the open secret ;" hidden 
things become clear; how the future (both 
resting on Eternity) is but another phasis of 
the present ; thereby are his words in very 
truth prophetic ; w^hat he has spoken shall be 
done. 

It begins now to be everywhere surmised 
that the real Force, which in this world all 
things must obey, is Insight, Spiritual Vision, 
and Determination. The Thought is parent 
of the Deed, nay, is living soul of it, and last 
and continual, as well as first mover of it; is 
the foundation, and beginning, and essence, 
therefore, of man's whole existence here be- 
low. In this sense, it has been said, the wohd 
of man (the uttered thoughts of man) is stili 
a magic formula, whereby he rules the world. 
Do not the winds and waters, and all tumultu- 
ous powers, inanimate and animate, obey him 1 
A poor, quite mechanical. Magician speaks — 
and fire-winged ships cross the ocean at his 
bidding. Or mark, above all, that " raging of 



DEATH OF GOETHE. 



343 



the nations," wholly in contention, despera- 
tion, and dark chaotic fury; how the meek 
voice of a Hebrew Martyr and Redeemer stills 
it into order, and a savage Earth becomes 
kind and beautiful, and the " habitation of 
horrid cruelty" a temple of peace. The true 
sovereign of the world, who moulds the world 
like soft wax, according to his pleasure, is he 
who lovingly sees into the world ; the " inspired 
Thinker," whom in these days we name Poet. 
The true sovereign is the Wise Man. 

However, as the Moon, which can heave up 
the Atlantic, sends not in her obedient billows ] 
at once, but gradually ; and, for example, the 
Tide, which swells to-day on our shores, and 
washes every creek, rose in the bosom of the 
great ocean (astronomers assure us) eight and 
forty hours ago ; and indeed all world-move- 
ments, by nature deep, are by nature calm, and 
flow and swell onwards with a certain majes- 
tic slowness — so, too, with the impulse of a 
Great Man, and the effect he has to manifest 
on other men. To such an one wc may grant 
some generation or two before the celestial 
impulse he impressed on the world will uni- 
versally proclaim itself, and become (like the 
working of the moon) if still not intelligible, 
yet palpable, to all men ; some generation or 
two more, wherein it has to grow, and expand, 
and envelop all things, before it can reach its 
acme ; and thereafter mingling with other 
movements and new impulses, at length cease 
to require a specific observation or designa- 
tion. Longer or shorter such period may be, 
according to the nature of the impulse itself, 
and of the elements it works in ; according, 
above all, as the impulse was intrinsically 
great and deep-reaching, or only wide-spread, 
superiicial, and transient. Thus, if David 
Hume is at this hour pontiff of the world, and 
rules most hearts, and guides most tongues, 
(the hearts and tongues, even in those that in 
vain rebel against him,) there are, nevertheless, 
symptoms that his task draws towards com- 
pletion ; and now in the distance his succes- 
sor becomes visible. On the other hand, we 
have seen a Napoleon, like some gunpowder 
force (with which sort he, indeed, was appoint- 
ed chiefly to work) explode his whole virtue 
suddenly, and thunder himself out and silent, 
in a space of five-and-twenty years. While 
again, for a man of true greatness, working 
with spiritual implements, two centuries is no 
uncommon period; nay, on this Earth of ours, 
there have been men whose impulse had not 
completed its development till after fifteen 
hundred years, and might, perhaps, be seen 
still individually subsistent alter two thousand. 
But, as was once written, " though our clock 
strikes M-hen there is a change from hour to 
hour, no hammer in the horologe of time peals 
through the universe to proclaim that there is 
a change from era to era." The true begin- 
ning is oftenest unnoticed, and unnoticeable. 
Thus do men go wrong in their reckoning; 
and grope hither and thither, not knowing 
where they are, in what course their history 
runs. Within this last century, for instance, 
with its wild doings and destroyings, what 
hope, grounded in miscalculation, ending in 
disappointment ! How many world-famous 



victories were gained and lost, dynasties 
founded and subverted, revolutions accom- 
plished, constitutions sworn to ; and ever the 
"new era" was come, was coming, yet still it 
came not, but the time continued sick! Alas, 
all these were but spasmodic convulsions of 
the death-sick time ; the crisis of cure and re- 
generation to the lime was not there indicated. 
The real new era was when a Wise Man came 
into the world, with clearness of vision and 
greatness of soul to accomplish this old high 
enterprise, amid these new difficulties, yet 
again : A Life of Wisdom. Such a man be- 
came, by Heaven's pre-appointment, in very 
deed, the Redeemer of (he time. Did he not 
bear the curse of the time? He was filled full 
with its skepticism, bitterness, hollowness, and 
thousandfold contradictions, till his heart was 
like to break; but he subdued all this, rose 
victorious over this, and manifoldly by word 
and act showed others that come after, how to 
do the like. Honour to him who first, " through 
the impassable, paves a road !" Such indeed 
is the task of every great man ; nay, of every 
good man in one or the other sphere, since 
goodness is greatness, and the good man, high 
or humble, is ever a martyr, and a " spiritual 
hero that ventures forward into the gulf for 
our deliverance." The gulf into which this 
man ventured, which he tamed and rendered 
habitable, was the greatest and most perilous 
of all, wherein truly all others lie included: 
The whole distracted E-cistence of man in an age 
of unbelief. Whoso lives, whoso with earnest 
mind studies to live wisely in that mad element, 
may yet know, perhaps, too well, what an en- 
terprise was here ; and for the chosen of our 
time, who could prevail in that same, have the 
higher reverence, and a gratitude such as be- 
long to no other. 

How far he prevailed in it, and by what 
means, with what endurances and achieve- 
ments, will in due season be estimated; those 
volumes called Goethe's IVorks, will receive no 
further addition or alteration ; and the record 
of his whole spiritual Endeavour lies written 
there, — were the man or men but ready \vho 
could read it rightly! A glorious record; 
wherein he that would understand himself and 
his environment, and struggles for escape out 
of darkness into light, as for the one thing 
needful, will long thankfully study. For the 
whole chaotic time, what it has suffered, at- 
tained, and striven after, stands imaged there; 
interpreted, ennobled into poetic clearness. 
From the passionate longings and wailings of 
" Werter" spoken as from the heart of all 
Europe; onwards through the wild unearthly 
melody of "Faust" (like the spirit song of 
falling worlds;) to that serenely smiling wis- 
dom of " Meisters Lehrjahre," and the "Ger- 
man Hafiz," — what an interval ; and all en- 
folded in an ethereal music, as from unknown 
spheres, harmoniously uniting all ! A long 
interval; and wide as well as long; for this 
was a universal man. History, Science, Art, 
human Activity under every aspect; the laws 
of light in his " Farbenlehre ;" the laws of 
wild Italian life in his " Benvenuto Cellini ;" — 
nothing escaped him, nothing that he did not 
look into, that he did not see into. Consider 



344 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



too the genuineness of whatsoever he did ; his 
hearty, idiomatic way; simplicity with loftiness, 
and nobleness, and aerial grace. — Pure works 
of art, completed with an antique Grecian 
poli>h as " Torquato Tasso," as "Iphigenie," 
Proverbs; "Xenien;" Patriarchal Sayings, 
which, since the Hebrew Scriptures were closed, 
we know not where to match ; in whose homely 
depths lie often the materials for volumes. 

To measure and estimate all this, as we 
said, the time is not come; a century hence 
will be the fitter time. He who investigates it 
best will find its meaning greatest, and be the 
readiest to acknowledge that it transcends 
him. — Let the reader have seen, before he at- 
tempts to oversee. A poor reader, in the mean- 
while were he, who discerned not here the 
authentic rudiments of that same New Era, 
whereof we have so often had false warning. 
Wondrousl}^ the wrecks and pulverized rub- 
bish of ancient things, institutions, religions, 
forgotten noblenesses, made alive again by the 
breath of Genius, lie here in new coherence 
and incipient union, the spirit of Art working 
creative through the mass : that chaos, into 
which the eighteenth century with its wild war 
of h3rpocrites and skeptics had reduced tlie 
Past, begins here to be once more a worhl. — 
This, the highest that can be said of written 
books, is to be said of these ; there is in them 
a new time, the prophecy and beginning of a 
new time. The corner stone of a new social 
edifice for mankind is laid there ; firmly, as 
before, on the natural rock, far extending traces 
of a ground-plan we can also see, which future 
centuries may go on to enlarge, amend, and 
work into reality. These sayings seem strange 
to some; nevertheless they are not empty ex- 
aggerations, but expressions, in their way, of 
a belief, which is not now of yesterday ; per- 
haps when Goethe has been read and medi- 
tated for another generation, they will )iot seem 
so strange. 

Precious is the new light of knowledge 
which our teacher conquers for us; yet small 
to the new light of Love which also we derive 
from him; the most important element of any 
man's performance is the life he has accom- 
plished. Under the intellectual union of man 
and man, which works by precept, lies a holier 
union of afiection, working by example : the 
influences of which latter, mystic, deep-reach- 
ing, all-embracing, can still less be computed. 
For Love is ever the beginning of Knowledge, 
as fire is of light ; works also more in the 
manner of fire That Goethe was a great 
teacher of men, means already that he was a 
good man; that he himself learned; in the 
school of experience had striven and proved 
victorious. To how many hearers languish- 
ing, nigh dead, in the airless dungeon of Un- 
belief (a true vacuum and nonentity) has the 
assurance that there was such a man, that such 
a man was still possible, come like tidings ol 
great joy ! He who would learn to reconcile 
Reverence with clearness, to deny and defy 
what is false, yet believe and worship what is 
true; amid raging factions, bent on what is 
either altogether empty or has substance in it 
only for a day, which stormfully convulse and 
tear hither and thither a distracted, expiring 



system of society, to adjust himself aright.; 
and, working for the world, and in the world, 
keep himself unspotted from the world, — let 
him look here. This man, we may say, be- 
came morally great, by being in his own age 
what in some other ages many might have 
been — a genuine man. His grand excellency 
was this, that he was genuine. As his primary 
faculty, the foundation of all others, was Intel- 
lect, depth and force of Vision, so his primary 
virtue was Justice, was the courage to be just. 
A giant's strength we admired in him; yet, 
strength ennobled into softest mildness; even 
like that " silent rock-bound strength of a 
world," on whose bosom, that rests on the 
adamant, grow flowers. The greatest of hearts 
was also the bravest: fearless, unwearied, 
peacefully invincible. A completed man; the 
trembling sensibility, the wild enthusiasm of a 
Mignon, can assort with the scornful world- 
inockery of a Mephistophiles ; and each side 
of many-sided life receives its due from him. 

Goethe reckoned Schiller happy that he died 
young, in the full vigour of his days: that he 
could " figure him as a youth for ever." To 
himself a different, higher destiny was ap- 
pointed. Through all the changes of man's 
life, onwards to its extreme verge, he was to 
go; and through them all nobly. In youth, 
flatterings of fortune, uninterrupted outward 
prosperity cannot corrupt him; a wise ob- 
server must remark, "only a Goethe, at the 
sum of earthly happiness, can keep his Phcenix- 
wings unsinged." — Through manhood, in the 
most complex relation, as poet, courtier, poli- 
tician, man of business, man of speculation; 
in the middle of revolutions and counter-revo- 
lutions, outward and spiritual ; with the world 
loudly for him, with the world loudly or si- 
lently against him ; in all seasons and situa- 
tions, he holds equally on his way. Old age 
itself, which is called dark and feeble, he was 
to render lovelj' : who that looked upon him 
there, venerable in himself, and in the world's 
reverence, ever the clearer, the purer, but 
could have prayed that he too were such an 
old man 1 And did not the kind Heavens con- 
tinue kind, and grant to a career so glorious 
the worthiest end ? 

Srch was Goethe's life; such has his de- 
parture been — he sleeps now beside his Schil- 
ler and his Carl August: so had the Prince 
willed it, that between these two should be his 
own final rest. In life they were united, in 
death they are not divided. The unwearied 
Workman now rests from his labours; the 
fruit of these is left growing, and to grow. 
His earthl}^ years have been numbered and 
ended: but of his activity (for it stood rooted 
in the Eternal) there is no end. All that we 
mean by the higher Literature of Germany, 
which is the higher Literature of Europe, al- 
ready gathers round this man, as its creator; 
of which grand object, dawning mysterious on 
a world that hoped not for it, who is there that 
can assume the significance and far-reachmg- 
influences] The Literature of Europe will 
pass away; Europe itself, the Earth itself will 
pass away; this little life-boat of an Earth, 
with its noisy crew of Mankind, and all their 
troubled History, will one day have vanished, 



DEATH OF GOETHE. 



345 



faded like a cloud-speck from the azure of the 
All ! What then is man? What then is man T 
He endures but for an hour, and is crushed 
before the moth. Yet in the being and in the 
■working of a faithful man is there already (as 
all faith, from the beginning, gives assurance) 
a something that pertains not to this wild 
death-element of time; that triumphs over 
Time, and is, and will be, when Time shall be 
no more. 

And now we turn back into the world, with- 



drawing from this new made grave. The maa 
whom we love lies there : but glorious, worthy: 
and his spirit yet lives in us with an authentic 
life. Could each here vow to do his little task, 
even as the Departed did his great one; in the 
manner of a true man, not for a Day, but 
for Eternity! To live, as he counselled and' 
commanded, not commodiously in the Repu- 
table, the Plausible, the Half, but resolutely iu- 
the Whole, the Good, the True : 

" Im Ganzen, Gruten, Wahren resolut lu leben ' 



GOETHE'S WORKS/ 



[Foreign Quarterly Reviev^^ 1832.] 



It is now four years since we specially in- 
vited attention to this Book ; first in an essay 
on the graceful little fantasy-piece of Helena, 
then in a more general one on the merits and 
workings of Goethe himself: since which time 
two important things have happened in refe- 
rence to it; for the publication, advancing with 
successful regularity, reached its fortieth and 
last volume in 1830; and now, still more em- 
phatically to conclude both this "completed 
final edition," and all other editions, endeavours 
and attainments of one in whose hands lay so 
much, come tidings that the venerable man has 
been recalled from our earth, and of his long 
labours and high faithful stewardship we have 
had what was appointed us. 

The greatest epoch in a man's life is not 
always his death ; yet for bystanders, such as 
contemporaries, it is always the most notice- 
able. AH other epochs are transition-points 
from one visible condition to another visible ; 
the days of their occurrence are like any other 
days, from which only the clearer-sighted will 
distinguish them ; bridges they are, over which 
the smooth highway runs continuous, as if no 
Rubicon were there. But the day in a mortal's 
destinies which is like no other, is his death- 
day : here too is a transition, what we may call 
a bridge, as at other epochs ; but now from the 
keystone onwards half the arch rests on in- 
visibility; this is a transition out of visible 
Time into invisible Eternil}^ 

Since death, as the palpable revelation (not 
to be overlooked by the dullest) of the mystery 
of wonder, and depth, and fear, which every- 
where from beginning to ending through its 
whole course and movement lies under life, is 
in any case so great, we find it not unnatural 
that hereby a new look of greatness, a new in- 
terest should be impressed on whatsoever has 
preceded it and led to it ; that even towards 
some man, whose history did not then first 
become significant, the world should turn, at 
his departure, with a quite peculiar earnest- 

* Ooethes fVe.rke. Vollstiindige Ausgahe leticr Hand, 
(Goethe's Works. Completed, final edition,) 40 voU. 
Stuttgard and Tubingen. 1827-30. 
44 



ness, and now seriously ask itself a question, 
perhaps never seriously asked before : What 
the purport and character of his presence here 
was : now when he has gone hence, and is not 
present here, and will remain absent for ever- 
more. It is the conclusion that crowns the 
work; much more the irreversible conclusion 
wherein all is concluded: thus is there no life 
so mean but a death will make it memorable. 

At all lykewakes, accordingly, the doings 
and endurances of the Departed are the theme : 
rude souls, rude tongues grow eloquently busy 
with him; a whole septuagint of beldames are 
striving to render, in such dialect as they have, 
the small bible, or apochrypha, of his existence, 
for the general perusal. The least famous of 
mankind will for once become public, and have 
his name printed, and read not without interest: 
in the Newspaper obituaries; on some frail 
memorial, under which he has crept to sleep. 
Foolish lovesick girls know that there is one 
method to impress the obdurate, false Lovelace, 
and wring his bosom ; the method of drowning : 
foolish ruined dandies, whom the tailor will no 
longer trust, and the world turning on its heel 
is about forgetting, can recall it to attention by 
report of pistol ; and so, in a worthless death, 
if in a worthless life no more, re-attain the top- 
gallant of renown, — for one day. Death is 
ever a sublimity, and supernatural wonder, 
were there no other left: the last act of a most 
strange drama, which is not dramatic but has 
now become real : wherein, miraculously. Fu- 
ries, god-missioned, have in actual person 
risen from the abyss, and do verily dance 
there in that terror of all terrors, and wave 
their dusky-glaring torches, and shake their 
serpent-hair! Out of which heart-thrilling, so 
authentically tragic fifth act there goes, as we 
said, a new meaning overall the other four: 
making them likewise tragic and authentic, 
and memorable in some measure, were they 
formerly the sorriest pickle-herring farce. 

But above all, when a Great Man dies, then 
has the time come for putting us in mind that 
he was alive : biographies and biographic 
sketches, criticisms, characters, anecdote.s 



946 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



reminiscences, issue forth as from opened 
springing fountains ; the world, with a passion 
whetted by impossibility, will yet a while retain, 
yet a while speak with, though only to the un- 
an.swering echoes, what it has lost without 
remedy: thus is the last event of life often the 
loudest; and real spiritual ^^ppunlions, (who 
have been named Men,) as false imaginary 
ones are fabled to do, vanish in thunder. 

For ourselves, as regards the great beauty, if 
not seeking to be foremost in this natural move- 
ment, neither do we shun to mingle in it. The 
life and ways of such men as he, are, in all sea- 
sons, a matter profitable to contemplate, to speak 
of; if in this death season, long with a sad reve- 
rence looked forward to, there has little increase 
of light, little change of feeling arisen for the 
writer, a readier attention, nay a certain expect- 
ance, from some readers is call sufficient. In- 
numerable meditations and disquisitions on this 
subject must yet pass through the minds of 
men ; on all sides must it be taken up, by 
various observers, by successive generations, 
and ever a new light may evolve itself: why 
should not this observer, on this side, set down 
what he partially has seen into, and the neces- 
sary process thereby be forwarded, at any rate, 
continued 1 

A continental Humourist, of deep-piercing, 
resolute, though strangely perverse faculty, 
whose works are as yet but sparingly if at all 
cited in English literature, has written a 
chapter, somewhat in the nondescript manner 
of metaphysico-rhetorical, homiletic-exegetic 
rhapsody, on the Greatness of great men : which 
topic we agree with him in reckoning one of 
the most pregnant. The time, indeed, is come 
when much that was once found visibly sub- 
sistent Without must anew be sought for With- 
in; many a human feeling, indestructible, and to 
man's well-being indispensable, which once 
manifested itself in expressive forms to the 
Sense, now lies hidden in the formless depths 
of the Spirit, or at best struggles out obscurely 
in forms become superannuated, altogether 
inexpressive, and unrecognisable ; from which 
paralysed, imprisoned state, often the best 
effort of the thinker is required, and moreover 
were well applied, to deliver it. For if the 
Present is to be the "living sum-total of the 
whole Past," nothing that ever lived in the 
Past must be let wholly die; whatsoever was 
done, whatsoever was said or written aforetime, 
was done and written for our edification. In 
such state of imprisonment, paralysis and un- 
recognisable defacement, --s compared with its 
condition in the old ages, lies this our feeling to- 
wards great men; wherein, and in the much that 
else belongs to it, some of the deepest human 
interests will be found involved. A few words 
from Herr Professor Teufelsdreck, if they help 
to set this preliminary matter in a clearer 
light, may be worth translating here. Let us 
first remark with him, however, " how wonder- 
ful in all cases, great or little, is the importance 
of man to man :" 

"Deny it as he will," says Teufelsdreck, 
"man reverently loves man, and daily by ac- 
tion evidences his belief in the divineness of 
man. What a more than regal mystery en- 
circles the poorest of living souls for us ! The 



highest is not independent of him ; his suflVage 
has value: could the highest monarch con- 
vince himself that the humblest beggar with sin- 
cere mind despised him, no. serried ranks of 
halberdiers and body-guards could shut out 
some little twihge of pain; some emanation 
from the low had pierced into the bosom of the 
high. Of a truth, men are mystically united; a 
mystic bond of broiherhood makes all men one. 

"Thus too has that fierce hunting after Popu- 
larity, which you often wonder at, and laugh at, 
a basis on something true : nay, under (he other 
aspect, what is that wonderful spirit of Inter- 
ference, were it but manifested as the paltriest 
scandal and tea-table backbiting, other than, 
inversely or directly, a heartfelt indestructibL 
sympathy of man with man 7 Hatred itself is 
but an inverse love. The philosopher's wife 
complained to the philosopher that certain two- 
legged animals without feathers spake evil of 
him, spitefully criticised his goings out and 
comings in ; wherein she too failed not of her 
share: ' Light of my life,' answered the philo- 
sopher, ' it is their love of us, unknown to 
themselves, and taking a foolish shape; thank 
them for it, and do thou love them more wisely. 
Were we mere steam-engines working here 
under this rooftree, they would scorn to speak 
of us once in a twelve-month.' The last stage 
of human perversion, it has been said, is when 
sympathy corrupts itself into envy; and the 
indestructible interest we take in men's doings 
has become a joy over their faults and mis- 
fortunes : this is the last and lowest stage ; 
lower than this we cannot go: the absolute 
petrifaction of indifference is not attainable on 
this side total death. 

" And now," continues the Professor, " rising 
from these lowest tea-table regions of human 
communion into the higher and highest, is 
there not still in the world's demeanour to- 
wards Great Men, enough to make the old 
practice of Hero-worship intelligible, nay, signi- 
ficant? Simpleton! I tell thee Hero-worship 
still continues; it is the only creed which 
never and nowhere grows or can grow obso- 
lete. For always and everywhere this remains 
a true saying : // y a dans Ic amir humain un fibre 
rcUgieux. Man always tvorships something; 
always he sees the Infinite shadowed forth in 
something finite; and indeed can and must so 
see it in amj finite thing, once tempt him well 
to fix his eyes thereon. Yes, in practice, be 
it in theory or not, we are all Supernaturalists ; 
and have an infinite happiness or an infinite 
wo not only waiting us hereafter, but looking 
out on us through any pitifullest present good 
or evil; — as, for example, on a high poetic 
Byron through his lameness; as on all young 
souls through their first lovesuit; as on older 
souls, still more foolishly, through many a law- 
suit, paper-battle, political horse-race or ass- 
race. Atheism, it has oeen said, is impossi- 
ble ; and trul}'-, if we will consider it, no 
Atheist denies a Divinit}', but only some Name 
(Xomen, Nnrncn) of a Divinity: the God is still 
present there, working in that benighted heart, 
were it only as a god of darkness. Thousands 
of stern Sansculotte?, to seek no other instance, 
go chanting martyr hymns to their guillotine; 
these spurn at the name of a God; yet worship 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



347 



one (as hapless ' Proselytes without the Gate') 
under the new pseudonym of Freedom. What 
indeed is all this that is called political fanati- 
cism, revolutionary madness, force of hatred, 
force of love, and so forth ; but merely under 
new designations, that same wondrous, won- 
der-working reflex from the Infinite, which in 
all tirres has given the Finite its empyrean or 
tartarean hue, thereby its blessedness or cursed- 
ness, its marketable worth or unworth 1 

" Remark, however, as illustrative of several 
things, and more to the purpose here, that man 
does in strict speech always remain the clearest 
symbol of the Divinity to man. Friend Nova- 
lis, the devoutest heart I knew, and of purest 
depth, has not scrupled to call man what the 
Divine Man is called in Scripture, a 'Revela- 
tion in the Flesh.' 'There is but one temple 
in the world,' says he, ' and that is the body 
of man. Bending before men is a reverence 
done to this revelation in the flesh. We touch 
heaven when we lay our hand on a human 
body.' In which notable words, a reader that 
meditates them, may find such meaning and 
scientific accurac}' as will surprise him. 

" The age of superstition, it appears to be 
sufficiently known, are behind us. To no 
man, were he never so heroic, are shrines any 
more built, and vows offered as to one having 
supernatural power. The sphere of the tran- 
scenhental cannot now, by that avenue of 
heroic worth, of eloquent wisdom, or by any 
other avenue, be so easily reached. The 
worth that in these days could transcend all 
estimate or survey, and lead men willingly cap- 
tive into ivfinilc admiration, into worship, is 
still waited for (with little hope) from the un- 
seen Time. All that can be said to offer itself 
in that kind, at present, is some slight house- 
hold devotion, {Haus-Andacht,) whereby this or 
the other enthusiast, privately m all quietness, 
can love his hero or sage without measure, 
and idealize, and, so in a sense, idolize him ; 
— which practice, as man is by necessity an 
idol-worshipper, (no offence in him so long as 
idol means accurately vision, clear symbol,) and 
all wicked idolatry is but a nm-c idolatrous 
worship, may be excusable, in certain cases, 
praiseworthy. Be this as it will, let the curious 
eye gratify itself in observing how the old ante- 
diluvian feeling still, though now struggling 
out so imperfectly, and forced into unexpected 
shapes, asserts its existence in the newest 
man : and the Chaldeans or old Persians, with 
their Zerdusht, differ only in vesture and 
■dialect from the French, with their Voltaire 
etoiijf'e sous des roses."* 

This, doubtless, is a wonderful phraseology, 
but referable, as the Professor urges, to that 
capacious reservoir and convenience, " the 
nature of the time :" " A time," says he, " when 
as in some Destruction of a Roman Empire, 
wrecks of old things are everywhere confusedly 
jumbled with rudiments of new; so that, till 
once the mixture and amalgamation be com- 
plete, and even have long continued complete, 
and universally apparent, no grammatical lun- 
gue d'oc or langxte d'oui can establish itself, but 

* Die Kleider : ihr Werden und IVirken Von D. Teu- 
FELSDRECK. Weissniclitwo. Stillschweign'sche Buch- 
bandlung, 1830. 



onl}' some barbarous mixed lingvM rustica, more 
like a jargon than a language, mustprevail; and 
thus the deepest matters be either barbarously 
spoken of, or wholly omitted and lost sight of, 
which were still v/orse." But to let the homily 
proceed: 

" Consider, at any rate," continues he else- 
where, " under how many categories, down to 
the most impertinent, the world inquires con- 
cerning Great Men, and never wearies striving 
to represent to itself their whole structure, 
aspect, procedure, outward and inward ! Blame 
not the world for such minutest curiosity about 
its great ones: this comes of the world's old- 
established necessity to worship : and, indeed, 
whom but its great ones, that "like celestial 
fire-pillars go before it on the march," ought 
it to worship? Blame not even that mistaken 
worship of sham great ones, that are not 
celestial fire-pillars, but terrestrial glass-lan- 
terns with wick and tallow, under no guidance 
but a stupid fatuous one; of which worship 
the litanies, and gossip-homilies are, in some 
quarters of the globe, so inexpressibly unin- 
teresting. Blame it not; pity it rather, with a 
certain loving respect. 

" Man is never, let me assure thee, altogether 
a clothes-horse ; under the clothes there is 
always a body and a soul. The Ci)unt von 
Bilgeleisen, so idolized by our fasliionable 
classes, is not, as the English Swilt asserts, 
created wholly by the Tailor : but partially, also, 
by the supernatural Powers. His beautifully 
cut apparel, and graceful expensive tackle and 
environment of all kinds, are but the symbols 
of a beauty and gracefulness supposed to be 
inherent in the Count himself; under which 
predicament come also our reverence for his 
counthood, and in good part that other notable 
phenomenon of his being Avorshipped, because 
he is' worshipped, of one idolater, sheep-like, 
running after him, because many have already 
run. Nay, on what other principle but this 
latter hast thou, O reader, (if thou be not one 
of a thousand,) read, for example, thy Homer, 
and found some real joy therein 1 AH these 
things, I say, the apparel, the counthood, the 
existing popularity, and whatever else can com- 
bine them, are symbols; — bank notes, which, 
whether there be gold behind them, or only 
bankruptcy and empty drawers, pass current 
for gold. But how, now, could they so pass, 
if gold itself were not prized, and believed and 
known to be somewhere extant 1 Produce the 
actual gold visiblj% and mark how, in these 
distrustful days, your most accredited bank- 
paper stagnates in the market ! No holy Alli- 
ance, though plush, and gilding, and genealo- 
gical parchment, to the utmost that the time 
yields, be hung round it, can gain for itself a 
dominion in the heart of any man ; some thirty 
or forty millions of men's hearts being, on the 
other hand, subdued into loyal reverence by a 
Corsican Lieutenant of Artillery. Such is the 
difference between God-creation and Tailor- 
creation. Great is the tailor, but not the 
greatest. So, too, in matters spiritual, what 
avails it that a man be Doctor of the Sorbonne, 
[ Doctor of Laws, of Both Laws, and can cover 
! half a square foot in pica-type with the list of 
I his fellowships, an-anged as equilateral triangle. 



348 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



at the vertex an '&c.' over and above, and 
with the parchment of his diplomas could 
thatch the whole street he lives in: What 
avails it 1 The man is but an owl ; of pre- 
possessing gravity indeed; much respected by 
simple neighbours ; but to whose sorrowful 
hootings no creature hastens, eager to listen. 
While, again, let but some riding ganger arrive 
under cloud of night at a Scottish inn, and 
word be whispered that it is Robert Burns ; in 
few instants all beds and truckle-beds, from 
garret to cellar, are left vacant, and gentle and 
simple, with open eyes and erect ears, are 
gathered together." 

Whereby, at least, from amid this question- 
able lingua, "more like a jargon than a lan- 
guage," so much may have become apparent : 
What unspeakable importance the world at- 
taches, has ever attached, (expressing the same 
by all possible methods,) and will ever attach, 
to its great men. Deep and venerable, whether 
looked at in the Teufelsdreck manner or other- 
wise, is this love of men for great men, this 
their exclusive admiration of great men ; a 
quality of vast significance, if we consider it 
well ; for, as in its origin it reaches up into the 
highest and even holiest provinces of man's 
nature, so, in his practical history it will be 
found to play the most surprising part. Does 
not, for one example, the fact of such a temper 
indestructibly existing in all men. point out 
man as an essentially governable and teach- 
able creature, and for ever refute that calumny 
of his being by nature insubordinate, prone to 
rebellion 1 Men seldom, or rather never for a 
length of time and deliberately, rebel against 
any thing that does not deserve rebelling against. 
Ready, ever zealous is the obedience and de- 
votedness they show to the great, to the really 
high ; prostrating their whole possession and 
self, body, heart, soul, and spirit, under the feet 
of whatsoever is authentically above them. 
Nay, in most times, it is rather a slavish de- 
votedness to those who only seem and pretend 
to be above them that constitutes their fault. 

But why seek special instances ] Is not 
Love, from of old, known to be the beginning 
of all things 1 And what is admiration of the 
great but love of the truly loveablel The 
first product of love is imitation, that all- 
important peculiar gift of man, whereby Man- 
kind is not only held socially together in the 
present time, but connected in like union with 
the past and the future ; so that the attainment 
of the innumerable Departed can be conveyed 
down to the Living, and transmitted with in- 
crease to the Unborn. Now great men, in 
particular spiritually great men, for all men 
have a spirit to guide, though all have not 
kingdoms to govern and battles to fight, are 
the men universally imitated and learned of, 
the glass in which whole generations survey 
and shape themselves. 

Thus is the Great Man of an age, beyond 
comparison, the most important phenomenon 
therein ; all other phenomena, were they M'^ater- 
loo Victories, Constitutions of the }'ear One, 
glorious revolutions, new births of the golden 
age, in what sort you will, are small and trivial. 
Alas, all these pass away, and are left extinct 
behind, like the tar-barrels they were celebrated 



with, and the new-born golden age proves 
always to be still-born: neither is there, was 
there, or will there, be any other golden age pos- 
sible, save only in this: in new increase of 
worth and wisdom ; — that is to say, therefore, in 
the new arrival among us of wise and worthy 
men. Such arrivals are the great occurrences, 
though unnoticed ones ; all else that can occur, 
in what kind soever, is but the road, up hill or 
down hill, rougher or smoother: nowise the 
power that will nerve us for travelling forward 
thereon. So little comparatively can fore- 
thought or the cunningest mechanical pre-con- 
trivance do for a nation, for a world ! Ever 
must we wait on the bounty of Time, and see 
what leader shall be born for us, and whither he 
will lead. Thus too, in defect of great men, 
noted men become important : the Noted Man 
of an age is the emblem and living summary 
of the Ideal which that age has fashioned for 
itself: show me the noted man of an age, you 
show me the age that produced him. Such 
figures walk in the van, for great good, or for 
great evil ; if not leading, then driven and still 
farther misleading. The apotheosis of Beau 
Brummel has marred many a pretty youth; 
landed him not at any a'omZ where oak garlands, 
earned by faithful labour and valour, carry 
men to the immortal gods ; but, by a fatal in- 
version, at the King's Bench gaol, where he 
that has never sowed shall not any longer reap, 
still less any longer burn his barn, but scrape 
himself with potsherds among the ashes 
thereof, and consider with all deliberation 
" what he wanted, and what he wants." 

To enlighten this principle of reverence for 
the great, to teach us reverence, and whom we 
are to revere and admire, should ever be a chief 
aim of Education, (indeed it is herein that in- 
struction properly both begins and ends ;) and' 
in these late ages, perhaps more than ever, so 
indispensable is now our need of clear reve- 
rence, so inexpressibly poor our supply. " Clear 
reverence !" it was once responded to a seeker 
of light: "all want it, perhaps thou thyself.'^ 
What wretched idols, of Leeds cloth, stutfcd 
out with bran of one kind or other, do men 
either worship, or being tired of worshipping, 
(so expensively without fruit,) rend in pieces 
and kick out of doors, amid loud shouting and 
crowing, what they call " tremendous cheers," 
as if the feat were miraculous ! In private 
life, as in public, delusion in this sort does its 
work ; the blind leading the blind, both fall into 
the ditch. 

" For alas !" cries Teufelsdreck on this oc- 
casion, " though in susceptive hearts it is felt 
that a great man is unspeakably great, the 
specific marks of him are mournfully mistaken: 
thus must innumerable pilgrims journey, in 
toil and hope, to shrines where there is no 
healing. On the f;nrer half of the creation, 
above all, such error presses hard. Women 
are born worshippers ; in their good little 
hearts lies the most craving relish for great- 
ness: it is even said, each chooses her hus- 
band on the hypothesis of his being a great 
man — in his way. The good creatures, yet the 
foolish ! For their choices, no insight, or next 
to none, being vouchsafed them, are unutter- 
able. Yet how touching, also to see, for ex- 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



349 



ample, Parisian ladies of quality, all rustling 
in silks and laces, visit the condemned-cell of 
a fierce Cartouche, and in silver accents, and 
with the looks of angels, beg locks of hair 
from him ; as from the greatest, were it only 
in the pnifession of highwayman ! Still more 
fatal is that other mistake, the commonest of 
all, whereby the devotional youth, seeking for 
a great man to worship, finds such within his 
own worthy person, and proceeds with all zeal 
to worship iherc. Unhappy enough ! to realize, 
in an age of such gas-light illumination, this 
basest superstition of the ages of Egyptian 
darkness. 

"Remark, however, and not without emo- 
tion, that of all rituals, and divine services, 
and ordinances ever instituted for the worship 
of any god, this of Self-worship is the ritual 
most faithfully observed. Trouble enough 
has the Hindoo devotee, with his washings, 
and cookings, and perplexed formularies, 
tying him up at every function of his exist- 
ence : but is it greater trouble than that of his 
German self-worshipping brother; is it trouble 
even by the devoutest Fakir, so honestly un- 
dertaken and fulfilled 1 I answer. No ; for the 
German's heart is in it. The German wor- 
shipper, for whom does he work, and scheme, 
and struggle, and fight, at his rising up and 
lying down, in all times and places, but for his 
^od only 1 Can he escape from that divine 
presence of Self; can his heart waver, or his 
hand wax faint in that sacred service ? The 
Hebrew Jonah, prophet as he was, rather than 
take a message to Nineveh, took ship to Tarsh- 
ish, hoping to hide there from his Sender; but 
in what ship-hull or whale's belly, shall the 
madder German Jonah cherish hope of hiding 
from — Himself! Consider too the temples he 
builds, and the services of (shoulder-knotted) 
priests he ordains and maintains; the smoking 
sacrifices, thrice a day or oftener, with per- 
haps a psalmist or two, of broken-winded lau- 
reats and literators, if such are to be had. 
Nor are his votive gifts wanting, of rings, 
and jewels, and gold embroideries, such as 
our Lady of Loretto might grow yellower to 
look upon. A toilsome, perpetual worship, 
heroically gone through ; and then with what 
issue 1 Alas, with the worst. The old Egyp- 
tian leek-worshipper had, it is to be hoped, 
seasons of light and faith : his leek-god seems 
to smile on him; he is humbled, and in humi- 
lity exalted, before the majesty of something, 
were it only that of germinative Physical Na- 
ture, seen through a germinating, not unnou- 
rishing potherb. The Self-worshipper, again, 
has no seasons of light, which are not of blue 
sulphur-light; hungry, envious pride, not hu- 
mility in any sort, is the ashy fruit of his wor- 
ship; his self-god growls on him with the 
perpetual wolf-cry. Give ! Give ! and your de- 
vout Byron, as the Frau Hunt, with a wise 
sinipliciiy {^ciftrcich nnh;") once said, 'must sit 
sulking like a great schoolboy, in pet because 
they have given him a plain bun and not a 
spiced one.'— His bun was a life-rent of God's 
universe, with the tasks it oflered, and the 
tools to do them with; a priori, one might 
.have fancied it could be put up with for once." 

After which wondrous glimpses into the 



Teufelsdreck Homily on the Greatness of Great 
Men, it may now be high time to proceed with 
the matter more in hand ; and remark that 
our much calumniated age, so fruitful in noted 
men, is also not without its great. In noted 
men, undoubtedly enough, we surpass all ages 
since the creation of the world; and from two 
plain causes: First, that there has been a 
French Revolution, and that .there is now 
pretty rapidly proceeding a European Revolu- 
tion ; whereby every thing, as in the Term- 
day of a great city, when all mortals are re- 
moving, has been, so to speak, set out into 
the street; and many a foolish vessel of dis- 
honour, unnoticed, and worth no notice in its 
own dark corner, has become universally re- 
cognisable when once mounted on the summit 
of some furniture-wagon, and tottering there — 
(as committee-president, or other head-direc- 
tor,) with what is put under it, slowly onwards 
to its new lodging and arrangement, itself, 
alas, hardly to get thither without breakage. 
Secondly, that the Printing Press, with stitched 
and loose leaves, has now come into full ac- 
tion ; and makes, as it were, a sort of univer- 
sal day-light for removal and revolution, and 
every thing else, to proceed in, far more com- 
modiously, yet also far more conspicuously. 
A complaint has accordingly been heard that 
famous men abound, that we are quite overrun 
with famous men : however, the remedy lies 
in the disease itself; crowded succession al- 
ready means quick oblivion. For wagon after 
wagon rolls off, and either arrives or is over- 
set; and so, in either case the vessel of disho- 
nour, which, at worst, we saw only in crossing 
some street, will afiiict us no more. 

Of great men, among so many millions of 
noted men, it is computed that in our time 
there have been two; one in the practical, an- 
other in the speculative province : Napoleon 
Bonaparte and Johann Wolfgang von Goeihe. 
In which dual number, inconsiderable as it is, 
our time may, perhaps, specially pride itself, 
and take precedence of many others ; in par- 
ticular, reckon itself the flower-time of the 
whole last century and half. Ever}- age will, 
no doubt, have its superior man or men : but 
one so superior as to take rank among the 
high of all ages ; this is what we call a great 
man ; this rarely makes his appearance, such 
bounty of nature and accident must combine 
to produce and unfold him. Of Napoleon 
and his works all ends of the world have 
heard; for sudi a host marched not in silence 
through the frighted deep : [ew heads there 
are in this Planet which have not formed to 
themselves some featured or featureless image 
of him; his history has been written about, 
on the great scale and on the small, some 
millions of times, and still remains to be writ- 
ten : one of our highest literary problems. 
For such a "light-nimbus" of glory and re- 
nown encircled the man; the environment he 
walked in was itself so stupendous that the 
eye grew dazzled and mistook his proportions; 
or quite turned away from him in pain and 
temporary blindness. 'J'hus even among the 
clear-sighted there is no unanimity about Na- 
poleon ; and only here and there does his own 
greatness bee'in to be interpreted, and accu- 
2 G 



350 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rately separated from the mere greatness of 
his fame and fortune. 

Goethe, again, though of longer continuance 
in the world, and intrinsically of much more 
unquestionable greatness, and even import- 
ance there, could not be so noted by the world : 
for if the explosion of powder-mines and ar- 
tillery-parks naturally attracts every eye and 
ear; the approach of a new-created star 
(dawning on us in new-created radiance, 
from the eternal Deeps !) though this, and not 
the artillery-parks, is to shape our destiny and 
rule the lower earth, is notable at first only 
to certain star-gazers and weather-prophets. 
Among ourselves, especially, Goethe had little 
recognition : indeed, it was only of late that 
his existence, as a man and not as a mere 
sound, became authentically known to us; 
and some shadow of his high endowments 
and endeavours, and of the high meaning that 
might lie therein, arose in the general mind 
of England, even of intelligent England. Five 
years ago, to rank him with Napoleon, like 
him as rising unattainable beyond his class, 
like him and more than he of quite peculiar 
moment to all Europe, would have seemed a 
wonderful procedure; candour even, and 
enlightened liberalitjs to grant him place 
beside this and the other home-born ready- 
writer, blessed with that special privilege of 
" English cultivation," and able thereby to 
write novels, heart captivating, heart-rending, 
or of enchaining interest. 

Since which time, however, let us say, the 
progress of clearer apprehension has been 
rapid and satisfactory: innumerable unmu- 
sical voices have already fallen silent on this 
matter; for in fowls of every feather, even in 
the pertest choughs and thievish magpies, 
there dwells a singular reverence of the eagle; 
no Dullness is so courageous, but if you once 
show it any gleam of a heavenly Resplen- 
dence, it will, at lowest, shut its eyes and say 
nothing. So fares it here with the " old estab- 
lished British critic ;" who, indeed in these 
days of ours, begins to be strangely situated; 
so many new things rising on his horizon, 
black indefinable shapes, magical or not ; the 
old brickfield (where he kneaded insufficient 
marketable bricks) all stirring under his feet ; 
preternatural, mad-making tones in the earth 
and air: — with all which what shall an old- 
established British critic and brickmaker do, 
but, at wisest, put his hands in his pockets, 
and, with the face and heart of a British mas- 
tiff, though amid dismal enough forebodings, 
see what it will turn to ? 

In the younger, more hopeful minds, again, 
in most minds that can be considered as in a 
state of growth, German literature .is taking its 
due place : in such, and in generations of other 
such that are to follow them, some thankful 
appreciation of the greatest in German litera- 
ture cannot fail ; at all events this feeling that 
he is great and the greatest, whereby apprecia- 
tion, and, what alone is of much value, appro- 
priation, first becomes rightly possible. To 
forward such on their way towards appropriat- 
ing what excellence this man realized and 
created for them, somewhat has already been 
donej yet not much; much still waits to be 



done. The field, indeed, is large: there are 
forty volumes of the most significant Writing 
that has been produced for the last two cen- 
turies ; there is the whole long Life and heroic 
Character of him who produced them ; all this 
to expatiate over and inquire into; in both 
which departments the deepest thinker, and 
most far-sighted, may find scope enough. 

Nevertheless, in these days of the ten-pound 
franchise, when all the world (perceiving now 
like the Irish innkeeper, that " death and de- 
struction are just coming in ") will have itself 
represented in parliament; and the wits of so 
many are gone in this direction to gather wool, 
and must needs return more or less shorn; it 
were foolish to invite either young or old into 
great depths of thought on such a remote mat- 
ter; the tendency of which is neither for the 
Reform Bill nor against it, but quietly through 
it and beyond it; nowise to prescribe tiiis or 
that mode of i'Icc:inc; xnemhers, but only to pro- 
duce a few members worth electing. Not for 
many years (who knows how many!) in these 
harassed, hand-to-mouth circumstances, can 
the world's bleared eyes open themselves to 
study the true import of such topics; of this 
topic the highest of such. As things actually 
stand, some quite cursory glances, and con- 
siderations close on the surface, to remind a 
few (unelected, unelective) parties interested, 
that it lies over for study, are all that can be 
attempted here: could we, bj^ any method, in 
any measure, disclose for such the wondrous 
wonder-working ckment it hovers in, the light 
it is to be studied and inquired after in, what 
is needfullest at present were accomplished. 

One class of considerations, near enough 
the surface, we avoid; all that partakes of an 
elegiac character. True enough, nothing can 
be done or suffered, but there is something to 
be said, wisely or unwisely. The departure 
of our Greatest contemporary Mrin could not 
be other than a great event ; fitted to awaken, 
in all who with understanding beheld it, feel- 
ing sad, but high and sacred, of mortality 
and immortality, of mourning and of tri- 
umph ; far lookings into the Past and into 
the Future; so many changes, fearful and 
wonderful, of fleeting Time; glimpses loo of 
the Eternity these rest on, which knows no 
change. At the present date and distance, 
however, all this pertains not to us; has been 
uttered elsewhere, or may be left for utterance 
there. Let us consider the Exequies as past; 
that the high Rogus, with its sweet scented 
wood, amid the wail of music eloquent to 
speechless hearts, has flamed aloft, heaven- 
kissing, in sight of all the Greeks ; and that 
now the ashes of the Hero are gathered into 
their urn, and the host has marched onwards 
to new victfiries and new toils; ever to be 
mindful of the dead, not to mourn for him any 
more. The host of the Greeks, in this case, 
was all thinking Europe: whether their funeral 
games were appropriate and worthy we stop 
not to inquire; the time, in regard to such 
things, is empty or ill provided, and this was 
what the time could conveniently do. All 
canonization and solemn cremation »re gone 
by; and as yet nothing suitable, nolhin? that 
does not border upon parody, has appeared in 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



351 



their room. A Benlham bequeaths his re- 
mains to be lectured over in a school of ana- 
tomy; and perhaps, even in this way, finds, as 
chief of the Utilitarians, a really nobler funeral 
than any other, which the prosaic age, rich 
only in crapes and hollow scutcheons, (of tim- 
ber as of words,) could have aflbrded him. 

The matter in hand beinsj Goelhc's Workf, 
and the greatest work of every man, or rather 
the summary and net amount of all his works, 
being the Life he has led, we ask, as the first 
question: — How it went with Coethe in thai 
matter; what was the practical basis, of want 
and fulfilment, of joy and sorrow, from which 
his spiritual productions grew forth ; the char- 
acters of which they must m.ore or less legibly 
bearl In which sense, those Volumes entitled 
by him Dirktuns; und Wahrhci!, wherein his 
personal history, what he has thought fit to 
make known of it, stands delineated, will long 
be valuable. A noble commentary, instructive 
in many ways, lies opened there, and yearly 
increasing in worth and interest; which all 
readers, now when the true quality of it is 
ascertained, will rejoice that circumstances 
induced and allowed him to write: for surely 
if old Cellini's counsel have any propriety, it 
is doubly proper in this case; the autobiogra- 
phic practice he recommends (of which the 
last century in particular has seen so many 
•worthy and worthless examples) was never 
so much in place as here. " All men, of what 
rank soever," thus counsels the brave Ben- 
venuto, "who have accomplished aught vir- 
tuous or virtuous-like, should, provided they 
be conscious of really good purposes, write 
down their own life ; nevertheless, not put 
hand to so worthy an enterprise till after they 
have reached the age of forty." All which 
iikase-regulations Goethe had abundantly ful- 
filled — the last as abundantly as any, for he 
had now reached the age of sixty-two. 

"This year, 1811," says he, "distinguishes 
itself for me by persevering outward activity. 
The Life of Phiip Harkert went to press; the 
papers committed to me all carefully elaborated 
as the case required. By this task I was once 
more attracted to the South : the occurrences 
which, at that period, had befallen me there, in 
Hackert's company or neighbourhood, became 
alive in the imagination ; I had cause to ask. 
Why this which I was doing for another 
should not be attempted for myself? I turned, 
accordingly, before completion of that volume, 
to my own earliest- personal history ; and, in 
truth, found here that I had delayed too lon^. 
The work should have been undertaken while 
my mother yet lived ; thereby had I got nigher 
those scenes of childhood, and been, by her 
great strength of memory, transported into the 
midst of them. Now, however, must these 
Tanished apparitions be recalled by my own 
help; and, first, with labour, many an incite- 
ment to recollection, like a necessary magic- 
apparatus be devised. To represent the de- 
velopment of a child who had grown to be re- 
markable, how thif: exhibited itself und^r given 
circumstances, and yet how in general it cou'd 
content the student of human nature and his 
views: such was the thing I had to do. 

*' In this .sense, unpretendingly enough, to a 



work treated, with anxious fidelity, I gave the 
name Wdhrheit vnd Dirbtuvg, (Truth and Fic- 
tion ;) deeply convinced that man, in immedi- 
ate Presence, still more in Remembrance, 
fashions and models the external world accord- 
ing to his own peculiarities. 

"The business, as, with historical studying, 
and otherwise recalling of places and persons, 
[ had much time to spend on it, busied me 
wheresoever I went or stood, at home and 
abroad, to such a degree that my actual con- 
dition became like a secondary matter; though 
again, on all hands, when summoned outwards 
by occasion, I with full force and undivided 
sense proved myself present." — llVr.^.cxxxii. 62. 

These Volumes, with what other supple- 
mentary matter has been added to them, (the 
rather as Goethe's was a life of manifold rela- 
tion, of the widest connection with important 
or elevated persons, not to be carelessly laid 
before the world, and he had the rare good for- 
tune of arranging all things that regarded even 
his posthumous concernment with the existing 
generation, according to his own deliberate 
judgment,) are perhaps likely to be, for a long 
time, our <mly authentic reference. By the 
last will of the deceased, it would seem, all his 
papers and effects are to lie exactly as they 
are, till after another twenty years. 

Looking now into these magically-recalled 
scenes of childhood and manhood, the student 
of human nature will, under all manner of 
shapes, from first to last, note one thing: The 
singularly complex Possibility offered from 
without, yet along with it the deep never-fail- 
ing Force from within, whereby all this is 
conquered and realized. It was as if accident 
and primary endowment had conspired to pro- 
duce a character on the great scale ; a will is 
cast abroad into the widest, wildest element, 
and gifted also in an extreme degree, to prevail 
over this, to fashion this to its own form: in 
which subordinating and self-fashioning of its 
circumstances, a character properly consists. 
In external situations, it is true, in occurrences 
such as could be recited in the Newspapers, 
Goethe's existence is not more complex than 
other men's; outwardly rather a pacific smooth 
existence: but in his inward specialities and 
depth of faculty and temper, in his position 
spiritual and temporal towards the world as it 
was and the world as he could have wished it, 
the observant eye may discern complexity, 
perplexity enough; an extent of data greater, 
perhaps, than had lain in any life-problem for 
some centuries. And now, as mentioned, the 
force for solving this was, in like manner, 
granted him in extraordinary measure; so that 
we must say, his possibilities were faithfully 
and with wonderful success turned into acqui- 
sitions; and this man fought the good fight, not 
only victorious, as all true men are, but victo- 
rious without damage, and with an ever-in- 
creasing strength for new victory, as only 
s-reat and happy men are. Not wounds and 
loss (beyond fast-healing, skin-deep wounds) 
has the unconquerable to suffer; only ever- 
endurinc: toil; wearines.f — from which, after 
rest, he will rise stronger than before. 

Good fortune, what the world calls good for- 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tune, awaits him from beginning to end; but 
also a far deeper felicity than this. Such 
■worldly gifts of good fortune are what we 
called po.-^sibiiities : happy he that can rule 
over them ; hut duubhj unhappy he that cannot. 
Only in virtue of good guid ince does that same 
good fortune prove good. Wealth, health, fiery 
light with Proteus manysidedness of mind, 
peace, honour, length of days: with all this 
you may make no Goethe, but only some Vol- 
taire; with the most that was fortuitous in all 
this, make only some short-lived, unhappy, 
unprofitable Byron. 

At no period of the World's History can a 
gifted man be born when he will not find 
enough to do; in no circumstances come into 
life but there will be contradictions for him to 
reconcile, difficulties which it will task his 
•whole strength to surmount, if his whole 
strength suffice. Eveiywhere the human soul 
stands between a hemisphere of light and 
another of darkness ; on the confines of two 
everlastingly hostile empires. Necessity and 
Freewill. A pious adage says, " the back is 
made for the burden :" we might with no less 
truth invert it, and say, the burden was made 
for the back. Nay, so perverse is the nature 
of man, it has in all times been found that an 
external allotment superior to the common 
was more dangerous than one inferior; thus 
for a hundred that can bear adversity, there is 
hardly one that can bear prosperity. 

Of riches, in particular, as of the grossest 
species of prosperity, the perils are recorded 
by all moralists; and ever, as of old, must the 
sad observation from time to time occur: 
"Easier for a camel to pass through the eye 
of a needle!" Riches in a cultured community 
are the strangest of things: a power all-mov- 
ing, yet which any the most powerless and 
skilless can put in moticm ; they are the readies! 
of possibilities ; the readiest to become a great 
blessing or a great curse. " Beneath gold 
thrones and mountains," says Jean Paul, " who 
knows how many giant spirits lie entombed!" 
The first fruit of riches, especially for the man 
born rich, is to teach him faith in them, and all 
but hide from him that there is any other faith : 
thus is he trained up in the miserable eye-ser- 
vice of what is called Honour, Respectability; 
instead of a man we have but a eigmav, — one 
who "always kept a gig," two-wheeled or four- 
wheeled. Consider too what this same gig- 
manhood issues in; consider that first and 
most stupendous of gigmen. Phaeton, the son 
of Sol, who drove the brightest of all conceiv- 
able gigs, yet with the sorrowfullest result. 
Alas, Phaeton was his father's heir; born to 
attain the highest fortune without earning it: 
he had b^dl-' no sun-chariot, (could not build the 
simplest wheelbarrow,) but could and would 
insist on driving one; and so broke his own 
stiff neck, sent gig and horses spinning through 
infinite space, and set the universe on fire! — 
Or, to speak in more modest figures, Povertv, 
we may say, surrounds a man with ready-made 
barriers, which, if they mournfully gall and 
hamper, do at least prescribe for him and force 
on him a sort of course and goal; a ^afe and 
beaten though a circuiious course; great part 
©f his guidance is secure against fatal error, is 



withdrawn from his control. The rich, again, 
has his whole life to guide, without goal or 
barrier, save of his own choosing; and, tempted 
as we have seen, is too likely to guide it ill; 
often, instead of walking straight forward, as 
he might, does but, like Jeshurun, wax fat and 
kick; in which processj it is clear, not the 
adamnntine circle of Necessity whereon the 
World is built, but only his own limb-bones 
must go to pieces ! — Truly, in plain prose, if 
we bethink us what a roati many a Byron and 
Mirabeau, especially in these latter generations, 
have gone, it is proof of an uncommon inward 
wealth in Goethe; that the outward wealth, 
whether of money or other happiness which 
Fortune offered him, did in no case exceed the 
power of Nature to appropriate and whole- 
somely assimilate; that all outward blessed- 
ness grew 10 inward strength, and produced 
only blessed effects for him. Those " gold 
mountains" of Jean Paul, to the giant that can 
rise above them, are excellent, both fortified 
and speculatory, heights; and do in fact be- 
come a throne, where happily they have not 
been a tomb. 

Goethe's childhood is throughout of riant, 
joyful character: kind plenty, in every sense, 
security, affection, manifold excitement, in- 
struction, encircles him: wholly an element 
of sun and azure, wherein the young spirit, 
awakening and attaining, can on all hands 
richly unfold itself. A beautiful boy, of earnest, 
lucid, serenely deep nature, with the peaceful 
completeness yet infinite incessant expansive- 
ness of a boy, has, in the fittest environment, 
begun to be: beautiful he looks and moves; 
rapid, gracefully prompt, like the son of Maia; 
wise, noble, like Latona's son : nay (as all men 
may ^(otc see) he is, in very truth, a miniature 
incipient world-poet; of all heavenly figures 
the beautifullest we icnow of that can visit this 
lower earth. Lovely enough shine for us 
those young years in old Teutonic Frankfort; 
mirrored in the far remembrance of the Self- 
historian, real yet ideal, they are among our 
most genuine poetic Idyls. No smallest mat- 
ter is too small for us, when we think who it 
was that did it or suffered it. The little long- 
clothed urchin, mercurial enough with all his 
stillness, can throw a whole cargo of new- 
marketed crockery, piece by piece, from the 
balcony into the street, (once the feat is sug- 
gested to him ;) and comically shatters cheap 
delf-ware with the same, right hand, which 
tragically wrote and hurled forth the demonic 
scorn of Mephistophiles, or as "right hand" of 
Faust, " smote the universe to ruins." Neither 
smile more than enough (if thou be wise) that 
the gray-hai red, all-experienced man remembers 
how the boy walked on the Mayn bridge, and 
"liked to look at the bright weather-cock" on 
the barrier there. That foolish piece of gilt 
wood, there glittering sun-lit, with its reflex 
wavering in the Mayn waters, is awakening 
quite another glitter in the young gifted soul: 
is not this foolish sun-lit splendour also, now 
when there is an eye to behold it, one of Na- 
ture's doings ? The eye of the young seer is 
here, through the paltriest chink, looking into 
the infinite Splendours of Nature — where, one 
day, himself is to enter and dwell. 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



353 



Goethe's mother appears to have been the 
more gifted of the parents ; a woman of alto- 
gether genial character, great spiritual faculty 
and worth; whom the son, at an after time, 
put old family friends in mind of. It is grati- 
fying for us that she lived to witness his ma- 
turity in works and honours ; to know that the 
little infant she had nursed was grown to be a 
mighty man, the first man of his nation and 
time. In the father, as prosperous citizen of 
Frankfort, skilled in many things, improved 
by travel, by studies both practical and orna- 
mental ; decorated with some diplomatic title, 
but passing, among his books, paintings, col- 
lections and household possessions, social or 
intellectual, spiritual or material, a quite undi- 
plomatic independent life, we become ac- 
quainted with a German (not country) but 
city gentleman of the last century ; a character 
scarcely ever familiar in our Islands ; now 
perhaps almost obsolete among the Germans 
too. A positive, methodical man, sound- 
headed, honest-hearted, sharp-tempered ; with 
an uncommon share of volition, among other 
things, so that scarcely any obstacle would 
turn him back, but whatsoever he could not 
mount over he would struggle round, and in 
any case be at the end of his journey: many 
or all of whose good qualities passed also over 
by inheritance; and, in fairer combination, on 
nobler objects, to the whole world's profit, 
■were seen a second time in action. 

Family incidents; house-buildings, or re- 
buildings; arrivals, departures; in any case, 
new-year's-days and birth-days, are not want- 
ing : nor city-incidents; many coloured tumult 
of Frankfort fairs; Kaisers' coronations, ex- 
pected and witnessed ; or that glorious cere- 
monial of the yearly Pfeiffergericht, wherein the 
grandfather himself plays so imperial a part. 
World incidents too roll forth their billows into 
the remotest creek, and alter the current there. 
The Earthquake of Lisbon hurls the little 
Frankfort boy into wondrous depths of another 
sort; enunciating dark theological problems, 
which no theology of his will solve. Direction, 
instruction, in like manner, awaits him in the 
Great Frederic's Seven Years' War; especi- 
ally in that long billetting of King's Lieutenant 
Comte de Thorane, with his serjeants and 
adjutants, with his painters and picture-easels, 
his quick precision and decision, his "dry 
gallantry" and stately Spanish bearing;— 
though collisions with the "house-father," 
whose German house-stairs (though he silently 
endures the inevitable) were not new-built to 
be made a French highway of; who besides 
loves not the French, but the great invincible 
Fritz they are striving to beat down. Think, 
for example, of that singular congratulation on 
the victory at Bergen : 

"So then, at last, after a restless Passion- 
week, Passion-Friday, 1759, arrived. A deep 
stillness announced the approaching storm. 
We children were forbidden to leave the 
house; our fatlier had no rest, and went out. 
The battle began; I mounted to the top story, 
where the field, indeed, was still out of my 
sight, but the thunder of the cannon and the 
volleys of the small arms could be fully dis- 
cerned. After some hours, we saw the first 
45 



tokens of the battle, in a row of wagons, 
whereon wounded men, in all sorts of sorrow- 
ful dismemberment and gesture, were drivea 
softly past us to the Liebfrauen-Kloster, which 
had been changed into a hospital. The com- 
passion of the citizens forthwith awoke. Beer, 
wine, bread, money were given to such as had 
still power of receiving. But when, ere long, 
wounded and captive Germans also were 
noticed in that train, the pity had no limits; it 
seemed as if each were bent to strip himself 
of whatever movable thing he had, to aid his 
countrymen therewith in their extremity. 

"The prisoners, meanwhile, were the symp- 
tom of a battle unprosperous for the Allies. 
My father, in his partiality, quite certain that 
these would gain, had the passionate rashness 
to go out to meet the expected visitors; not 
reflecting that the beaten side would in that 
case have to run over him. He went first into 
his garden, at the Friedberg Gate, where he 
found all quiet and solitary; then ventured 
forth to the Bornheim Heath, where soon, 
however, various scattered outrunners and 
baggage-men came in sight, who took the 
satisfaction, as they passed, of shooting at the 
boundary-stones, and sent our eager wanderer 
the reverberated lead singing about his ears. 
He reckoned it wiser, therefore, to come back; 
and learned on some inquiry, what the sound 
of the firing might already have taught him, 
that for the French all went well, and no re- 
treat was thought of. Arriving home full of 
black humour, he quite, at sight of his wounded 
and prisoner countrymen, lost all composure. 
From him also many a gift went out for the 
passing wagons, but only Germans were to 
taste of it ; which arrangement, as Fate had so 
huddled friends and foes together, could not 
always be adhered to. 

" Our mother, and we children, who had 
from the first built upon the Count's word, and 
so passed a tolerably quiet day, were greatly 
rejoiced, and our mother doubly comforted, as 
she that morning, on questioning the oracle 
of her jewel box by the scratch of a needle, 
had obtained a most consolatory answer not 
only for the present but for the future. We 
w^ished our father a similar belief and disposi- 
tion : we flattered him what we could, we en- 
treated him to take some food, which he had 
forborne all day; he refused our caresses and 
every enjoyment, and retired to his room. 
Our joy, in the meanwhile, was not disturbed; 
the business was over: the King's Lieutenant, 
who to-day, contrary to custom, had been on 
horseback, at length returned; his presence at 
home was more needful than ever. We sprang 
out to meet him, kissed his hands, testified our 
joy. It seemed to please him greatly. 'Well!' 
said he, with more softness than usual, 'I am 
glad too for your sake, dear children.' He 
ordered us sweetmeats, sweet wine, everything 
the best, and went to his chamber, where al- 
ready a mass of importuners, solicitors, peti- 
tioners, were crowded. 

" We held now a dainty collation; deplored 
our good father, who could not participate 
therein, and pressed our mother to bring him 
down ; she, however, knew better, and how 
uncheering such gifts would be to him. Mean- 
2a 3 



354 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



while she had put some supper in order, and 
■would fain have sent him up a little to his 
room ; but such irregularity was a thing he 
never suiTered, not in extremest cases; so the 
sweet gifts being once put aside, she set about 
entreating him to come down in his usual way. 
He yielded at last, unwillingly, and little did 
we know what mischief we were making 
ready. The stairs ran free through the whole 
house, past the door of ever}^ anti-chamber. 
Our father, in descending, had to pass the 
Count's apartments. His anti-chamber was 
so full of people that he had at length resolved 
to come out, and despatch several at once ; and 
this happened, alas, just at the instant our 
father was passing down. The Count stept 
cheerfully out, saluted him, and said: 'You 
will congratulate us and yourself that this 
dangerous afT^iir has gone off so happil}'.' — 
'Not at all!' replied my father, with grim 
emphasis: 'I wish they had chased you to the 
Devil, had I myself gone too.' The Count held 
in for a moment, then burst forth with fury : 

' You shall repent this ! You shall not' " 

Father Goethe, however, has " in the mean- 
while quietly descended," and sat down to sup, 
much cheerfuller than formerly ; he little 
caring, " we little knowing, in what question- 
able way he had rolled the stone from his 
heart," and how official friends must interfere 
and secret negotiations enough go on, to keep 
him out of military prison, and worse things 
that might have befallen there. On all which 
may we be permitted once again to make the 
simple reflection : What a plagued and plagu- 
ing world, with its battles and bombardments, 
wars and rumours of war, (which sow or reap 
no ear of corn for any man,) this is ! The 
boy, who here watches the musket-volleys and 
cannon-thunders of the great Fritz, shall, as 
man, witness the siege of Mentz; fly with 
Brunswick Dukes before Doumouriez and his 
Sansculottes, through a country champed into 
one red world of mud, " like Pharaoh," (for 
the carriage too breaks down,) "through the 
Red Sea ;" and finally become involved in the 
■universal fire-consummation of Napoleon, and 
by skill defend himself from hurt therein! — 

The father, with occasional subsidiary pri- 
vate tutors, is his son's schoolmaster; a some- 
what pedantic pedagogue, with ambition 
enough and faithful good will, but more of 
rigour than of insight; who, however, works 
on a subject that he cannot spoil. Languages, 
to the number of six or seven, with whatsoever 
pertains to them; histories, syllabuses, know- 
ledges-made-easy ; not to speak of dancing, 
drawing, music, or, in due time, riding and 
fencing: all is taken in with boundless appe- 
tite and aptitude ; all is but fuel, injudiciously 
piled, and of wet quality, yet under which 
works an unquenchable Greek-fire that will 
feed itself therewith, that will one day make it 
all clear and glowing. The paternal grand- 
mother, recollected as a "pale, thin, ever white 
and clean dressed figure," provides the children 
many a satisfaction; and at length, on some 
festive night the crowning one of a puppet- 
show : whereupon ensues a long course of 
theatrical speculatings and practisings, some- 
what as delineated, for another party, in the 



first book of MeUler's Jpprcntxceship ; in which 
work, indeed, especially in the earlier portion 
of it, some shadow of the author's personal 
experience and culture is more than once 
traceable. Thus Meister's desperate burnt- 
offering of his 3^oung "Poems on various Oc- 
casions," was the image of a reality which 
took place in Leipsic, made desperately enough, 
"on the kitchen hearth, the thick smoke from 
which, flowing through the whole house, filled 
our good landlady with alarm." 

Old " Imperial Freetown" Frankfort is not 
without its notabilities, tragic or comic ; in any 
case, impressive and didactic. The young 
heart is filled with boding to look into the 
Jv(len-s:asse, (Jew-gate,) where squalid painful 
Hebrews are banished to scour old clothes, 
and in hate, and greed, and Old-Hebrew ob- 
stinacy and implacability, work out a wonder- 
ful prophetic existence, as " a people terrible 
from the beginning;" manages, however, to 
get admittance to their synagogue, and see a 
wedding and a circumcision. On its spike, 
aloft on one of the steeples, grins, for the last 
two hundred years, the bleached skull of a 
malefactor and traitor; properly, indeed, not 
so much a traitor, as a Radical whose Reform 
Bill could not be carried through. The future 
book-writer also, on one occasion, sees the 
execution of a book; how the huge printed 
reams rustle in the flames, are stirred up with 
oven-forks, and fly half-charred aloft, the sport 
of winds ; from which half-charred leaves, 
diligently picked up, he pieces himself a copy 
together, as did many others, and with double 
earnestness reads it. 

As little is the old Freetown deficient in no- 
table men; all accessible to a grandson of the 
Schullheiss,* who besides is a youth like no 
other. Of which originals, curious enough, 
and long since "vanished from the sale-cata- 
logues," take only these two specimens : 

"Von Reineck, of an old-noble house; able, 
downright, but stiff"-necked; a lean black-brown 
man, whom I never saw smile. The misfor- 
tune befel him that his only daughter was car- 
ried off"by a friend of the family. He prosecuted 
his son-in-law with the most vehement suit; 
and as the courts, in their formality, would 
neither fast enough, nor with force enough 
obey his vengeance, he fell out with thern ; and 
there arose quarrel on quarrel, process on 
process. He withdrew himself wholly into his 
house and the adjoining garden, lived in a 
spacious but melancholy under-room, where 
for many years no brush of a painter, perhaps 
scarcely the besom of a maid, had got admit- 
tance. Me he would willingly endure ; had 
specially recommended me to his younger son. 
His oldest friends, who knew how to humour 
him, his men of business and agents, he often 
had at table: and on such occasions failed not 
to invite me. His board was well furnished, 
his buffet still better. His guests, however, 
had one torment, a large stove smoking out of 
many cracks. One of the most intimate ven- 



♦ Schultheiss is the title of the chief magistrate in some 
free-towns and republics, for instance, in Berne. It 
seems to derive itself from Scliuld-lieissen, and may 
mean the teller of dutv, him by whom what should be is 
hight. 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



355 



tured once to take notice of it, and ask the host 
whether he could stand such an inconvenience 
the whole winter. He answered, like a second 
Timon, and Heautontimorumenos : 'Would to 
God this were the worst mischief of those that 
plague me !' Not till late would he be per- 
suaded to admit daughter and grandson to his 
sight: the son-in-law was never more to show 
face before him. 

" On this brave and unfortunate man my 
presence had a kind effect; for as he gladly 
spoke with me, in particular instructed me on 
political and state concerns, he seemed him- 
self to feel assuaged and cheered. Accordingly, 
the few old friends who still kept about him. 
would ollen make use of me when they wished 
to soothe his indignant humour, and persuade 
him to any recreation. In fact he now more 
than once went out with us, and viewed the 
neighbourhood again, on which, for so many 
years, he had not turned an eye." * * * 

"Hofrath Huisgen, not a native of Frank- 
fort; of the Reformed religion, and thus inca- 
pable of public office, of advocacy among the 
rest, which latter, however, as a man much 
trusted for juristic talent, he, under another's 
signature, contrived quite calmly to practise, 
as well in Frankfort as in the Imperial Courts, 
— might be about sixty when I happened to 
have writing lessons along with his son, and 
so came into the house. His figure was large ; 
tall without being bony, broad without corpu- 
lency. His face, deformed not only by small- 
pox, but wanting one of the eyes, you could 
not look on, for the first time, without appre- 
hension. On his bald head he wore always a 
perfectly white bell-shaped cap, (Glockevmillzc,) 
tied at top with a ribbon. His night-gowns, of 
calamanco or damask, were always as if new 
washed. He inhabited a most cheerful suite 
of rooms on the ground floor in the Jllee, and 
the neatness of every thing about him cor- 
responded to it. The' high order of his books, 
papers, maps, made a pleasant impression. 
His son, Heinl'ich Sebastian, who afterwards 
became known by various writings on Art, 
promised little in his youth. Good-natured 
but heavy, not rude yet artless, and without 
wish to instruct himself, he sought rather to 
avoid his father, as from his mother he could 
get whatever he wanted. I, on the other hand, 
came more and more into intimacy with the 
master the more I knew of him. As he med- 
dled with none but important law-cases, he 
had time enough to amuse and occupy himself 
with other things. I had not long been about 
him, and listened to his doctrine, till I came to 
observe that in respect of God and the World 
he stood on the opposition side. One of his 
pel books VfdiS, Jgrippa de Vanilate Scicntianon ; 
this he particularly recommended me to read, 
and did therewith set my young brain, for a 
while, into considerable tumult. I, in the joy 
of youth, was inclined to a sort of optimism, 
and with God or the Gods had now tolerably 
adjusted myself again ; for, by a series of 
years, I had got to experience that there is 
many a balance against evil, that misfor- 
tunes are things one recovers from, that in 
dangers one finds deliverance and does not 
always break his neck. On what men did and 



tried, moreover, I looked with tolerance, and 
found much praiseworthy which my old gen- 
tleman would nowise be content with. Nay, 
once, as he had been depicting me the world 
not a little on the crabbed side, I noticed in 
him that he meant still to finish with a trump- 
card. He shut, as in such cases his wont was, 
the blind left eye close ; looked with the other 
broad out; and said, in a snuffing voice: ' Auch 
in Gott entderk' ich Fchhr.' " 

Of a gentler character is the reminiscence of 
the maternal grandfather, old Schultheiss Tex- 
tor; with his gift of prophetic dreaming, 
"which endowment none of his descendants 
inherited ;" with his kind, mild ways ; there as 
he glides about in his garden, at evening, "in 
black velvet cap," trimming "the finer sort of 
fruit-trees," with aid of those antique embroid- 
ered gloves or gauntlets, yearly handed him at 
the Pfciffcrgcriiht : a soft, spirit-looking figure; 
the farthest out-post of the Past, which behind 
him melts into dim vapour. In Frau von 
Klestenberg, a religious associate of the mo- 
ther's,we become acquainted with the ScohneStde 
(Fair Saint) of Meister ; she, at an after period, 
studied to convert her Philo, but only very par- 
tially succeeded. Let us notice also, as a 
token for good, how the young universal spirit 
takes pleasure in the workshops of handicrafts- 
men, and loves to understand their methods of 
labouring and of living: 

" My father had early accustomed me to 
manage little matters for him. In particular, 
it was often my commission to stir up the 
craftsman he employed ; who were too apt to 
loiter with him : as he wanted to have all accu- 
rately done, and finally for prompt payment to 
have the price moderated. I came in this way, 
into almost all manner of work-shops ; and as 
It lay in my nature to shape myself into the 
circumstances of others, to feel every species of 
human existence, and with satisfaction partici- 
pate therein, I spent many pleasant hours in 
such places ; grew to understand the procedure 
of each, and what of joy and of sorrow, advan- 
tage or drawback, the indispensable conditions 
of this or that way of life brought with thc-p..* * * 
The household economy of the various crafts,, 
which took its figure and colour from the oc- 
cupation of each, was also silently an object 
of attention; and so unfolded, so confirmed 
itself in me the feeling of the equality, if not of 
all men, yet of all men's situations ; existence 
by itself appearing as the head condition, all the 
rest as indifferent and accidental." 

And so, amid manifold instructive influences, 
has the boy grown out of boyhood ; when now a 
new figure enters on the scene, bringing far 
higher revelations : 

" As at last the wine was failing, oneof them 
called the maid ; but instead of her there came 
a maiden of uncommon, and, to see her in this 
environment, of incredible beauty. 'What is 
itl' said she, after kindly giving us good- 
evening: ' the maid is ill and gone to bed : can 
I serve you?' — 'Our wine is done,' said one; 
' couldst thou get us a couple of bottles over 
the way, it w.ere very good of thee.' — 'Do it. 
Gretchen,' said another, ' it is but a cat's leap.' 
— 'Surely!' said she; took a couple of empty 
bottles from the table, and hastened out. Her 



856 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITmGS. 



figure, when she turned awaj^ from you, was 
almost prettier than before: the little cap sat 
so neat on the Utile head, which a slim neck so 
gracefully united with back and shoulders. 
Everything about her seemed select; and you 
could follow the whole form more calmly, as 
attention was not now attracted and arrested 
by the true still eyes and the lovely mouth 
alone." 

It is at the very threshold of youth that this 
episode of Gretchen (Margarete, Ma.r-g'rcl'-kin) 
occurs; the young critic of slim necks and 
true still eyes shall now know something of 
natural magic, and the importance of one mor- 
tal to another; the wild-flowing bottomless sea 
of human Passion, glorious in Auroral light, 
(which, alas, may become infernal lightning.) 
unveils itself a little to him. A graceful little 
episode we reckon it; and Gretchen better than 
most first loves: wholly an innoccjit, wise, 
dainty maiden; pure and poor, — who va- 
nishes from us here; but, we trust, in some 
quiet nook of the Rhineland, became wife and 
mother, and was the joy and sorrow of some 
brave man's heart, — according as it is appoint- 
ed. To the boy himself it ended painfully and 
almost fatally, had not sickness come to his 
deliverance; and here too he may experience 
how " a shadow chases us in all manner of sun- 
shine," and in this H'7(«/-(/'yf-ra//-iY of Existence 
the tragic element is not wanting. The name 
pf Gretchen, not her story, which had nothing 
in it of that guilt and terror, has been made 
•world-famous in the play of Faust. — 

Leipsic University has the honour of matri- 
culating him. The name of his " propitious 
mother" she may boast of, but not of the reality: 
alas, in these days, the University of the Uni- 
verse is the only propitious mother of such ; all 
other propitious mothers are but unpropitious 
superannuated dry-nurses fallen bedrid, from 
whom the famished nurseling has to steal even 
bread and water, if he will not die ; whom for 
most part he soon takes leave of, giving per- 
haps, (as in Gibbon's case,) for farewell thanks, 
some rough tweak of the nose ; and rushes des- 
perate into the wide world an orphan. The time 
is advancing, slower or faster, when the bedrid 
dry-nurse will decease, and be succeeded by a 
walking and stirring wet one. Goethe's em- 
ployments and culture at Leipsic lay in quite 
other groves than the academic: he listened to 
the Ciceronian Ernesti with eagerness, but the 
life-giving word flowed not from his mouth; to 
the sacerdotal, eclectic-sentimental Gellert, (the 
divinity of all tea-table moral philosophers of 
both sexes ;) witnessed " the pure soul, the 
genuine will of the noble man," heard " his ad- 
monitions, warnings, and entreaties, uttered 
in a somewhat hollow and luelancholy tone," 
— and then the Frenchman say to it all, Laissez 
le fairc, il nous forme des dupes. " In logic it 
seemed to me very strange that I must now 
take up those spiritual operations which from ; 
of old 1 had executed with the utmost convent- j 
ence, and tatter them asunder, insulate, and as | 
if destroy them, that their right employment i 
might become plain to me. Of the Thing of I 
the World, of God, I fancied I knew almost 
^bout as much as the Doctor himself; and he ! 



seemed to me, in more than one place, to hob- 
ble dreadfully (gewultig zu hapera)." 

However, he studies to some profit with the 
Painter Oeser; hears, one day, at the door, with 
horror, that there is no lesson,fornewsof Wink- 
elmann's assassination have come. With the 
ancient Gottsched, too, he has an interview : 
alas, it is a young Zeus come to dethrone old 
Saturn, whose time in the literary heaven is 
nigh run ; for on Olympus itself, one Demiur- 
gus passeth away and another cometh. Gott- 
sched had introduced the reign of ivater, in all 
shapes liquid and solid, and long gloriously 
presided over the same ; but now there is 
enough of it, and the " rayless majesty" (had 
he been prophetic) here beheld the rayed one, 
before Avhom he was to melt away: 

" We announced ourselves. The servant 
led us into a large room, and said his master 
would come immediately. Whether we mis- 
interpreted a motion he made I cannot say; at 
any rate, we fancied he had beckoned us to ad- 
vance into an adjoining chamber. We did ad- 
vance, and to a singular scene; for, at the 
same moment, Gottsched, the huge broad gi- 
gantic man, entered from the opposite door, in. 
green damask nightgown, lined with red taffeta; 
but his enormous head was bald and without 
covering. This, however, was the very want 
to be now supplied: for the servant came 
springing in at a side-door, with a full-bottomed 
wig on his hand, (the locks fell down to his 
elbows,) and held it out, with terrified gesture, 
to his master. Gottsched, without uttering 
the smallest complaint, lifted the head-gear 
with his left hand from the servant's arm ; and 
very deftly swinging it up to its place on the 
head, at the same time, with his right hand, 
gave the poor man a box on the ear, which, as 
is seen in comedies, dashed him spinning out 
of the apartment, whereupon the respectable- 
looking Patriarch quite gravely desired us to be 
seated, and with proper dignity went through 
a tolerably long discourse." 

In which discourse, however, it is likel}', 
little edification for the young inquirer could 
lie. Already by multifarious discoursings and 
readings he has convinced himself, to his de- 
spair, of the water)^ condition of the Gottschedic 
world, and how "the Noachide (Noaheid) of 
Bodmer is a true symbol of the deluge that 
has swelled up round the German Parnassus," 
and in literature as in philosophy there is 
neither landmark nor loadstar. Here, too, he 
resumes his inquiries about religion, falls into 
" black scruples" about most things, and in 
" the bald and feeble deliverances" propounded 
him, has sorry comfort. Outward things, more- 
over, go not as they should: the copious phi- 
losophic harlequinades of that wag Beyrish, 
"with the long nose," unsettle rather than 
settle ; as do, in many ways, other wise and 
foolish mortals of both sexes: matters grow 
worse and worse. He falls sick, becomes 
Avretched enough; yet unfolds withal "an 
audacious humour which feels itself superior 
to the moment; not only fears no danger, but 
even wilfully courts it." And thus, somewhat 
in a wrecked state, he quits his propitious 
mother, and returns home. 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



85? 



Nevertheless let there be no reflections: 
he must now in earnest get forward with his 
Law, and on to Strasburg to c-omplete himself 
therein; so has the paternal judgment arranged 
it. A lawyer, the thing in these latter days 
called Lawyer, of a man in whom ever bounte- 
ous Nature has sent us a Poet for the World ! 
O blind mortals, blind over what lies closest 
to us, what we have the truest wish to see ! 
In this young colt that caprioles there in young 
luslihood, and snuffs the wind with an "au- 
dacious humour," rather dangerous looking, 
no Sleswick Dobbin, to rise to dromedary 
stature, and draw three tons avoirdupois, (of 
street-mud or whatever else,) has been vouch- 
safed; but a winged miraculous Pegasus to 
carry us to the heavens ! — Whereon too (if we 
consider it) many a heroic Bellerophon shall, 
in times coming, mount and destroy Chimwras, 
and deliver afflicted nations on the lower 
earth. 

Meanwhile, be this as it may, the youth is 
gone to Strasburg to prepare for the examcn 
rigorosum; though, as it turned out, for quite a 
difl^erent than the Law one. Confusion enough 
is in his head and heart; poetic objects too 
have taken root there, and will not rest till they 
have worked themselves into form. "These," 
says he, "were Gotz von Berlichiiigen and 
Faust. The written Life of the former had 
seized my inmost soul. The figure of a rude 
well-meaning self-helper, in wild anarchic time, 
excited my deepest sympathy. The impressive 
puppet-show Fable of the other sounded and 
hummed through me many-toned enough." — 
"Let us withdraw, however," scibjoins he, 
" into the free air, to the high broad platform 
of the Minster; as if the time were still here, 
when we young ones often rendezvoused thither 
to salute, with full rummers, the sinking sun." 
They had good telescopes with them ; " and 
one friend after another searched out the spot 
in the distance which had become the dearest 
to him ; neither was I without a little eye- 
mark of the like, which, though it rose not 
conspicuous in the landscape, drew me to it 
beyond all else with a kindly magic." This 
alludes, we perceive, to that Alsatian Vicar of 
Wakefield, and his daughter the fairFrederike; 
concerning which matter a word may not be 
useless here. Exception has been taken by 
certain tender souls, of the all-for-love sort, 
against Goethe's conduct in this matter. He 
flirted with this blooming blue-eyed Alsatian, 
she with him, innocently enough, thoughtless- 
ly enough, till they both came to love each 
other; and then, when the marrying point 
began to grow visible in the distance, he stopt 
short, and would no farther. Adieu, he cried, 
and waved his lily hand. " The good Frede- 
rike was weeping ; I too was sick enough at 
heart." Whereupon arises the question : Ls 
Goethe a bad man; or is he not a bad man? 
Alas, worthy souls ! if this world were all a 
wedding dance, and thou shall never come into 
collision with thou> wilt, what a new improved 
time we had of it ! It is man's miserable lot, 
in the meanwhile to eat and labour as well as 
wed ; alas, how often, like Corporal Trim, does 
he spend the whole night; one moment divid- 
ing the world into two halves with his fair 



Beguine ; next moment remembering that hfl 
has only a knapsack and fifteen florins to 
divide with any one ! Besides, you do not con- 
sider that our dear Frederike, whom we too 
could weep fur if it served, had a sound Ger- 
man heart within her stays ; had furthermore 
abundance of luoi-k to do, and not even leisure 
to die of love ; above all, that at this period^ 
in the country parts of Alsatia, there were no 
circulating library novels. 

With regard to the false one's cruelty of 
temper, who, if we remember, saw a ghost in 
broad noon that day he rode away from her, 
let us, on the other hand, hear Jung Stilling, 
for he also had experience thereof at this very 
date. Poor Jung, a sort of German Dominie 
Sampson, awkward, honest, irascible, " in old-^ 
fashioned clothes and bag-wig," who had been 
several things, charcoal-burner, and, in re- 
pealed alternation, tailor and school-master, 
was now come to Strasburg to study medicine; 
with purse long-necked, yet with head that had 
brains in it, and heart full of trust in God. A 
pious soul, who if he did afterwards write 
books on the Nature of Departed Spirits, also 
restored to sight (by his skill in eye-opera- 
tions) above tiro thousand poor blind peisonSf 
without fee or reward, even supporting many 
of them in the hospital at his own expense. 

" There dined," says he, " at this* table about 
twenty people, whom the two comrades saw 
one after the other enter. One especially, with 
large eyes, magnificent brow, and fine stature, 
walked {muthis:) gallantly in. He drew Herr 
Troost's and Stilling's eyes on him; Herr 
Troost said, 'That must be a superior man.' 
Stilling assented, yet thought they would both 
have much vexation from him, as he looked 
like one of your wild fellows. This did Stilling 
infer from the frank style which the student 
had assumed; but here he was far mistaken; 
They found, meanwhile, that this distinguished 
individual M'as named Herr Goethe. 

" Herr Troost whispered to Stilling, ' Here 
it were best one sat seven days silent.' Stilling 
felt this truth ; they sat silent, therefore, and 
no one particularly minded them, except that 
Goethe now and then hurled over {herubenmlzte) 
a look: he sat opposite Stilling, and had the 
government of the table without aiming at it. 

"Herr Troost was neat, and dressed in the 
fashion; Stilling likewise tolerably so. He 
had a dark brown coat with fustian under gar- 
ments : only that a scratch-wig also remained 
to him, which, among his bag-wigs, he would 
wear out. This he had put on one day, and came 
therewith to dinner. Nobody took notice of it 
except Herr Waldberg of Vienna. That gentle- 
man looked at him, and as he had already heard 
that Stilling was greatly taken up about re-- 
ligion, he began, and asked him. Whether he 
thought Adam in Paradise had worn a scratch- 
wig ? All laughed heartily, except Salzman, 
Goethe, and Troost; these did not laugh. In 
Stilling wr,ath rose and burnt, and he answered t 
' Be ashamed of this jest; such a trivial thing 
is not worth laughing at !' But Goethe struck 
in and added: 'Try a man first whether he 
deserves mockery. It is devil-like to fall upon 
an honest-hearted person who has injured no- 
body, and make sport of him !' From thai 



■358 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



lime Herr Goethe took up Stilling, visited him, 
liked him, made friendship and brothership 
with him, and strove by all opportunities to do 
him kindness. Pity that so few are acquainted 
with this noble man in respect of his heart !"* 
Here, indeed, may be the place to mention, 
that this noble man, in respect of his heart, 
and goodness and badness, is not altogether 
easy to get acquainted with ; that innumerable 
persons, of the man-milliner, parish-clerk, and 
circulating-library sort, will find him. a hard 
nut to crack. Hear in what questionable 
manner, so early as the year 1773, he expresses 
himself towards Herr Sulzer, whose beautiful 
hypothesis, that " Nature meant, by the con- 
stant influx of satisfactions streaming in upon 
us, to fashion our minds, on the whole, to soft- 
ness and sensibility," he will not leave a leg 
to stand on. " On the u-hole," says he, " she 
does no such thing; she rather, God be thanked, 
hardens her genuine children against the 
pains and evils she incessantly prepares for 
them ; so that we name him the happiest man 
who is the strongest to make front against 
evil, to put it aside from him, and in defiance 
•of it go the road of his own will." " Man's 
art in all situations is to fortify himself against 
Nature, to avoid her thousand-fold ills, and only 
to enjoy his measure of the good ; till at length 
he manages to include the whole circulation 
of his true and factitious wants in a palace, 
and fix as far as possible all scattered beauty 
and felicity within his glass walls, where ac- 
cordingly he grows ever the weaker, takes to 
■' joys of the soul,' and his powers, roused to 
their natural exertion by no contradiction, 
melt away into" (honcsco referens) — "Virtue, 
Benevolence, Sensibility !" In Goethe's Writ- 
ings, too, we all know the moral lesson is sel- 
dom so easily educed as one would wish. 
Alas, how seldom is he so direct in tendency 
as his own plain-spoken moralist at Plunders- 
weilern : 

" Dear Christian People, one and all, 

When will you cease your sinning 1 

Else can your comfort be but small, 

Good hap scarce have beginning ; 

For Vice is hurtful unto man, 

In Virtue lies the surest plan," 

or, to give it in the original words, the empha- 
sis of which no foreign idiom can imitate : 

" Die Tugend ist das hochste Out, 

Vas Laster JVeh dem Menschen thut !'' 

In which emphatic couplet, does there not, 
as the critics say in other cases, lie the essence 
of whole volumes, such as we have read 1 — 

Goethe's far most important relation in 
Strasburg was the accidental temporary one 
with Herder ; which issued, indeed, in a more 
permanent, though at no time an altogether 
intimate one. Herder, with much to give, had 
always something to require ; living with him 
seems never to have been wholly a sinecure. 
Goethe and he moreover were fundamentally 
different, not to say discordant ; neither could 
the humour of the latter be peculiarly sweet- 
ened by his actual business in Strasburg, that 
of undergoing a surgical operation on " the 



' Stilling's fVanderschaft. Berlin and Leipsic, 1778. 



lachrymatory duct," and, above all, an unsuc- 
cessful one : 

"He was attending the prince of Holstein- 
Eutin, who laboured under mental distresses, 
on a course of travel; and had arrived with 
him at Strasburg. Our society, so soon as his 
presence there was known, felt a strong wish 
to get near him ; which happiness, quite un- 
expectedly and by chance, befel me first. I 
had gone to the Inn zum Geist, visiting I forget 
what stranger of rank. Just at the bottom of 
the stairs I came upon a man, like myself 
about to ascend, whom by his look I could 
take to be a clergyman. His powdered hair 
was fastened up into a round lock ; the black 
coat also distinguished him ; still more a long 
black silk mantle, the end of which he had ga- 
thered together and stuck into his pocket. 
This in some measure surprising, yet on the 
whole gallant and pleasing figure, of whom I 
had already heard speak, left me no doubt but 
it was the famed Traveller; and my address 
soon convinced him thai he was known to 
me. He asked my name, which could be of 
no significance to him ; however my openness 
seemed to give pleasure, for he replied to it in 
friendly style, and as we stepped up stairs 
forthwith showed himself ready for a lively 
communication. Our visit also Avas to the 
same party ; and before separation I begged 
permission to wait upon himself, which he 
kindly enough accorded me. I delayed not to 
make repeated use of this preferment; and 
was the longer the more attracted towards 
him. He had something softish in his man- 
ner, which was fit and dignified, without strictly 
being bred. x\ round face; a fine brow; a 
somewhat short blunt nose ; a somewhat pro- 
jected, yet highly characteristic, pleasant, ami- 
able mouth. Under black eye-brows, a pair 
of coal-black eyes, which failed not of their 
effect, though one of them was wont to be red 
and inflamed." 

With this gifted man, by five years his 
senior, whose writings had already given him 
a name, and announced the much that lay in 
him, the open-hearted disciple could mani- 
foldly communicate, learning and enduring. 
Ere long, under that " softish manner," there 
disclosed itself a "counter-pulse" of Causti- 
city, of ungentle, almost noisy banter; the 
blunt nose was too often curled in an adunco- 
suspensive manner. Whatsoever of self-com- 
placency, of acquired attachment and insight, 
of self-sufficiency well or ill grounded, lay in 
the youth, was exposed, we can fancy, to the 
severest trial. In Herder too, as in an expres- 
sive microcosm, he might see imaged the 
whole wild world of German literature, of Eu- 
ropean Thought; its old workings and mis- 
workings, its best recent tendencies and efforts; 
what its past and actual wasteness, perplexity, 
confusion worse confounded, was. In all 
which, moreover, the bantered, yet impertur- 
bably inquiring brave young man had quite 
other than a theoretic interest, being himself 
minded to dwell there. It is easy to conceive 
that Herder's presence, stirring up in that 
fashion so many new and old matters, would 
mightily aggravate the former "fermentation;" 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



359 



and thereby, it is true, unintentionally or not, 
forward the same towards clearness. 

In fact, with the hastiest glance over the 
then position of the world spiritual, we shall 
find that as Disorder is never wanting, (and 
for the young spiritual hero, who is there only 
to destroy Disorder and make it order, can 
least of all be wanting,) so, at the present 
juncture, it specially abounded. Why dwell 
on this often delineated Epoch 1 Over all 
Europe the reign of Earnestness had now 
•wholly dwindled into that of Dilettantism. 
The voice of a certain modern "closet logic," 
■which called itself, and could not but call it- 
self. Philosophy, had gone forth, saying, Let 
there be darkness, and there was darkness. 
No divinity any longer dwelt in the world ; 
and as men cannot do without a divinity, a 
sort of terrestrial upholstery one had been got 
together, and named Taste, with medallic vir- 
tuosi and picture cognoscenti, and enlightened 
letter and belles-lettres men enough for priests. 
To which worship, with its stunted formula- 
ries and hungry results, must the earnest 
mind, like the hollow and shallow one, adjust 
itself, as best might be. To a new man, no 
doubt the Earth is always new, never wholly 
without interest. Knowledge, were it only 
that of dead languages, or of dead actions, the 
foreign tradition of what others had acquired 
and done, was still to be searched after ; fame 
might be enjoyed if procurable; above all, the 
culinary and brewing arts remained in pris- 
tine completeness, their results could be re- 
lished with pristine vigour. Life lumbered 
along, better or worse, in pitiful discontent, not 
yet in decisive desperation, as through a dim 
day of languor, sultry and sunless. Already 
too on the horizon might be seen clouds, 
might be heard murmurs, which by and by 
proved themselves of an electric character, 
and were to cool and clear that same sultri- 
ness in wondrous deluges. 

Toaman standing in the midstof German lite- 
rature, and looking out thither for his highest 
good, the view was troubled perhaps with vari- 
ous peculiar perplexities. For two centuries, 
German literature had lain in the sere leaf The 
Luther, " whose words were half battles," and 
such half battles as could shake and overset 
half Europe with their cannonading, had long 
since gone to sleep ; and all other woixls were 
but the miserable bickering of (theological) 
camp-suttlers in quarrel over the stripping of 
the slain. Ulrich Hutten slept silent, in the 
little island of the Zurich Lake ; the weary 
and heavy-laden had wiped the sweat from 
his brow, and laid him down to rest there : the 
valiant fire-tempered heart, with all its woes 
and loves and loving indignations, mouldered, 
cold, forgotten; with such a pulse no new 
heart rose to beat. The tamer Opitzes and 
Flemmings of a succeeding era had, in like 
manner, long fallen obsolete. One unhappy 
generation after another of pedants, "rhizo- 
phagous," living on roots, Greek or Hebrew ; 
of farce-writers, gallant verse-writers, journal- 
ists, and other jugglars of nondescript sort 
wandered in nomadic wise, whither provender 
was to be had; among whom, if a passionate 
Gunther go with some emphasis to ruin ; if 



an illuminated Thomasius, earlier than the 
general herd, deny witchcraft, we are to 
esteem it a felicity. This too, however, has 
passed ; and now, in manifold enigmatical 
signs a new Time announces itself Well-born 
Hagedorns, munificent Gleims have again ren- 
dered the character of Author honourable ; the 
polish of correct, assiduous Rabeners and 
Ramlers have smoothed away the old impuri- 
ties; a pious Klopstock, to the general enthu- 
siasm, rises anew into something of seraphic 
music, though by methods wherein he can 
have no follower; the brave spirit of a Les- 
sing pierces, in many a life-giving ray, through 
the dark inertness: Germany has risen to a 
level with Europe, is henceforth participant 
of all European influences ; nay it is now ap- 
pointed, though not yet ascertained, that Ger- 
many is to be the leader of spiritual Europe. 
A deep movement agitates the universal mind 
of Germany, though as yet no one sees to- 
wards what issue ; only that heavings and 
eddyings, confused, conflicting tendencies, 
work unquietly everywhere ; the movement is 
begun and will not stop, but the course of it is 
yet far from ascertained. Even to the young 
man now looking on with such anxious inten- 
sity had this very task been allotted : To find 
it a course and set it flowing thereon. 

Whoever will represent this confused revo- 
lutionary condition of all things, has but to 
fancy how it would act on the most susceptive 
and comprehensive of living minds ; what a 
Chaos he had taken in, and was dimly strug- 
gling to body forth into a Creation. Add to 
which his so confused, contradictory, personal 
condition ; appointed by a positive father to be 
practitioner of Law, by a still more positive 
mother (old Nature herself) to be practitioner 
of Wisdom, and Captain of spiritual Europe; 
we have confusion enough for him, doubts 
economic and doubts theologic, doubts moral 
and cesihetical, a whole world of confusion and 
doubt. 

Nevertheless to the young Strasburg student 
the gods had given their most precious gift, 
which is worth all others, without which all 
others are wonh nothing — a seeing eye and a 
faithful loving heart: 

" Kr liatt' ein Aitffe treu und Mug, 
Und war anch liebevnll genua; 
Zu schaven vianches Mar und rein, 
Und vieder nlles gut zu wachen sein ; 
Halt' audi eine Zuvge die sirh ergross, 
Und leicht und fein in H'orte fioss ; 
nets thaten die Musen sich erfreuv, 
ll'uUten ilni zvm Mristcr.-dnger iceiJin."* 

A mind of all-piercing vision, of sunny 
strength, not made to ray out darker darkness, 
but to bring warm sunlight, all purifying, all 
uniting. A clear, invincible mind, and " con- 
secrated to be Master-singer" in quite another 
guild than that Niirnberg one. 

His first literary productions fall in his 
twenty-third year; Wcrtcr, the most celebrated 
of these, in his twenty-fifth. Of which won- 



* Unns Sachsenf! Poetiaclie Sendnng. (Ooethe's Werhe, 
Xni. ;) a beautiful piece, (a very Hnns Snrks beatified, 
l)oth in chnracter and style.) which we wish there was 
any possibility of translating. 



360 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



derful Book, and ils now recognised character 
as poetic (and prophetic) utterance of the 
World's Despair, it is needless to repeat what 
has elsewhere been written. This and Gotz 
von Berlwhingcn, which also, as a poetic looking 
back into the past, was a word for the world, 
have produced incalculable effects ; — which 
now, indeed, however some departing echo of 
them may linger in the wrecks of our own 
Moss-trooper and Satanic Schools, do at length 
all happily lie behind us. Some trifling inci- 
dents at Wetzlar.and the suicide of an unhappy 
acquaintance were the means of "crystallizing" 
that wondrous, perilous stuff, which the )^oung 
heart oppressively held dissolved in it, into 
this world-famous, and as it proved world- 
medicative Werter, He had gone to Wetzlar 
with an eye still to Law; which now, however, 
was abandoned, never to be resumed. Thus 
did he too, " like Saul the son of Kish, go out 
to seek his father's asses, and instead thereof 
find a kingdom." 

With the completion of these two Works (a 
completion in every sense, for they were not 
only emitted, but speedily also rfemitted, and 
seen over, and left behind,) commences what 
we can specially call his Life, his activity as 
Man. The outward particulars of it, from this 
point where his own Narrative ends, have 
been briefly summed up in these terms : 

" In 1776, the Heir-apparent of Weimar was 
passing through Frankfort, on which occasion, 
by the intervention of some friends, he waited 
upon Goethe. The visit must have been mu- 
tually agreeable; for a short time afterwards 
the young author was invited to court ; appa- 
rently to contribute his assistance in various 
literary institutions and arrangements then 
proceeding or contemplated; and in pursu- 
ance of this honourable call, he accordingly 
settled at Weimar, with the title of Legations- 
rath, and the actual dignity of a place in the 
in the Collegmm, (Council.) The connection 
begun under such favourable auspices, and 
ever afterwards continued under the like or 
better, has been productive of important con- 
sequences, not only to Weimar but to all Ger- 
many. The noble purpose undertaken by the 
Duchess Amelia was zealously forwarded by 
the young Duke on his accession ; under whose 
influence, supported and directed by his new 
Councillor, this inconsiderable state has gain- 
ed for itself a fairer distinction than any of its 
larger, richer, or more warlike neighbours. 
By degrees whatever was brightest in the 
genius of Germany had been gathered to this 
Little court; a classical theatre was under the 
superintendence of Goethe and Schiller; here 
Wieland taught and sung; in the pulpit was 
Herder; and possessing such a four, the small 
town of Weimar, some five-and-twenty years 
ago, might challenge the proudest capital of 
the world to match it in intellectual wealth. 
Occupied so profitably to his country, and 
honourably to himself, Goethe continued rising 
in favour with his Prince; by degrees a poli- 
tical was added to his literary trust; in 1779 
he became Privy Councillor; President in 
1782; and at length after his return from Italy, 
where he had spent two years in varied studies 



and observation, he was appointed Minister; 
a post which he only a few years ago resigned, 
on his final retirement from public aflTairs." 

Notable enough that little Weimar should, 
in this particular, have brought back, as it 
were, an old Italian Commonwealth into the 
nineteenth century! For the Petrarcas and 
Bocaccios, though reverenced as Poets, were 
not supposed to have lost their wits as men; 
but could be employed in the highest services 
of the state, not only as fit, but as the fittest, to 
discharge these. Very different with us, where 
Diplomatists and Governors can be picked up 
from the highways, or chosen in the manner 
of blindman's buff, (the first figure you clutch, 
say rather that clutches you, will make a 
governor;) and, even in extraordinary times, 
it is thought much if a Milton can become 
Latin Clerk under some Bulstrode Whitelock, 
and be called "one Mr. Milton." As if the 
poet, with his poetry, were no other than a 
pleasant mountebank, with faculty of a certaia 
groimd-and-lof'ty tumblingwhich wouldamuse; 
for which you must throw him a few coins, a 
little flattery, otherwise he would not amuse 
you with it. As if there were any talent what- 
soever ; above all, as if there were any talent 
of Poetry, (by the consent of all ages the 
highest talent, and sometimes pricelessly high,) 
the first foundation of which were not even 
these two things, (properly but one thing:) in- 
tellectual Perspicacity, with force and honesty 
of Will. Which two, do they not, in their 
simplest, quite naked form, constitute the very 
equipment a Man of Business needs ; the very 
implements whereby all business, from that of 
the delver and ditcher to that of the legislator 
and imperator, is accomplished ; as in their 
noblest concentration they are still the moving 
faculty of the Artist and Prophet ! 

To Goethe himself, this connection with 
Weimar opened the happiest course of life, 
which probably the age he lived in could have 
yielded him. Moderation yet abundance; ele- 
gance without lu.xury or sumptuosity: Art 
enough to give a heavenly firmament to his 
existence; Business enough to give it a solid 
earth. In his multifarious duties, he comes in 
contact with all manner of men ; gains ex- 
perience and tolerance of all men's ways. A 
faculty like his, which could master the highest 
spiritual problems, and conquer Evil Spirits in 
their own domain, was not likely to be foiled 
by such when they put on the simpler shape 
of material clay. The greatest of Poets is also 
the skilfullest of Managers: the little terrestrial 
Weimar trust committed to him prospers ; and 
one sees with a sort of smile, in which may lie 
a deep seriousness, how the Jena Museums, 
University arrangements, Weimar Art-exhibi- 
tions and Palace-buildings, are guided smoothly 
on, by a hand Avhich could have worthily 
swayed imperial sceptres. The world, could 
it intrust its imperial sceptres to such hands, 
were blessed: nay to this man, without the 
world's consent, given or asked, a still higher 
function hud been committed. But on the 
whole, we name his external life happy, among 
the happiest, in this, that a noble princely 
Courtesy could dwell in it based on the wor- 
ship, by speech and practice, of Truth only. 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



3&I 



(for his victory, as we said above, was so com- 
plete, as almost to hide that there had been a 
struggle,) and the worldly could praise him as 
the most agreeable of men, and the spiritual as 
the highest and clearest; but happy, above all, 
in this, that it forwarded him, as no other 
could have done, in his inward life, the good 
or evil hap of which was alone of permanent 
importance. 

The inward life of Goethe, onwards from 
this epoch, lies nobly recorded in the long 
series of his Writings. Of these, meanwhile, 
the great bulk of our English world has nowise 
yet got to such understanding and mastery, 
that we could, with much hope of profit, go 
into a critical examination of their merits and 
characteristics. Such a task can stand over 
till the day for it arrive ; be it in this genera- 
tion, or the next, or after the next. What has 
been elsewhere already set forth sulfices the 
present want, or needs only to be repeated and 
enforced; the expositor of German things 
must say, with judicious Zanga in the play: 
"First recover that, then shalt thou know 
more." A glance over the grand outlines of 
the matter, and more especially under the 
aspect suitable to these days, can alone be in 
place here. 

In Goethe's Works, Chronologically arranged, 
we see this above all things : A mind working 
itself into clearer and clearer freedom ; gaining 
a more and more perfect dominion of its world. 
The pestilential fever of Skepticism runs 
through its stages : but happily it ends and dis- 
appears at the last stage, not in death, not in 
chronic malady (the commonest) way, but in 
clearer, henceforth invulnerable health. Werter 
we called the voice of the world's despair: pas- 
sionate, uncontrollable is this voice ; not yet 
melodious and supreme, — as nevertheless we 
at length hear it in the wild apocalyptic Faust : 
like a death-song of departing worlds ; no 
voice of joyful " morning stars singing to- 
gether" over a Creation ; but of red nigh- 
extinguished midnight stars, in spheral swan- 
melody, proclaiming: It is ended ! 

What follows, in the next period, we might, 
for want of a fitter term, call Pagan or Ethnic 
in character, meaning thereby an anthropo- 
morphic character, akin to that of old Greece 
and Rome. Wilhclm Meister is of that stamp : 
warm, hearty, sunny human Endeavour; a 
free recognition of Life in its depth, variety, 
and majesty; as yet no Divinity recognised 
there. The famed Venetian Epigrams are of 
the like Old-Ethnic tone : musical, joyfully 
strong; true, yet not the whole truth, and 
sometimes in their blunt realism, jarring on 
the sense. As in this, oftener cited, perhaps, 
by a certain class of wise men, than the due 
proportion demanded: 

" Why so bustleth the People and crieth f Would find 

ilselfvirtual, 
Children too would beget, feed on the best may be had : 
Mark in thy notebooks, Traveller, this, and at home go 

do likewise ; 
Farther reacheth no man, make he what stretcliins he 

will." 

Doubt reduced into Denial, now lies pros- 
trate under foot: the fire has done its work, 
46 



an old world is in ashes ; but the smoke and 
the dame are blown away, and a sun again 
shines clear over the ruin, to raise therefrom 
a new nobler verdure and flowerage. Till at 
length, in the third, or final period, melodious 
Reverence becomes triumphant; a deep all- 
pervading Faith, with mild voice, grave as 
gay, speaks forth to us in a Meis/crs Wan~ 
derjahre, in a Wesl-Osilicher Divan ; in many a 
little Zahiiie Xenie, and true-hearted little 
rhyme, " which," it has been said, "for preg- 
nancy and genial significance, except in the 
Hebrew Scriptures, you will nowhere match." 
As here, striking in almost at a venture : 

" Like as a Star, 
That maketh not haste. 
That taketh not rest. 
Be each one fulfilling 
His god-given Hest."* 



♦ IVie das Gcstirn, 
Ohne Hast, 
Jiher ohne Rast, 
Drehe fuchjeder 
Urn die eiirne Last. 

So stands it in the original : herebv, however, hangs a 
tale : 

" A fact," says one of our fellow labourers in this 
German vineyard, " has but now come to our knowledge, 
which we take pleasure and pride in stating. Fifteen 
Englishmen, entertaining that high consideration for 
the Good Goethe, which the labours and high deserts of 
a long life usefully employed so richly merit from all 
mankind, have presented him with a highly wrought 
Seal, as a token of their veneration. We must pass 
over the description of the gift, for it would be too 
elaborate ;" suffice it to say, that amid tasteful carv- 
ing and emblematic embossing enough, stood these 
words engraven on a gold bell, on the four sides re- 
spectively : To the German Master: From Friends in 
England: 2S(/i August: 1831; finally, that the impres- 
sion was a star encircled with a serpent-of-eternity, 
and this motto : Ohne Hast Aber Ohne Rast. 

" The following is the letter which accompanied it : 
'" To the Poet Goethe, on the IWi of August, 1831. 

"'Sir, — Among the friends whom this so interesting 
Anniversary calls round you, may we " English friends," 
in thought and symbolically, since personally it is im- 
possible, present ourselves to offer you our affectionate 
congratulations. We hope you will do us the honour 
to accept this little Birth-Day Gift, which, as a true 
testimony of our feelings, may not be without value. 

" ' We said to ourselves : As it is always the highest 
duty and pleasure to show reverence to w hom reverence 
is due, and our chief, perhaps our only benefactor is he 
who by act and word instructs us in wisdom, — so we, 
undersigned, feeling towards the Poet Goethe as the 
spritualiy taught towards their spiritual teacher, are 
desirous to express that sentiment openly and in com- 
mon ; for which end we have determined to solicit his 
acceptance of a small English gift, proceeding from us 
all equally, on his approaching birth-day; that so, 
while the venerable man still dwells among us, some 
memorial of the gratitude we owe him, and think the 
whole world owes him, may not be wanting. 

"'And thus our little tribute, perhaps among the 
purest that men could offer to man, now stands in visi- 
ble shape, and begs to be received. May it be welcome, 
and speak permanenily of a most close relation, though 
wide seas flow between the parties I 

" ' We pray that many years may be added to a life so 

glorious, that all happiness may be yours, and strength 

given to complete your hiu'h task, even as it has hitherto 

proceeded, like a star, without haste, yet without rest. 

'• ' We remain. Sir, your friends and Servants, 

FiFTEE.N Englishmen.' 

"The wonderful old man, to whom distant and un- 
known friends had paid such homage, could not but be 
moved at sentiments expressed in such terms. We 
hear that he values the token highly, and has conde- 
scended to return the following lines for answer;^ 

'"Den Funfzehn Enolischen Frevnden. 

Worte die der Dichter spricht, 

Treu, in heimischen Bezirken, 
JVirken gleich, dock weiss er nv.ht 

Ob sie in die Feme wirken. 
2H 



362 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Or this small Couplet, which the reader, if 
he will, may substitute for whole horse-loads 
of Essays onthe Origin of Evil ; a spiritual manu- 
facture, which in these enlightened times ought 
ere now to have gone out of fashion : 

" ' What shall I tftach thee, the fnreinost thing ■>' 
Couldst teach iiie otf my own Shadow to spring!" 

Or the pathetic picturesqueness of this: 

"A rampart-hreach is every Day, 
Which many mortals are storming : 
Fall in the gap who may, 
Of the slain no heap is forming." 
Eine Bresche ist jeder Tag-. 
Die viele Meuschen ersturmen ; 
IVer da auch fallen mag, 
Die Todten sick niemals thurmcn. 

In such spirit, and with an eye that takes in 
all provinces of human Thought, Feeling, and 
Activity, does the Poet stand forth as the true 
prophet of his time : victorious over its contra- 
diction, possessor of its wealth; embodying the 
nobleness of the past into a new whole, into a 
new vital nobleness for the present and the 
future. Antique nobleness in all kinds, yet 
worn with new clearness ; the spirit of it is pre- 
served and again revealed in shape, when the 
former shape and vesture had become old, (as 
vestures do,) and was dead and cast forth ; and 
we mourned as if the spirit too were gone. This, 
we are aware, is a high saying; applicable to 
no other man living, or that has lived for some 
two centuries; ranks Goethe, not only as the 
highest man of his time, but as a man of uni- 
versal Time, important for all generations — 
one of the landmarks in the History of Men. 

Thus from our point of view does Goethe 
rise on us as the Uniter, and victorious Re- 
conciler, of the distracted clashing elements of 
the most distracted and divided age, that the 
world has witnessed since the Introduction of 
the Christian Religion; to which old chaotic 
Era, of world-confusion and world-refusion, 
of blackest darkness, succeeded by a dawn ol^ 
light and nobler " dayspring from on high," 
this wondrous Era of ours is, indeed, often 
likened. To the faithful heart let no era be a 
desperate one ! It is ever the nature of Dark- 
ness to be followed by a new nobler Light ; nay, 
to produce such. The woes and contradictions 
of an Atheistic time; of a world sunk in wick- 
edness and baseness and unbelief, wherein also 
physical wretchedness, the disorganization and 
broken-heartedness of whole classes struggling 
in ignorance and pain will not fail : all this, the 
view of all this, falls like a Sphinx-question on 
every new-born earnest heart, a life-and-death 
entanglement for every earnest heart to deliver 
itself from, and the world from. Of Wisdom 
i.omelh Strength: only when there is "no 
trision" do the people perish. But, by natural 
vicissitudes, the age of Pcrsifasre goes out, and 
that of earnest unconquerable Endeavour must 



Britten ! liabt sie aufgefaast : 

" Thdtigen Sinn, das Thun gezilgtlt ; 
Stetig Strehen ohne Hast ;" 

Und so woUt Hits denn besiegelt ! 
' Weimar, d. iSten August, 1831.' Goethe.' " 

(Fraser's Magazine, XXII. 447.) 

And thus, as it chanced, was the poet's last birth-day 
celebrated by an outward ceremony of a peculiar kind; 
wherein, too, it is to be hoped, might lie some inward 
meaning and sincerity. 



come in : for the ashes of the old fire will not 
warm men anew; the new generation is too 
desolate to indulge in mockery, — unless, per- 
haps, in bitter suicidal mockery of itself! 
Thus after Voltaires enough have laughed and 
sniffed at what is false, appear some Turgots 
to ask what is true. Wo to the land where, in 
these seasons, no prophet arises; but only 
censors, satirists, and embittered desperadoes 
to make the evil worse; at best but to accel- 
erate a consummation, which, in accelerating, 
they have aggravated! Old Europe had its 
Tacitus and Juvenal; but these availed not. 
New Europe too has had its Mirabeaus, 
and Byrons, and Napoleons, and innumerable 
red-flaming meteors, shaking pestilence from 
their hair; and earthquakes and deluges, and 
Chaos come' again ; but the clear Star, day's 
harbinger, {Phosphorus, the bringer of light,) had 
not yet been recognised. 

That in Goethe there lay Force to educe re- 
concilement out of such contradiction as man 
is now born into, "marks him as the Strong 
One of his time ; the true Enrl, though now 
with quite other weapons than those old steel 
J<irls were used to ! Such reconcilement of 
contradictions, indeed, is the task of every 
man: the weakest reconciles somewhat; re- 
duces old chaotic elements into new higher 
order; ever, according to faculty and endea- 
vour, brings good out of evil. Consider now 
what faculty and endeavour must belong to 
the highest of such tasks, which virtually in- 
cludes all others whatsoever! The thing that . 
was given this man to reconcile (to begin recon- 
ciling, and teach us how to reconcile) was the 
inward spiritual chaos ; the centre of all other 
confusions, outward and inward: hcM-as to close 
the Abyss out of which such manifold destruc- 
tion, moral, intellectual, social, was proceeding. 

The greatness of his Endowment, manifest- 
ed in such a work, has long been plain to all 
men. That it belongs to the highest class of 
human endowments, entitling the wearer there- 
of, who so nobly u..sed it to the appellation in 
its strictest sense, of Great Man, — is also be- 
coming plain. A giant strength of Character 
is to be traced here ; mild and kindly and calm, 
even as strength ever is. In the midst of so 
much spasmodic Byronism, bellowing till its 
windpipe is cracked, how very different looks 
tins symptom of strength : " He appeared to aim 
at pushing away from him every thing that did 
hang upon his individual will." "In his own 
imperturbable firmness of character, he had 
grown into the habit of never conlmdicling any 
one. On the contrary, he listened with a friendly 
air to every one's opinion, and would himself 
elucidate and strengthen it by instances and 
reasons of his own. All who did not know 
him fancied that he thought as they did ; for 
he was possessed of a preponderating intellect, 
and could transport himself into the mental 
state of any man and imitate his manner of 
conceiving."* Beloved brethren, who wish to 
be strong! Had feot the man, who could take 
this smooth method of it, more strength in him 
than any teeth-grinding, glass-eyed " lone Ca- 
loyer" you have yet fallen in with 1 Consider 

* Wilhelm Meister, book vi. 



GOETHE'S WORKS. 



363 



your ways; consider first, Whether you cannot 
do with being weak! If the answer still prove 
negative, consider, secondly, what strength ac- 
tually is, and where you are to try for it. A 
certain strong man, of former time, fought 
stoutly at Lepanto ; worked stoutly as Algerine 
slave; stoutly delivered himself from such 
working, with stout cheerfulness endured 
famine and nakedness and the world's ingra- 
titude ; and sitting in jail, with the one arm 
left him, wrote our joyfullest, and all but our 
deepest, modern book, and named it Don Quix- 
ote : this was a genuine strongman. A strong 
man, of recent time, fights little for any good 
cause anywhere ; works weakly as an English 
lord ; weakly delivers himself from such work- 
ing; with weak despondency endures the cack- 
ling of plucked geese at St. James's, and, sitting 
in sunny Italy, in his coach-and-four, at a dis- 
tance of two thousand miles from them, writes, 
over many reams of paper, the following sen- 
tence, with variations : Saw ever the world one 
greater or unhappier .^ this was a sham strong 
man. Choose ye. — 

Of Goethe's spiritual Endowment, looked at 
on the Intellectual side, we have, (as indeed 
lies in the nature of things, for moral and in- 
tellectual are fundamentally one and the same,) 
to pronounce a similar opinion ; that it is great 
among the very greatest. As the first gift of 
all, may be discerned here, utmost Clearness, 
all-piercing faculty of Vision ; whereto, as we 
ever find it, all other gifts are superadded ; 
nay, properly they are but other forms of the 
same gift. A nobler power of insight than this 
of Goethe, you in vain look for, since Shaks- 
peare passed away. In fact, there is much 
every way, here in particular, that these two 
minds have in common. Shakspeare too 
does not look at a thing, but into it, through it ; 
so that he constructively comprehends it, can 
take it asunder, and put it together again ; the 
thing melts, as it M'ere,into light under his eye, 
and anew creates itself before him. That is to 
say, he is a Thinker in the highest of all senses : 
he is a Poet. For Goethe, as for Shakspeare, 
the world lies all translucent, all fusible, (we 
might call it,) encircled with Wonder; the 
Natural in reality the Supernatural, for to the 
seer's eyes both become one. What are the 
Hamlets and Tetnpests, the Fausts and Mignons, 
but glimpses accorded us into this translucent, 
wonder-encircled world: revelations of the 
mystery of all mysteries, Man's Life as it 
actually is? 

Under other secondary aspects, the poetical 
faculty of the two will still be found cognate. 
Goethe is full of figurativcncsf: : this grand 
light-giving Intellect, as all such are, is an 
imaginative one, — and in a quite other sense 
than most of our unhappy Imaginatives will 
imagine. Gall the Craniologist declared him 
to be a born Volksreilner, (popular orator,) both 
by the figure of his brow, and what was still 
more decisive, because "he could not speak 
but a figure came." Gall saw what was high 
as his own nose reached, 

" riigli as the nose doth reach, all clear ! 
What higher lies, they ask : Is it here V 

A far different figurativeness was this of 
Goethe than popular oratory has work for. In 



figures of the popular oratory kind, Goethe, 
throughout his Writings at least, is nowise the 
most copious man known to us, though on a 
stricter scrutiny we may find him the richest. 
Of your ready-made, coloured-paper meta- 
phors, such as can be sewed or plastered on 
the surface, by way of giving an ornamental 
finish to the rag-web already woven, we speak 
not; there is not one such to be discovered in 
all his Works. But even in the use of genuine 
metaphors, that are not haberdashery orna- 
ment, but the genuine new vesture of new 
thoughts, he yields to lower men, (for example, 
to Jean Paul ;) that is to say, in fact, he is 
more master of the common language, and can 
oftener make it serve him. Goethe's figura- 
tiveness lies in the very centre of his being; 
manifests itself as the constructing of the in- 
ward elements of a thought, as the vital im- 
bodyment of it: such figures as those of 
Goethe you will look for through all modern 
literature, and except here and there in Shaks- 
peare, nowhere find a trace of. Again, it is the 
same faculty in higher exercise, that enables 
the poet to construct a Character. Here too 
Shakspeare and Goethe, unlike innumerable 
others, are vital; their construction begins at 
the heart and flows outward as the life-streams 
do : fashioning the surface, as it were, sponta- 
neousl}'. Those Macbeths and FaKlatfs, ac- 
cordingly, these Fausts and Philinas, have a 
verisimilitude and life that separates them 
from all other fictions of late ages. All others, 
in comparison, have more or less the nature 
of hollow vizards, constructed from without 
inwards, painted like, and deceptively put in 
motion. Many years ago on finishing our 
first perusal of Wilhelm Mcisler, with a very 
mixed sentiment in other respects, we could 
not but feel that here lay more insight into the 
elements of human nature, and a more poeti- 
cally perfect combining of these than in all the 
other fictitious literature of our generation. 

Neither, as an additional similarity, (for the 
great is ever like itself,) let the majestic Calm- 
ness of both be omitted ; their perfect tolerance 
for all men and all things. This too proceeds 
froni the same source, perfect clearness of 
vision : he who comprehends an object cannot 
hate it, has already begun to love it. In re- 
spect of style, no less than of character, this 
calmness and graceful smooth-tlowing softness 
is again characteristic of both : though in 
Goethe the quality is more complete, having 
been matured by far more assiduous study. 
Goethe's style is perhaps to be reckoned the 
most excellent that our modern world, in any 
language, can exhibit. "Even to a foreigner," 
says one, " it is full of character and secondary 
meanings; polished, yet vernacular and cor- 
dial, it sounds like the dialect of wise, antique- 
minded, true-hearted men : in poetry, brief, 
sharp, simple, and expressive : in prose, per- 
haps, still more pleasing; for it is at once concise 
and full, rich, clear, unpretending, and melo- 
dious ; and the sense, not presented in alterna- 
ting flashes, piece after piece revealed and 
withdrawn, rises before us as in continuous 
dawning, and stands at last simultaneously 
complete, and bathed in the mellowest and 
ruddiest sunshine. It brings to mind what the 



364 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



prose of Hooker, Bacon, Milton, Browne, would 
have been, had they written under the good, 
■without the bad influences of that French pre- 
cision, which has polished and attenuated, 
trimmed and impoverished all modern lan- 
guages ; made our meaning clear, and too 
often shallow as well as clear." * 

Finally, as Shakspeare is to be considered 
as the greater nature of the two, on the other 
hand we must admit him to have been the less 
cultivated, and much the more careless. What 
Shakspeare could have done we nowhere dis- 
cover. A careless mortal, open to the Universe 
and its influences, not caring strenuously to 
open himself; who, Prometheus-like, will scale 
Heaven, (if it so must be,) and is satisfied if 
he therewith pay the rent of his London Play- 
house ; who, had the Warwickshire Justice let 
him hunt deer unmolested, might, for many 
years more, have lived quiet on the green earth 
without such aerial journeys : an unparalleled 
mortal. In the great Goethe, again, we see a 
man through life at his utmost strain ; a man 
that, as he says himself, "struggled toughly;" 
laid hold of all things, under all aspects, scien- 
tific or poetic : engaged passionately with the 
deepest interests of man's existence, in the 
most complex age of man's history. What 
Shakspeare's thoughts on " God, Nature, Art," 
would have been, especially had he lived to 
number fourscore years, were curious to know : 
Goethe's, delivered in many-toned melody, as 
the apocalypse of our era, are here, for us 
to know. 

Such was the noble talent intrusted to this 
man ; such the noble employment he made 
thereof. We can call him, once more, " a 
clear and universal man ;" we can say that, in 
his universality, as thinker, as singer, as 
worker, he lived a life of antique nobleness 
under these new conditions; and, in so living, 
is alone in all Europe; the foremost, whom 
others are to learn from and follow. In which 
great act, or rather great sum total of many 
acts, who shall compute what treasure of new 
strengthening, of faith become hope and vision, 
lies secured for all ! The question, Can man 
still live in devoutness, yet without blindness 
or contraction ; in unconquerable steadfast- 
ness for the right, yet without tumultuous ex- 
asperation against the wrong; as an antique 
worthy, yet with the expansion and increased 
endowment of a modern 1 is no longer a ques- 
tion, but has become a certainty, and ocularly- 
visible fact. • 

We have looked at Goethe, as we engaged 
to do, "on this side," and with the eyes of 
"this generation ;" that is to say, chiefly as a 
world-changer, and benignant spiritual revolu- 
tionist: for in our present so astonishing con- 
dition of "progress of the species," such is the 
category under which we must try all things, 
wisdom itself. And, indeed, under this aspect 
too, Goethe's Life and Works are doubtless of 
incalculable value, and worthy our most earn- 
est study; for his Spiritual History is, as it 
were, the ideal emblem of all true men's in 
these days ; the goal of Manhood, which he 

• German Romance, iv. 



attained, we too in our degree have to aim at; 
let us mark well the road he fashioned for 
himself, and in the dim weltering chaos rejoice 
to find a paved way. 

Here, moreover, another word of explana- 
tion is perhaps worth adding. We mean in 
regard to the controversy agitated (as about 
many things pertaining to Goethe) about his 
Political Creed and practice, whether he was 
Ministerial or in Opposition ! Let the politi- 
cal admirer of Goethe be at ease : Goethe was 
both, and also neither ! The " rotten white- 
washed (gchrcrhlichc ubcrliiruhte') condition of 
society" was plainer to few eyes than to his, 
sadder to few hearts than to his. Listen to the 
Epigrammatist at Venice: 

" To tliis stithy I liken the land, the han)n)er its ruler, 
And the people that plate, beaten between them that 

writhes: 
Wo to the plate, wlien nothing but wilful bruises on 

bruises 
Hit at random ; and made, cometh no Kettle to view !" 

But, alas, what is to be donel 

" No Apostle-of-Liberty much to my heart ever found I : 
License, each for himself, this was at bottom their want. 
Liberator of many ; first dare to be .Servant of many : 
What a business is that, wouldst thou know it, go try I" 

Let the following also be recommended to all 
inordinate worshippers of Septennials, Trien- 
nials, Elective Franchise, and the Shameful 
parts of the Constitution ; and let each be a little 
tolerant of his neighbour's " festoon," and re- 
joice that he has himself found out Freedom, — 
a thing much wanted: 

" Walls I can see tumbled down, walls I see also abuild- 

ing; 
Here sit prisoners, there likewise do prisoners sit : 
Is the world then itself a huge prison 1 Free only the 

madman, 
His chains knitting still up into some graceful festoon 1" 

So that for the Poet what remains but to 
leave Conservative and Destructive pulling 
one another's locks and ears oflf, as they will 
and can, (the ulterior issue being long since 
indubitable enough;) and, for his own part, 
strive day and night to forward the small suf- 
fering remnant oi Productives, of those who, in 
true manful endeavour, were it under des- 
potism or under sansculottism, create some 
what, — with whom, alone, in the end, does the 
hope of the world lie. Go thou and do like- 
wise ! Art thou called to politics, work therein, 
as this man would have done, like a real and 
not an imaginary workman. Understand well, 
meanwhile, that to no man is his political con- 
stitution " a life, but only a house wherein his 
life is led:" and hast thou a nobler task than 
such /trmse-pargeting and smoke-doctoring, and 
pulling down of ancient rotten rat-inhabited 
walls, leave such to the proper craftsman ; 
honour the higher Artist, and good-humouredly 
say with him: 

" All this is neither my coat nor my cake. 
Why fill my hand with other men's charges'? 

The fishes swim at ease in the lake. 
And take no thought of the barges." 

Goethe's political practice, or rather no-prac- 
tice, except that of self-defence, is a part of his 
conduct quite inseparably coherent with thn 



CORN-LAW RHYMES. 



365 



rest; a thing we could recommend to univer- 
sal study, that the spirit of it might be under- 
stood by all men, and by all men imitated. 

Nevertheless it is nowise alone on this revo- 
lutionary or " progress-of-lhe-species" side 
that Goethe has significance; his Life and 
Work is no painted show but a solid reality, 
and may be looked at with profit on all sides, 
from all imaginable points of view. Perennial, 
as a possession for ever, Goethe's History and 
Writings abide there; a thousand-voiced 
"Melody of Wisdom," which he that has ears 
may hear. What the experience of the most 
complexly-situated, deep-searching, every wa)^ 
far-erpcrienrcd man has yielded him of insight, 
lies written for all men here. He who was of 
compass to know and feel more than any other 
man, this is the record of his knowledge and 
feeling. "The deepest heart, the highest head 
to scan" was not beyond his faculty ; thus, 
then, did he scan and interpret: let many 
generations listen, according to their want; let 
the generation which has no need of listening, 
and nothing new to learn there, esteem itself 
a happy one. 



To us, meanwhile, to all that wander in 
darkness and seek light, as the one thing need- 
ful, be this possession reckoned among our 
choicest blessings and distinctions. Colite 
talcm virum : learn of him, imitate, emulate 
him ! So did he catch the Music of the Uni- 
verse, and unfold it into clearness, and in 
authentic celestial tones bring it home to the 
hearts of men, from amid that soul-confusing 
Babylonish hubbub of this our new Tower-of- 
Babel era ! For now, too, as in that old time, 
had men said to themselves: Come, let us 
build a tower which shall reach to heaven; 
and by our steam-engines, and logic-engines, 
and skilful mechanism and manipulation, van- 
quish not only Physical Nature, but the divine 
Spirit of Nature, and scale the empyrean itself. 
Wherefore they must needs again be stricken 
with confusion of tongues (or of printing- 
presses,) d.r\A dispersed , — to other work ; where- 
in also let us hope, their hammers and trowels 
shall better avail them. — 

Of Goethe, with a feeling such as can be 
due to no other man, we now take farewell : 
vixit, vivit. 



CORN-LAW RHYMES.* 



[Edinburgh Review, 1832.] 



Smelfungus Redivivus, throwing down his 
critical assaying-balance, some years ago, and 
taking leave of the Belles-Lettres function, ex- 
pressed himself in this abrupt way : " The end 
having come, it is fit that we end. Poetry 
having ceased to be read, or published, or 
written, how can it continue to be reviewedl 
With your Lake Schools, and Border Thief 
Schools, and Cockney and Satanic Schools, 
there has been enough to do; and now, all 
these Schools having burnt or smouldered 
themselves out, and left nothing but a wide- 
spread wreck of ashes, dust, and cinders, — or 
perhaps dying embers, kicked to and fro under 
the feet of innumerable women and children 
in the Magazines, and at best blown here and 
there into transient sputters, with vapour 
enough, so as to form what you might name a 
boundless Green-sick, or New-Sentimental, or 
Sleep-Awake School, — what remains but to 
adjust ourselves to circumstances 1 Urge me 
not," continues the able Editor, suddenly 
changing his figure, "with considerations that 
Poetry, as the inward voice of Life, must be 
perennial, only dead in one form to become 
alive in another ; that this still abundant deluge 
of Metre, seeing there must needs be fractions 
of Poetry floating scattered in it, ought still to 
be net-fished, at all events, surveyed and 



♦ 1. Corn-Law Rhymes. Third Edition. 8vo. Lon- 
don, 1831. 

2 Love ; a Poem. By the Author of Corn-Law 
Rhymes. Third Edition. Svo. London. IS.'il. 

3. The Vill.ise Patriarch ; a Poem. Bv the Author 
■of Corn-Law Rhymes. 12tno. London, 183L 



j taken note of: the survey of English Metre, at 
this epoch, perhaps transcends the human 
faculties; to hire out the reading of it, by esti- 
I mate, at a remunerative rate per page, would, 
j in few Quarters, reduce the cash-box of any 
} extant Review to the verge of insolvency." 

What our distinguished contemporary has 
said remains said. Far he if from us to cen- 
sure or counsel any able Editor; to draw aside 
the Editorial veil, and, ofliciously prying into 
his interior mysteries, impugn the laws he 
walks by ! For Editors, as for others, there 
are times of perplexity, wherein the cunning 
of the wisest will scantily suffice his own 
wants, say nothing of his neighbour's. 

To us, on our side, meanwhile, it remains 
clear that Poetry, or were it but Metre, should 
nowise be altogether neglected. Surely it is 
the Reviewer's trade to sit watching, not only 
the tillage, crop-rotation, marketings, and good 
or evil husbandry of the Economic Earth, but 
also the weather-symptoms of the Literary 
Heaven, on which those former so much de- 
pend: if any promising or threatening me- 
teoric phenomenon make its appearance, and 
he proclaim not tidings thereof, it is at his 
peril. Farther, be it considered how, in this 
singular poetic epoch, a small matter consti- 
tutes a novelty. If the whole welkin hang 
overcast in drizzly dinginess, the feeblest light- 
gleam, or speck of blue, cannot pass un- 
heeded. 

The Works of this Corn-Law Rhymer we 
might liken rather to some little fraction of a 
rainbow: hues of joy and harmony, painted 



366 



CARLYLE'S MISCELI>ANEOUS WRITINGS. 



out of troublous tears. No round full bow, 
indeed; gloriously spanning the heavens; 
shone on by the full sun; and, with seven- 
striped, gold-crimson border (as is in some 
sort the office of Poetry) dividing Black from 
Brilliant: not such; alas, still far from it! 
Yet, in very truth, a little prismatic blush, 
glowing genuine among the wet clouds; which 
proceeds, if you will, from asun cloud-hidden, 
yet indicates that a sun does shine, and above 
those vapours, a whole azure vault and celes- 
tial firmament stretch serene. 

Strange as it may seem, it is nevertheless 
true, that here we have once more got sight of 
a Book calling itself Poetry, yet which actually 
is a kind of Book, and no empty paste-board 
Case, and simulacrum or " ghost-defunct" of 
a Book, such as is too often palmed on the 
world, and handed over Booksellers' counters, 
with a demand of real money for it, as if it too 
were a reality. The speaker here is of that 
singular class, who have something to say; 
whereby, though delivering himself in verse, 
and in these days, he does not deliver himself 
wholly in jargon, but articulately, and with a 
certain degree of meaning, that has been 
believed, and therefore is again believable. 

To some the wonder and interest will be 
heightened by another circumstance : that the 
speaker in question is not school-learned, or 
even furnished with pecuniary capital; is, 
indeed, a quite unmoneyed, russet-coated 
speaker; nothing or little other than a Shef- 
field worker in brass and iron, who describes 
himself as "one of the lower, little removed 
above the lowest class." Be of what class he 
may, the man is provided, as we cas perceive, 
with a rational god-created soul ; which too 
has fashioned itself into some clearness, some 
self-subsistence, and can actually see and 
know with its own organs; and in rugged sub- 
stantial English, nay, with tones of poetic 
melody, utter forth what it has seen. 

It used to be said that lions do not paint, that 
poor men do not write; but the case is alter- 
ing now. Here is a voice coming from the 
deep Cyclopean forges, where Labour, in real 
soot and sweat, beats with his thousand ham- 
mers "the red son of the furnace;" doing per- 
sonal battle with Necessity, and her dark brute 
Powers, to make them reasonable and service- 
able; an intelligible voice from the hitherto 
Mute and Irrational, to tell us at first hand 
how it is with him, what in very deed is the 
theorem of the world and of himself, which he, 
in those dim depths of his, in that wearied 
head of his, has put together. To which voice, 
in several respects significant enough, let good 
ear be given. 

Here too, be it premised, that nowise under 
the category of" Uneducated Poets," or in any 
fashion of dilettante patronage, can our Shef- 
field friend be produced. His position is un- 
suitable for that: so is ours. Genius, which 
the French lady declared to be of no sex, is 
much more certainly of no rank ; neither 
when "the spark of Nature's fire" has been 
imparted, should Education take high airs in 
her artificial light, — which is too often but 
phosphorescence and putrescence. In fact, it 
now begins to be suspected here and there, 



that this same aristocratic recognition, which 
looks doM'n with an obliging smile from its 
throne, of bound Volumes and gold Ingots, 
and admits that it is wonderfully well for one 
of the uneducated classes, may be getting out 
of place. There are unhappy times in the 
world's history, when he that is the least edu- 
cated will chiefly have to say that he is the 
least perverted; and with the multitude of 
false eye-glasses, convex, concave, green, even 
yellow, has not lost the natural use of his 
eyes. For a generation that reads Cobbett's 
Prose, and Burns's Poetry, it need be no mir- 
acle that here also is a man who can handle 
both pen and hammer like a man. 

Nevertheless, this serene-highness attitude 
and temper is so frequent, perhaps it were 
good to turn the tables for a moment, and see 
what look it has under that reverse aspect. 
How were it if we surmised, that for a man 
gifted with natural vigour, with a man's cha- 
racter to be developed in him, more especially 
if in the way of Literature, as Thinker and 
Writer, it is actually, in these strange days, no 
special misfortune to be trained up among the 
Uneducated classes, and not among the Edu- 
cated; but rather of two misfortunes the 
smaller ? 

For all men doubtless obstructions abound; 
spiritual growth must be hampered and stunt- 
ed, and has to struggle through with difii- 
culty, if it do not wholly stop. We may grant 
too that, for a mediocre character, the con- 
tinual training and tutoring, from language- 
masters, dancing-masters, posture-masters of 
all sorts, hired and volunteer, which a high 
rank in any time and country assures, there 
will be produced a certain superiority, or at 
worst, air of superiority, over the correspond- 
ing mediocre character of low rank: thus we 
perceive the vulgar Do-nothing, as contrasted 
with the vulgar Drudge, is in general a much 
prettier man ; with a wider, perhaps clearer, 
outlook into the distance; in innumerable su- 
perficial matters, however it may be when we 
we go deeper, he has a manifest advantage. 
But with the man of uncommon character, 
again, in whom a germ of irrepressible Force 
has been implanted, and will unfold itself into 
some sort of freedom, — altogether the reverse 
may hold. For such germs, loo, there is un- 
doubtedly enough, a proper soil where they 
will grow best, and an improper one where 
they will grow worst. True also, where there 
is a will, there is a v.'ay; where a genius has 
been given, a possibility, a certainty of its 
growing is also given. Yet often it seems as 
if the injudicious gardening and manuring 
were worse than none at all ; and killed what 
the inclemencies of blind chance would have 
spared. We find accordingly that k\w Fred- 
erics or Napoleons, indeed none since the 
great Alexander, who unfortunately drank 
himself to death too soon for proving what 
lay in him, were nursed up with an eye to 
their vocation : mostly with an eye quite the 
other way, in the midst of isolation and pain, 
desti-tution and contradiction. Nay, in our 
own times, have we not seen two men of ge- 
nius, a Byron and a Burns ; they both, by 
mandate of Nature, struggle and must strug- 



CORN-LAW RHYMES. 



367 



gle towards clear Manhood, stornifully enough, 
for the space of six-and-thirty years ; yet only 
the gifted Ploughman can partially prevail 
therein : the gifted Peer must toil and strive, 
and shoot out in wild efibrts, yet die at last in 
Boyhood, with the promise of his Manhood 
still but announcing itself in the distance. 
Truly, as was once written, "it is only the ar- 
tichoke that will not grow except in gardens; 
the acorn is cast carelessly abroad into the 
wilderness, yet on the wild soil it nourishes it- 
self, and rises to be an oak." All woodmen, 
moreover, will tell you that fat manure is the 
ruin of your oak ; likewise that the thinner 
and wilder your soil, the tougher, more iron- 
textured is your timber, — though, unhappily, 
also, the smaller. So too with the spirits of 
men : they become pure from their errors, by 
suffering for them; he who has battled, were 
it only with poverty and hard toil, will be 
found stronger, more expert, than he who 
could stay at home from the battle, concealed 
among the Provision-wagons, or even not un- 
watchfully " abiding by the stuff." In which 
sense, an observer, not without experience of 
our time, has said: "Had I a man of clearly 
developed character, (clear, sincere within its 
limits,) of insight, courage, and real appli- 
cable force of head and of heart, to search 
for; and not a man of luxuriously distorted 
character, with haughtiness for courage, and 
for insight and applicable force, speculation 
and plausible show of force, — it were rather 
among the lower than the higher classes that 
I should look for him." 

A hard saying, indeed, seems this same : 
that he whose other wants were all beforehand 
supplied ; to whose capabilities no problem 
was presented except even this, How to culti- 
vate them to best advantage, should attain less 
real culture than he whose first grand prob- 
lem and obligation was nowise spiritual cul- 
ture, but hard labour for his daily bread ! 
Sad enough must the perversion be where pre- 
parations of such magnitude issue in abor- 
tion ; and a so sumptuous Art with all its 
appliances can' accomplish nothing, not so 
much as necessitous Nature would of herself 
have supplied ! Nevertheless, so pregnant is 
liife with evil as with good ; to such height in 
an age rich, plethorically overgrown with 
means, can means be accumulated in the 
wrong place, and immeasurably aggravate 
wrong tendencies, instead of righting them, 
this sad and strange result may actually turn 
out to have been realized. 

But what, after all, is meant by uneducated, 
in a time when Books have come into the 
world; come to the household furniture in 
every habitation of the civilized world? In 
the poorest cottage are Books : is one Book, 
wherein for several thousands of years the 
spirit of man has found light, and nourish- 
ment, and an interpreting response to what- 
ever is Deepest in him ; wherein still, to this 
day, for the eye that will look well, the Mys- 
tery of Existence reflects itself, if not resolved, 
yet revealed, and prophetically emblemed.; if 
not to the satisfying of the outward sense, yet 
to the opening of the inward sense, which is 
the far grander result. "In Books lie the cre- 



ative Phcenix-ashes of the -whole Past." All 
that men have devised, discovered, done, felt, 
or imagined, lies recorded in Books; wherein 
whoso has learned the mystery of spelling 
printed letters, may find it, and appropriate it. 

Nay, what indeed is all this '.' As if it M'ere 
by L'.niversities and libraries and lecture-rooms, 
that man's Education, what we can call Edu- 
cation, were accomplished : solely, or mainly, 
by instilling the dead letter and record of other 
men's Force, that the living Force of a new 
man were to be awakened, enkindled, and pu- 
rified into victoritius clearness! Foolish Pe- 
dant, that sittest there compassionately des- 
canting on the Learning of Shakspeare! 
Shakspeare had penetrated into innumerable 
things; far into Nature with her divine Splen- 
dours and infernal Terrors, her Ariel Melodies, 
and mystic mandragora Moans ; far into man's 
workings with Nature, into man's Art and 
Artifice; Shakspeare knew (kenned, which in 
those days still partially meant can-ned) innu- 
merable things; what men are, and what the 
world is, and how and what men aim at there, 
from the Dame Quickly of modern Eastcheap 
to the Cccsar of ancient Rome, over many 
countries, over many centuries : of all this 
he had the clearest understanding and con- 
structive comprehension ; all this was his 
Learning and Insight: what now is thine! 
Insight into none of those things; perhaps, 
strictly considered, into no thing whatever: 
solely into thy own sheepskin diplomas, fat 
academic honours, into vocables and alpha- 
betic letters, and but a little way into these ! — 
The grand result of schooling is a mind with 
just vision to discern, with free force to do : 
the grand schoolmaster is Practice. 

And now, when kennini>: and can-m'ng have 
become two altogether different words; and 
!his, the first principle of human culture, the 
foundation-stone of all but false imaginary cul- 
ture, that men must, before every other thing, 
be trained to do somewhat, has been, for some 
generations, laid quietly on the shelf, with 
such result as we see, — consider what advan- 
tage those same uneducated Working classes 
have over the educated Unworking classes, in 
one particular; herein, namely, that they must 
n-ork. To work ! What incalculable sources 
of cultivation lie in that process, in that at- 
tempt; how it lays hold of the whole man, 
not of a small theoretical calculating fraction 
of him, but of the whole practical, doing and 
daring and enduring man ; thereby to awaken 
dormant faculties, root out old errors, at every 
step! He that has done nothing has known 
nothing. Vain is it to sit scheming and plau- 
sibly discoursing: up and be doing! If thy 
knowledge be real, put it forth from thee : 
grapple with real Nature; try thy theories 
there, and see how they hold out. Do one thing, 
for the first time in thy life do a thing : a new 
light will rise to thee on the doing of all things 
whatsoever. Truly, a boundless significance 
lies in work : whereby the humblest craftsman 
comes to attain much, which is of indispen- 
sable use, but which he who is of no craft, 
were he never so high, runs the risk of miss- 
ing. Once turn to Practice, Error and Truth- 
will no longer consort together : the result of 



368 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Error involves you in the square-root of a ne- 
gative quantity; try to extract it, or any earthly 
substance or sustenance from it, if j'-qu will! 
The honourable Member can discover that 
"there is a reaction," and believe ic, and weari- 
somely reason on it, in spite of all men, while he 
so pleases, for still his wine and his oil will not 
fail him : but the sooty Brazier, who discovered 
that brass was green-cheese, has to act on his 
discovery; finds, therefore, that, singular as it 
may seem, brass cannot be masticated for din- 
ner, green-cheese will not beat into fireproof 
dishes : that such discovery, therefore, has no 
legs to stand on, and must even be let fall. Now, 
take this principle of difference through the 
entire lives of two men, and calculate what it 
will amount to ! Necessity, moreover, which 
we here see as the mother of Accuracy, is well 
known as the mother of Invention. He who 
w-ants every thing, must know many things, 
do many things, to procure even a few: dif- 
ferent enough with him, whose indispensable 
knowledge is this only, that a finger will pull 
the bell. 

So that, for all men who live, we may con- 
clude, this Life of Man is a school, wherein 
the naturally foolish will continue foolish 
though you bray him in a mortar, but the natu- 
rally'wise will gather wisdom under every dis- 
advantage. What, meanwhile, must be the 
condition of an Era, when the highest advan- 
tages there become perverted into drawbacks; 
when, if you take two men of genius, and put 
the one between the handles of a plough, and 
mount the other between the painted coronets 
of a coach-and-four, and bid them both move 
along, the former shall arrive a Burns, the 
latter a Byron : two men of lalent, and put the 
one into a Printer's chapel, full of lampblack, 
tyrannous usage, hard toil, and the other into 
Oxford universities, with lexicons and libraries, 
and hired expositors and sumptuous endow- 
ments, the former shall come out a Dr. Frank- 
lin, the latter a Dr. Parr! — 

However, we are not here to write an Essay 
on Education, or sing misereres over a " world 
in its dotage ;" but simply to say that our Corn- 
Law Rhymer, educated or uneducated as Na- 
ture and Art have made him, asks not the 
smallest patronage or compassion for his 
rhymes, professes not the smallest contrition 
for them. Nowise in such attitude does he 
present himself; not supplicatory, deprecatory, 
but sturdy, defiant, almost menacing. Where- 
fore, indeed, should he supplicate or deprecate 1 
It is out of the abundance of the heart that he 
has spoken ; praise or blame cannot make it 
truer or falser than it already is. By the grace 
of God this man is sufficient for himself ; by 
his skill in metallurgy, can beat out a toilsome 
but a manful living, go how it may; has 
arrived too at that singular audacity of believ- 
ing what he knows, and acting on it, or writing 
on it, or thinking on it, without leave asked of 
any one: there shall he stand, and work, with 
head and with hand, for himself and the world ; 
blown about by no wind of doctrine ; frightened 
at no Reviewer's shadow; having, in his time, 
looked substances enough in the face, and re- 
mained unfrightened. 

What is left, therefore, but to take what he 



brings, and as he brings it? Let us be thank- 
ful, were it only for the day of small things. 
Something it is that we have lived to welcome 
once more a sweet Singer wearing the likeness 
of a Man. In humble guise, it is true, and of 
stature more or less marred in its develop- 
ment; yet not without a genial robustness, 
strength and valour, built on honesty and love; 
on the whole, a genuine man, with somewhat 
of the eye and speech and bearing that be- 
seems a man. To whom all other genuine 
men, how different soever in subordinate par- 
ticulars, can gladly hold out the right hand of 
fellowship. 

The great excellence of our Rhymer, be it 
understood then, we take to consist even in 
this, often hinted at already, that he is ge^iuine. 
Here is an earnest, truth-speaking man; no 
theorizer, sentimentalizer, but a practical man 
of work and endeavour, man of sufferance and 
endurance. The thing that he speaks is not a 
hearsay, but a thing which he has himself 
known, and by experience become assured of. 
He has used his eyes for seeing; uses his 
tongue for declaring what he has seen. His 
voice, therefore, among the many noises of our 
Planet, will deserve its place better than the 
most; will be well worth some attention. 
Whom else should we attend to but such 1 
The man who speaks with some half shadow 
of a Belief, and supposes, and inclines to 
think ; and considers not with undivided soul, 
what IS true, but only what is plausible, and 
will find audience and recompense; do we not 
meet him at every street-turning, on all high- 
ways and byways ; is he not stale, unprofit- 
able, ineffectual, wholly grown a weariness of 
the flesh 1 So rare is his opposite in any rank 
of Literature, or of Life, so very rare, that 
even in the lowest he is precious. The au- 
ihentic insight and experience of any human 
soul, were it but insight and experience in 
hewing of wood and drawing of water, is real 
knowledge, a real possession and acquirement, 
how small soever: palabru, again, were it a 
supreme pontiff's, is wind merely, and nothing, 
or less than nothing. To a considerable de- 
gree, this man, we say, has worked himself 
loose from cant, and conjectural halfness, idle 
pretences and hallucinations, into a condition 
of Sincerity. Wherein, perhaps, as above 
argued, his hard social environment, and foi"- 
tune to be " a workman born," which brought 
so many other retardations with it, may have 
forwarded and accelerated him. 

That a man, Workman, or Idleman, encom- 
passed, as in these days, with persons in a 
state of willing or unwilling Insincerity, and 
necessitated, as man is to learn whatever he 
does traditionally learn by imitating these, 
should nevertheless shake off Insincerity, and 
struggle out from that dim pestiferous marsh- 
atmosphere, into a clearer and purer height, — 
betokens in him a certain originality; in which 
rare gift Force of all kinds is presupposed. To 
our Rhymer, accordingly, as hinted more than 
once, vision and determination have not been 
denied: a rugged, homegrown understanding 
is in him ; whereby, in his own way, he has 
mastered this and that, and looked into various 
things, in general honesty and to purpose. 



CORN-LAW RHYMES. 



369 



sometimes deeply, piercingly, and with a 
Seer's eye. Sirong thoughts are not wanting, 
beautiful thoughts; strong and beautiful ex- 
pressions of thought. As traceable for instance 
in this new illustration of an old argument, the 
mischief of Commercial Restrictions : 

"These, O ye quacks, these are your remedies ; 
Alms for the Rich, a bread-tax for the Poor ! 
Soul-piirchased harvests on the indigent moor! 
Thus the winged victor of a hundred fights, 
The warrior Ship, bows low her banner'd head. 
When through her planks the seaborn reptile bites 
Its deadly way ;— and sinks in ocean's bed, 
Vanquish'd by worms. What then 7 The worms were 

fed.— 
Will not God smite thee black, thou whited wall? 
Thy law is lifeless, and thy law a lie, 
Or Nature is a dream unnatural: 
Look on the clouds, the streams, the earth, the sky ; 
Lo all is interchange and harmony '• 
Where is the gorgeous pomp which, yester morn, 
Curtained yon Orb, with amber, fold on fold t 
Behold it in the blue of Rivelin, borne 
To feed the all-feeding sea ; the molten gold 
Is flowing pale in Loxley's waters cold. 
To kindle into beauty tree and flower. 
And wake to verdant life hill, vale, and plain. 
Cloud trades with river, and e.xchange is power : 
But should the clouds, the streams, the winds disdain 
Harmonious intercourse; nor dew nor rain 
Would forest-crown the mountains : airless day 
Would blast on Kinderscout the heathy glow; 
No purply green would meeken into gray 
O'er Don at eve ; no sound of river's flow 
Disturb the Sepulchre of all below." 

Nature and the doings of men have not passed 
by this man unheeded, like the endless cloud- 
rack in dull weather; or lightly heeded, like 
a theatric phantasmagoria; but earnestly in- 
quired into, like a thing of reality; reverently 
loved and worshipped, as a thing with divine 
significance in its reality, glimpses of which 
divineness he has caught and laid to heart. 
For his vision, as was said, partakes of the 
genuinely Poetical : he is not a Rhymer and 
Speaker only, but, in some genuine sense, 
something of a Poet. 

Farther we must admit him, what indeed is 
already herein admitted, to be, if clear-sighted, 
also brave-hearted. A troublous element is 
his; a Life of painfulness, toil, insecurily, 
scarcity, yet he fronts it like a man; yields 
not to it, tames into some subjection, some 
order; its wild fearful dinning and tumult, as 
of a devouring Chaos, becomes a sort of wild 
war-music for him ; wherein too are passages 
of beauty, of melodious melting softness, of 
lightness and briskness, even of joy. The 
stout heart is also a warm and kind one ; 
Affection dwells with Danger, all the holier 
and the lovelier for such stern environment. 
A working man is this ; yet, as we said, a 
man : in his sort, a courageous, much loving, 
faithfully enduring and endeavouring man. 

What such a one, so gifted and so placed, 
shall say to a Time like ours; how he will 
fashion himself into peace, or war, or armed 
neutrality, wiih the world and his fellow men, 
and work out his course in joy and grief, in 
victory and defeat, is a question worth asking: 
which in these three little Volumes partly re- 
ceives answer. He has turned, as all thinkers 
lip to a very high and rare order in these days 
47 



must do, into Politics ; is a Reformer, at least 
a stern Complainer, Radical to the heart: his 
poetic melody takes an elegiaco-tragical cha- 
racter: much of him is converted into Hostility, 
and grim, hardly-suppressed Indignation, such 
as Right long denied, Hope long deferred, may 
awaken in the kindliest heart. Not yet as a 
rebel against any thing does he stand; but as a 
free man, and the spokesman of free men, not 
far from rebflling against much ; with sorrow- 
ful, appealing dew, yet also with incipient 
lightning, in his eyes ; whom it were not de- 
sirable to provoke into rebellion. He says in 
Vulcanic dialect, his feelings have been ham- 
mered till they are cold-short; so they will no 
longer bend; "they snap, and fly off," — in the 
face of the hammerer. Not unnatural, though 
lamentable ! Nevertheless, under ail disguises 
of the Radical, the Poet is still recognisable : 
a certain music breathes through all disso- 
nances, as the prophecy and ground-tone of 
returning harmony ; the man, as we said, is of 
a poetical nature. 

To his Political Philosophy there is perhaps 
no great importance attachable. He feels, as 
all men that live must do, the disorganization, 
and hard-grinding, unequal pressure of the 
Social Affairs ; but sees into it only a very 
little farther than far inferior men do. The 
frightful condition of a Time, when public and 
private Principle, as the word was once under- 
stood, having gone out of sight, and Self-in- 
terest being left to plot, and struggle, and 
scramble, as it could and would, Dilticulties 
had accumulated till they were no longer to be 
borne, and the spirit that should have fronted 
and conquered them seemed to have forsaken 
the world;— when the Rich, as the utmost they 
could resolve on, had ceased to govern, and 
the Poor, in their fast-accumulating numbers, 
and ever-widening complexities, had ceased to 
be able to do without governing; and now the 
plan of" Competition" and "■ Laissez-fuirc" was, 
on every side, approaching its con.vummation ; 
and each bound up in the circle of his own 
wants and perils, stood grimly distrustful of 
his neighbour, and the distracted Common- 
weal was a Common-wo, and to all men it 
became apparent that the end was drawing 
nigh :— all this black aspect of Ruin and Decay, 
visible enough, experimentally known to our 
Sheffield friend, he calls by the name of " Corn- 
Law," and expects to be in good part delivered 
from, were the accursed Bread-tax repealed. 

In this system of political Doctrine, even as 
here so emphatically set forth, there is not 
much of novelty. Radicals we have many; 
loud enoush on this and other grievances ; the 
removal of which is to be the one thing need- 
ful. The deep, wide flood of Bitterness, and 
Hope becoming hopeless, lies acrid, corrosive 
in every bosom; and flows fiercely enough 
through any orifice Accident may open : through 
Law Reform, Legislative Reform, Poor Laws, 
want of Poor Laws, Tithes, Game Laws, or, as 
we see here, Corn Laws. Whereby indeed only 
this becomes clear, that a deep, wide flood of 
evil does exist and corrode; from which, ia 
all ways, blindly and seeingly, men seek de- 
liverance, and cannot rest till they find it ; least 
of all till they know what part and proportion 



370 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



of it is to be found. But with us foolish sons 
of Adam this is ever the way; some evil that 
lies nearest us, be it a chronic sickness, or but 
a smoky chimney, is ever the acme and sum- 
total of all evil: the black hydra that shuts us 
out from a Promised Land : and so, in poor Mr. 
Shandy' s fashion, must we " shift from trouble 
to trouble, and from side to side ; button up one 
cause of vexation, and unbutton another." 

Thus for our keen-hearted singer, and suf- 
ferer, has " the Bread-tax," in itself a consider- 
able but no immeasurable smoke-pillar, swoln 
out to be a world embracing Darkness, that 
darkens and suffocates the whole Earth, and has 
■blotted out the heavenly stars. Info the merit 
of the Corn Laws, which has often been dis- 
cussed, in fit season, by competent hands, we 
do not enter here; least of all in the way of 
argument, in the way of blame, towards one 
who, if he read such merit with some emphasis 
"on the scantier trenchers of his children," 
may well be pardoned. That the '-Bread-tax," 
with various other taxes, may ere long be 
altered and abrogated, and the Corn Trade be- 
come as free as the poorest " bread-taxed 
drudge" could wish " it, or the richest satrap 
bread-tax-fed" could fear it, seems no extrava- 
gant hypothesis: would that the mad Time 
could, by such simple hellebore-dose, be 
healed ! Alas, for the diseases of a " world 
lying in wickedness," in heart-sickness and 
atrophy, quite another alcahest is needed; — a 
long, painful course of medicine and regimen, 
surgery and physic, not yet specified or in- 
dicated in the Royal-College Books ! 

But if there is little novelty in our friend's 
Political Philosophy, there is some in his poli- 
tical Feeling and Poetry. The peculiarity of 
this Radical is, that with all his stormful de- 
structiveness, he combines a decided loyalty 
and faith. If he despise and trample under 
foot on the one hand, he exalts and reverences 
on the other : the " landed pauper in his coach- 
and-four" rolls all the more glaringly, contrasted 
with the " Rockinghams and Savilles" of the 
past, with the "Lansdowns and Fitzwilliams," 
many a " Wentvvorth's lord," still " a blessing" 
to the present. This man, indeed, has in him 
the root of all reverence, — a principle of Re- 
ligion. He oelieves in a Godhead, not with 
the lips onlf, but apparently with the heart; 
who, as has been written, and often felt, " re- 
VL'als Himself in Parents, in all true Teachers, 
and Ruler.s" — as in false Teachers and Rulers 
quite Another may be revealed! Our Rhymer, 
it would ;eem, is no Methodist: far enough 
from it. He makes " the Ranter," in his hot- 
headed way, exclaim over 

" Th( hundred Popes of England's Jesuitry ;" 

and addi, by way of note, in his own person, 
some still stronger sayings : How " this bane- 
ful corporation," " dismal as its Reign of Terror 
is, and long armed its Holy Inquisition, must 
condescend to learn and teach what is useful, 
or go where all nuisances go." As little per- 
haps is he a Churchman; the "Cadi-Dervish" 
being nowise to his mind. Scarcely, however, 
if at all, does he show aversion to the Church 
as Church ; or, among his many griefs, touch 
uj/on Tithes as one. But, in any case, the 



black colours of Life, even as here painted, and 
brooded over, do not hide from him that a God 
is the Author and suslainer thereof ; that God's 
world, if made a House of Imprisonment, can 
also he a House of Prayer ; wherein for the 
weary and heavy-laden. Pity and Hope are not 
altogether cut away. 

It is chiefly in virtue of this inward temper 
of heart, with the clear disposition and ad- 
justment which for all else results therefrom, 
that our Radical attains to be Poetical ; that the 
harsh groanings, contentions, upbraidings, of 
one who unhappily has felt constrained to 
adopt such mode of utterance, become ennobled 
into something of music. If a land of bond- 
age, this is still his Father's land, and ttie 
bondage endures not for ever. As worshipper 
and believer, the captive can look with seeing 
eye : the aspect of the Infinite Universe still 
fills him with an infinite feeling; his chains, 
were it but for moments, fall away ; he soars 
free aloft, and the sunny regions of Poesy and 
Freedom gleam golden afar on the widened 
horizon. Gleamings we say, prophetic dawn- 
ings, from those far regions, spring up for him ; 
nay, beams of actual radiance. In his rugged- 
ness, and dim contractedness, (rather of place 
than of organ,) he is not without touches of a 
feeling and vision, which, even in the strictest 
sense, is to be named poetical. 

One deeply poetical idea, above all others, 
seems to have taken hold of him : the idea of 
Time. As was natural to a poetic soul, with 
few objpi'is of Art in its environment, and 
driven inward, rather than invited outward, for 
occupation. This deep mystery of ever-flow- 
ing Time; "bringing forth," and as the An- 
cients wisely fabled, "devouring" what it has 
brought forth; rushing on, in us, yet above 
us, all uncontrollable by us; and under it, 
dimly visible athwart it, the bottomless Eter- 
nal ; — this is, indeed, what we may call the 
Primary idea of Poetry : the first that intro- 
duces itself into the poetic mind. As here: 

"The bee shall seek to settle on his hand, 

But from the vacant bench haste to the moor, 

jMo;irniiifj llie last of England's high-soul'd Poor, 

And hid the mountains wee|) fur Enoch Wray. 

And for themselves, — albeit of things that last 

Unalter'd most : for they shall pass away 

Like Enoch, though their iron roots seem fast, 

Bound to the eternal future as the past : 

The Patriarch died, and they shall be no more! 

Yes, and the sailless worlds, which navigate 

The unutterable Deep that hath no shore. 

Will lose their starry splendour soon or late, 

Like tapers, quench'd by him whose will is fate! 

Yes, and the Angel of Eternity 

Who numbers worlds and writes their names in light. 

One day, O Karlh,will look in vain for thee, 

And start and stop in his unerring flight, 

And with his wings of sorrow and affright, 

Veil his inipajsion'd brow and heavenly tears :" 

And not the first idea only, but the greatest, 
properly the parent of all others. For if it 
can rise in the remotest ages, in the rudest 
states of culture, wherever an "inspired 
thinker" happens to exist, it connects itself 
still with all great things; with the highest 
results of new Philosophy, as of primeval 
Theology: and for the Poet, in i>articular, is 
as the life-element wherein alone his concep- 



CORN-LAW RHYMES. 



^i 



tions can take poetic form, and the whole world 
become miraculous and magical. 

" We are such stv^ 
As Dreams are made of: and our little life 
Is rounded with a Sleep ;" 

Figure that, believe that, Reader; then 
say whether the Arabian Tales seem wonderful ! 
— " Rounded with a sleep, (mit Schlifumgcben) !" 
says Jean Paul : " these three words created 
■whole volumes in me." 



To turn now on our worthy Rhymer, who 
has brought us so much, and stingily insist 
on his errors and shortcomings, were no honest 
procedure. We had the whole poetical ency- 
clopaedia to draw upon, and say commodiously, 
Such and such an item is nol here ; of which 
encyclopaedia the highest genius can fill but a 
portion. With much merit, far from common 
in his time, he is not without something of the 
faults of his time. We praised him for original- 
ity; yet is there a certain remainder of imita- 
tion in him; a tang of ihe Circulating Libra- 
ries, as in Sancho's wine, with its key and 
thong, there was a tang of iron and leather. 
To be reminded of Crabbe, with his truthful 
severity of style, in such a place, we cannot 
object ; but what if there were a slight bravura 
dash of the fair tuneful Hemans ? Still more, 
what have we to do with Byron, and his fierce 
vociferous mouthings, whether "passionate," 
or not passionate and only theatrical 1 Kin 
Cambyses' vein is, after all, but a vvorihless 
one ; no vein for a wise man. Strength, if that 
be the thing aimed at, does not manifest itself 
in spasms, but in stout bearing of burdens. 
Our Author says, " It is too bad to exalt into a 
hero the coxcomb who would have gone into 
hysterics if a tailor had laughed at him." 
Walk not in his footsteps, then, we say, 
whether as hero or as singer; repent a little, 
for example, over somewhat in that fuliginous, 
blue-flaming, pitch-and-sulphur " Dream of 
Enoch Wray," and write the next otherwise. 

We mean no imitation in a bad palpable 
sense ; only that there is a lone of such occa- 
sionally audible; M'hich ought to be removed; 
— of which, in any case, we make not much. 
Imitation is a leaning on something foreign; 
incompleteness of individual development, de- 
fect of free utterance. From the same source, 
spring most of our Author's faults; in particu- 
lar, his worst, which after all is intrinsically a 
defect of manner. He has little or no Humour. 
Without Humour of character he cannot well 
be ; but it has not yet got to utterance. Thus, 
where he has mean things to deal with, he 
knows not how to deal with them ; oftenest 
deals with them more or less meanly. In his 
vituperative prose Notes, he seems embar- 
rassed; and but ill hides his embarrassment, 
under an air of predetermined sarcasm, of 
knowing briskness, almost of vulgar pertness. 
He says, he cannot help it; he is poor, hard- 
worked, and " soot is soot." True, indeed ; yet 
there is no connection between Poverty and 
Discourtesy; which latter originates in Dull- 
ness alone. Courtesy is the due of Man to 
Man ; not of suit of clothes to suit of clothes. 
He who could master so many things, and 



make even Corn-Laws rhyme, we require o{ 
him this further thing, — a bearing wor.thy of 
himself, and of the order he belongs to, — the 
highest and most ancient of all orders, that of 
Manhood. A perl snappishness is no manner 
for a brave man ; and then the manner so soon 
influences the matter; a far worse result. Let 
him speak wise things, and speak them wisely ; 
which latter may be done in many dialects, 
grave and gay, only in the snappish seldom or 
never. 

The truth is, as might have been expected, 
there is still much lying in him to be developed ; 
the hope of which development it were rather 
sad to abandon. Why, for example, should 
not his view of the world, his knowledge of 
what is and has been in the world, inde- 
finitely extend itself! Were he merely the 
"uneducated Poet," we should say, he had 
read largely; as he is not such, we say. Read 
still more, much more largely. Books enough 
there are in England, and of quite another 
weight and worth than that circulating-library 
sort ; may be procured too, may be read, even 
by a hard-worked man ; for what man (either 
in God's service or the Devil's, as himself 
chooses it) is not hard-worked 1 But here 
again, where there is a will there is a way. 
True, our friend is no longer in his teens ; yet 
still, as would seem, in the vigour of his years : 
we hope too that his mind is not finally shut 
in, but of the improvable and enlargeable sort. 
If Alfieri (also kept busy enough, with horse- 
breaking and what not), learned Greek after he 
was fifty, why is the Corn-Law Rhymer tea 
old to learn 1 

However, be in the future what there may, 
our Rhymer has already done what was much 
more diflicult, and better than reading printed'" 
books; — looked into the great prophetic-manu- 
script Book of Existence, and read little pas- 
sages there. Here, for example, is a sentence 
tolerably spelled: 



" Where toils the Mill by ancient woods embraced, 
Hark, liow the cold steel screams in hissing fire '. 
Blind Enoch sees the Oriiider's wheel no more, 
Coutird beneath rocks iind furests, that admire 
Their beauty in the waters, ere they roar 
Dashed in white foam the swift circumference o'er. 
There draws the Grinder his laborious breath : 
There coughing at his deadly trade he bends : 
Born to die young, he fears nor man nor death ; 
Scorning the future, what he earns he spends; 
Debauch and riot are his bosom friends." 
" Behold his failings ! Hath he virtues too ? 
He is no Pauper, blackguard though he be : 
Full well he knows what minds combined can do, 
Full well maintains his birthright : he is free, 
And, frown for frown, outstares monopoly. 
Yet Abraham and Elliot both in vain 
Bid Science on his cheek prolong the bloom: 
He tDill not live ! He seems in haste to gain 
The undisturbed asylum of the tomb. 
And, old at two-and-thirty, meets his doom !" 

Or this " of Jem, the rogue avowed, 

"Whose trade is Poaching; Honest Jem works notj 
Begs not, but thrives by plundering beggars here. 
Wise as a lord, and quite as good a shot, 
He, like his betters, lives in hate and fear 
And feeds on partridge because bread is dear. 
Sire of six sons apprenticed to the jail. 
He prowls in arms, the Tory of the night; 
With them he shares his battles and his ale. 



372 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



With him they feel the majesty of might, 
No Despot better knows thai Power is Right. 
Mark his unpaidish sneer, his lordly frown ; 
Hark how he calls the beadle and flunky liars ; 
See how magnificently he breaks down 
His neighbour's fence, if so his will requires. 
And how his strultle emulates the squire's!" 
" Jem rises with the Moon ; but when she sinks, 
Homeward with sack-like pockets, and quick heels, 
Hungry as boroughmongering gowl, he slinks. 
He reads not, writes not, thinks not ; scarcely feels ; 
Steals all he gets ; serves Hell with all he steals !" 

It is rustic, rude existence ; barren moors, 
with the smoke of Forges rising over the 
waste expanse. Alas, no Arcadia; but the 
actual dwelling-place of actual toil-grimed 
sons of Tubal-cain : yet are there blossoms and 
the wild natural fragrance of gorse and broom ; 
yet has the Craftsman pauses in his toil ; the 
Craftsman too has an inheritance in Earth; 
and even in Heaven. 

" Light ! All is not corrupt, for thou art pure. 

Unchanged and changeless. Though frail man is vile, 

Thou look'st on him ; serene, sublime, secure, 

Yet, like thy Father, with a pitying smile. 

Even on this wintry day, as marble cold. 

Angels might quit their home to visit thee, 

And match their plumage with thy mantle roll'd 

Beneath God's Throne, o'er billows of a sea 

Whose isles are Worlds, whose bounds Infinity. 

Why then is Enoch absent from my side t 

I miss the rustle of his silver hair; 

A guide no more, I seem to want a guide. 

While Enoch journeys to the house of prayer ; 

Ah, ne'er came Sabbath-day but he was there ! 

Lo, how, like him, erect and strong, though gray, 

Yon village tower time-touch'd to God appeals! 

And hark ! the chimes of morning die away : 

Hark ! to the heart the solemn sweetness steals. 

Like the heart's voice, unfellby none who feels 

That God Is Love, that Man is living Dust; 

tinfelt by none whom ties of brotherhood 

Link to his kind ; by none who puts his trust 

In naught of Earth that hath survived the flood, 

Save those mute charities, by which the good 

Strengthen poor worms, and serve their Maker best. 

" Hail Sabbath ! Day of mercy, peace, and rest ! 
Thou o'er loud cities throw'st a noiseless spell. 
The hammer there, the wheel, the saw molest 
Pale Thought no more : o'er Trade's contentious hell 
Meek Quiet spreads her wings invisible. 
And when thou com'st, less silent are the fields. 
Through whose sweet paths the toii-freed townsman 

Steals, 
To him the very air a banquet yields. 
Envious he watches the poised hawk that wheels 
His flight on chainless winds. Each cloud reveals . 
A paradise of beauty to his eye. 
His little Boys are with him, seeking flowers. 
Or chasing the too venturous gilded fly. 
So by the daisy's side he spends the hours. 
Renewing friendship with the budding bowers : 
And while might, beauty, good without alloy 
Are mirror'd in his children's happy eyes, — 
In His great Temple offering thankful joy 
To Him, the infinitely Great and Wi.se, 
With fioul attuned to Nature's harmonies, 
Sereiie and cheerful as a sporting child, — 
His yiearl refuses to believe that man 
Oould turn into a hell the blooming wild, 
The blissful country where his childhood ran 
A race with infant rivers, ere began — " 

— " King-humbling" bread-tax, " blind Mis- 
rule" and enough else. 

And so our Corn-Law Rhymer plays his 
part. In this wise, does he indite and act his 
Prama oi Life, which for him is all too Domes- 



tic-Tragical. It is said, " the good actor soon 
makes us forget the bad theatre, were it but a 
barn; while, again, nothing renders so ap- 
parent the badness of the bad actor as a theatre 
of peculiar excellence." How much more in a 
theatre and drama such as these of Life itself! 
One other item, however, we must note in that 
ill-decorated Sheffield theatre: the back-scene 
and bottom-decoration of it all ; which is no 
other than a Workhouse. Alas, the Work- 
house is the bourne whither all these actors 
and workers are bound; whence none that 
has once passed it returns! A bodeful sound, 
like the rustle of approaching world-devouring 
tornadoes, quivers through their whole exist- 
ence; and the voice of it is. Pauperism ! The 
thanksgiving they offer up to Heaven is, that 
they are not yet Paupers; the earnest cry of 
their prayer is, that " God would shield them 
from the bitterness of Parish Pay." 

Mournful enough, that a white European 
Man must pray wistfully for what the horse he 
drives is sure of, — That the strain of his whole 
faculties may not fail to earn him food and 
lodging. Mournful that a gallant manly spirit, 
with an eye to discern the world, a heart to 
reverence it, a hand cunning and willing to 
labour in it, must be haunted with such a fear. 
The grim end of it all. Beggary ! A soul 
loathing, what true souls ever loathe. Depend- 
ence, help from the unworthy to help ; yet 
sucked into the world-whirlpool, — able to do 
no other : the highest in man's heart struggling 
vainly against the lowest in man's destiny ! In 
good truth, if many a sickly and sulky Byron, 
or Byronlet, glooming over the woes of exist- 
ence, and how unworthy God's Universe is to 
have so distinguished a resident, could trans- 
port himself into the patched coat and sooty 
apron of a Sheffield Blacksmith, made with as 
strange faculties and feelings as he, inade by 
God Almighty all one as he was, — it would 
throw a light on much for him. 

Meanwhile, is it not frightful as well as 
inournful to consider how the wide-spread evil 
is spreading wider and wider 1 Most persons, 
who have had eyes to look with, may hav6 
verified, in their own circle, the statement of 
this Sheffield Eye-witness, and "from their 
own knowledge and observation fearlessly de- 
clare that the little master-manufacturer," thai 
the working man generally, " is in a much 
worse condition than he was in twenty-five 
years ago." Unhappily, the fact is too plain ; 
the reason and scientific necessity of it is too 
plain. In this state of things, every new man 
is a new misfortune ; every new market a new 
complexity; the chapter of chances grows 
ever more incalculable; the hungry gamesters 
(whose stake is their life) are ever increasing 
in numbers; the world-movetnent rolls on : by 
what method shall the weak and help-needing, 
who has none to help him, withstand it ? Al.is, 
how many brave hearts, ground to pieces in 
that unequal battle, have already sunk ; in 
every sinking heart, a Tragedy, less famous 
than that of the Sons of Atreus; wherein, 
however, if no "kingly house," yet a manly 
house went to the dust, and a whole manly 
" lineage was swept away." Must it grow 
worse and worse till the last brave heart is 



CORN-LAW RHYMES. 



073 



broken in England ; and this same " brave 
Peasantry" has become a kennel of wild-howl- 
ing ravenous Paupers 1 God be thanked ! 
There is some feeble shadow of hopes that the 
change may have begun while it was yet time. 
You may lift the pressure from the free nian's 
shoulders, and bid him go forth rejoicing; but 
lift the slave's burden, he will only wallow the 
more composedly in his sloth : a nation of 
degraded men cannot be raised up, except by 
what we rightly name a miracle. 

Under which point of view also, these little 
Volumes, indicating such a character in such 
a place, are not without significance. One 
faint symptom perhaps that clearness will 
return, that there is a possibility of its return. 
It is as if from that Gehenna of Manufacturing 
Radicalism, from amid its loud roaring and 
cursing, whereby nothing became feasible, 
nothing knowable, except this only, that misery 
and malady existed there, we heard now some 
manful tone of reason and determination, 
wherein alone can there be profit, or promise 
of deliverance. In this Corn-Law Rhymer we 
seem to trace something of the antique spirit; 
a spirit which had long become invisible 
among our working as among other classes; 
which here, perhaps almost for the first time, 
reveals itself in an altogether modern political 
vesture. "The Pariahs of the Isle of Woe," 
as he passionately names them, are no longer 
Pariahs if they have become Men. Here is 
one man of their tribe ; in several respects a 
true man ; who has abjured Hypocrisy and 
Servility, yet not therewith trodden Religion 
and Loyalty under foot ; not without justness 
of insight, devoutness, peaceable heroism of 
resolve ; who, in all circumstances, even in 
these strange ones, will be found quitting him- 
self like a man. One such that has found a 
voice : who knows how many mute but not 
inactive brethren he may have in his own and 
in all other ranks ? Seven thousand that have 
not bowed the knee to Baal ! These are the 
men, wheresoever found, who are to stand 
forth in England's evil day, on whom the hope 
of England rests. For it has been often said, 
and must often be said again, that all Reform 
except a moral one will prove unavailing. 
Political Reform, pressingly enough wanted, 
can indeed root out the weeds (gross deep-fixed 
lazy dock-weeds, poisonous obscene hemlocks, 
inefllectual spurry in abundance ;) but it leaves 
the ground empty, — read)^ either for noble 
fruits, or for new worse tares ! And how else 
is a Moral Reform to be looked for but in this 
way, that more and more Good Men are, by a 
bountiful Providence, sent hither to dissemi- 
nate Goodness; literally to sow it, as in seeds 
shaken abroad by the living tree 1 For such, 
in all ages and p^ces, is the nature of a Good 
Man ; he is ever a mystic creative centre of 
Goodness; his influence, if we consider it, is 
not to be measured ; for his works do not die, 
but being of Eternity, are eternal; and in new 
transformation, and ever wider diflusion, en- 
dure, living and life-giving. Thou who ex- 
claimest over the horrors and baseness of the 
Time, and how Diogenes would now need two 
lanterns in daylight, think of this; over the 
Time thou hast no power : to redeem a World 



sunk in dishonesty has not been given thee \ 
solely over one man therein thou hast a quite 
absolute uncontrollable power; him redeem, 
him make honest; it will be something, it will 
be much, and thy life and labour not in vain. 

We have given no epitomized abstract of 
these little Books, such as is the Reviewer's 
wont : we would gladly persuade many a 
reader, high and low, who takes interest not in 
rhyme only, but in reason, and the condition 
of his fellow-man, to purchase and peruse them 
for himself. It is proof of an innate love of 
worth, and how willingly the Public, did not 
thousand-voiced PufiTery so confuse it, would 
have to do with substances, and not with de- 
ceptive shadows, that these Volumes carry 
"Third Edition" marked on them, — on all of 
them but the newest, whose fate with the read* 
ing world we yet know not; which, however, 
seems to deserve not worse but better than 
either of its forerunners. 

Nay, it appears to us as if in this humble 
chant of the Villoi^e Pulriarch might be traced 
rudiments of a truly great idea; great though 
all undeveloped. The Rhapsody of "Enoch 
Wray" is, in its nature, and unconscious ten- 
dency. Epic ; a whole world lies shadowed in 
it. What we might call an inarticulate, half- 
audible Epic ! The main figure is a blind aged 
man; himself a ruin, and encircled with the 
ruin of a whole Era. Sad and great does that 
image of a universal Dissolution hover visible 
as a poetic background. Good old Enoch ' 
He could do so much, was so wise, so valiant. 
No Ilion had he destroyed; )'et somewhat he 
had built up : where the Mill stands noisy by 
its cataract, making corn into bread for men, 
it was Enoch that reared it, and made the rude 
rocks send it water ; where the mountain 
Torrent now boils in vain, and is mere passing 
music to the traveller, it was Enoch's cunning 
that spanned it with that strong Arch, grim, 
time-defying. Where Enoch's hand or inind 
has been. Disorder has become Order; Chaos 
has receded some little handbreadth ; must 
give up some new handbieath of his realm. 
Enoch too has seen his Ibllowers fall round 
him, (by stress of hardship, and the arrows of 
the gods,) has performed funeral games for 
them, and raised sandstone memorials, and 
carved his Alnit ad Plures thereon, with his own 
hand. The living chronicle and epitome of a 
whole century; when he departs, a whole cen- 
tury will become dead, historical. 

Rudiments of an Epic, we say; and of the 
true Epic of our Time, — were the genius but 
arrived that could sing it! Not "Arms and 
the Man;" "Tools and the Man," that were 
now our Epic. What indeed are Tools, from 
the Hammer and Plummet of Enoch Wray to 
this Pen we now write with, but Arms, where- 
with to do battle against Unreason without or 
within, and smite in pieces not miserable fel- 
low-men, but the Arch Enemy that makes us 
all miserable; henceforth the only legitimate 
battle! 

Which Epic, as we granted, is here alto- 
gether imperfectly sung; scarcely a few notes 
thereof brought freely out : nevertheless with 
indication, with prediction that it will be sung 
21 



S74 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



finch is the purport and merit of the Village 
Putiiarch ; it Struggles towards a noble utter- 
ance, which however it can nowise find. Old 
Enoch is from the first speechless, heard of 
rather than heard or seen; at best, mute, mo- 
tionless like a stone-pillar of his own carving. 
Indeed, to find fit utterance for such meaning 
as lies struggling here is a problem, to which 
the highest poeiic minds maj' long be content 
to accomplish only approximate solutions. 
Meanwhile, our honest Khymer, with no guide 
but the instinct of a clear natural talent, has 
created and adjusted somewhat, not without 
vitality of union : has avoided somewhat, the 
road to which lay open enough. His Village 
Patriach, for example, though of an elegiac 
strain, is not -wholly lachrymose, not without 
touches of rugged gayely; — is like Life itself, 
with tears and toil, with laughter and rude 
play, such as metallurgic Yorkshire sees it : — 
in which sense, that wondrous Courtship of 
the sharp-tempered, oft-widowed Alice Green 
may pass, questionable, yet with a certain air 
of soot-stained genuineness. And so has, not 
a Picture, indeed, yet a sort of genial Study 
or Cartoon come together for him : and may 
endure there, after some tiary oil-daubings, 
which we have seen framed with gilding, and 
hung up in proud galleries, have become rags 
and rubbish. 

To one class of readers especially, such 
Books as these ought to be interesting; — to the 
highest, that is to say, the richest class. Among 
our Aristocracy, there are men, we trust there 
are many men, who feel that they also are 
workmen, born to toil, ever in their great 
■Taskmaster's eye, faithfully with heart and 
ihead for those that with heart and hand do, 
jinder the same great Taskmaster, toil for 
them ; — who have even this noblest and hard- 
est work set before them — To deliver out of 
that Egyptian bondage to Wretchedness, and 
Ignorance, and Sin, the hardhanded millions, 
of whom this hardhanded, earnest witness, 
and writer, is here representative. To such 
men his writing will be as a Document, which 
they will lovingly interpret : what is dark 
and exasperated and acrid, in their hum- 
hie Brother, they for themselves will en- 
lighten and sweeten ; taking thankfully what 
is the real purport of his message, and laj'- 
ing it earnestly to heart. Might an instruc- 
tive relation and interchange between High 
and Low, at length ground itself, and more 
and more perfect itself, to the unspeaka- 
ble profit of all parties ; for if all parties 
.are to love and help one another, the first 
step towards this is, that all thoroughly un- 
derstand one another. To such rich men 
an authentic message from the hearts of poor 
men, from the heart of one poor man, will be 
welcome. 

To another class of our Aristocracy, again, 
who unhappily feel rather that the)- are not 
workmen ; and profess not so much to bear 
any burden, as to be themselves, with utmost 
attainable steadiness, and if possible, graceful- 
ness, borne, — such a phenomenon as this ot the 
Sheffield Corn-Law Rhymer, with a Manches- 
ter Detrosier, and much else, pointing the 
same way, will be quite unwelcome ; indeed, to 



the clearer-sighted, astonishing and alarming. 
It indicates that they find themselves, as Na- 
poleon was wont to say, "in a new position;" 
— a position wonderful enough; of extreme 
singularity; to which, in the whole course of 
History, there is perhaps but one case in some 
measure parallel. The case alluded lo stands 
recorded in the Book of Numbers: the case of 
Balaam the son of Beor. Truly, if we con- 
sider it, there are few passages more notable 
and pregnant in their way, than this of Ba- 
laam. The Midianitish Soothsayer (Truth- 
speaker, or as we should now say, Counsel- 
giver and Senator) is journeying forth, as he 
has from of old quite prosperously done, in 
the way of his vocation ; not so much to 
" curse the people of the Lord," as to earn 
for himself a comfortable penny by such 
means as are possible and expedient; some- 
thing, it is hoped, midway between cursing 
and blessing; which shall not, except in case 
of necessity, be either a curse or a blessing, 
or any thing so much as a Nothing that will 
look like a Something and bring wages in. 
For the man is not dishonest; far from it; still 
less is he honest; but above all things, he is, 
has been, and will be, respectable. Did calum- 
ny ever dare to fasten itself on the fair fame 
of Balaam] In his whole walk and conver- 
sation, has he not shown consistency enough; 
ever doing and speaking the thing that was 
decent; with proper spirit, maintaining his 
status ; so that friend and opponent must often 
compliment him, and defy the spiteful world 
to say. Herein art thou a Knave 1 And now 
as he jogs along, in official comfort, with 
brave official retinue, his heart filled with good 
things, his head with schemes for the suppres- 
sion of Vice, and the Cause of civil and re- 
ligious Liberty all over the world; — consider 
what a spasm, and life-clutching, ice-taloned 
pang, must have shot through the brain and 
pericardium of Balaam, when his Ass not 
only on the sudden stood stock-still, defying 
spur and cudgel, but — began to talk, and that 
in a reasonable manner! Did not his face, 
elongating, collapse, and tremor occupy his 
joints? For the thin crust of Respectability 
has cracked asunder ; and a bottomless pre- 
ternatural Inane yawns under him instead. 
Farewell, a long farewell to all my greatness! 
the spirit-stirring Vote, ear-piercing Hear ; the 
big Speech that makes ambition virtue; soft 
Palm-greasing first of raptures, and Cheers 
that emulate sphere-music : Balaam's occupa- 
tion's gone! — 

As for our stout Corn-Law Rhymer, what 
can we say by way of valediction but this, — 
Well done; come again, doing better'? Ad- 
vices enough there were ; but all lie included 
under one, — To keep his eyes open, and do 
honestly whatsoever his hand shall find to do. 
We have praised him for sincerity; let him 
become more and more sincere ; casting out 
all remnants of Hearsay, Imitation, ephemeral 
Speculation; resolutely " (/('(('•/"g his mind of 
Cant.''' We advised a wider course of read- 
ing : would he forgive us if we now suggested 
the question, Whether Rhyme is the only dia- 
lect he can write in ; whether Rhyme is, after 
all, the natural or fittest dialect for him? la 



NOVELLE. 



375 



good Prose, which differs inconceivably from 
bad Prose, wtiat may not be written, what may 
not be read ; from a Waverley Novel, to an 
Arabic Koran, to an English Bible! Rhyme 
has plain advantages ; which, however, are 
often purchased too dear. If the inward 
thought can speak itself and not sing itself, let 
it, especially in these quite unmusical days, 
do the former. In any case, if the inward 
Thought do not sing itself, that singing of the 
outward Phrase is a timber-toned, false matter 
we could well dispense with. "Will our Rhy- 
mer consider himself, then ; and decide for 
■what is actually best. Rhyme, up to this hour, 
never seems altogether obedient to him ; and 
disobedient Rhyme, — who would ride on it 
that had once learned walking 1 

He takes amiss that some friends have ad- 
monished him to quit Politics ; we will not 
repeal that admonition. Let him, on this as on 
all other matters, take solemn counsel with his 
own Socrales'-Demon ; such as dwells in every 
mortal : such as he is a happy mortal who can 
hear the voice of, follow the behests of, like an 
unalterable law. At the same time, we could 
truly wish to see such a mind as his engaged 
rather in considering what, in his own sphere, 
could be done, than what, in his own or other 
spheres, ought to be destroyed ; rather in pro- 
ducing or preserving the True, than in mangling 
and slashing asunder the False. Let him be 
at ease : the False is already dead, or lives 
only with a mock life. The death-sentence of 
the False was of old, from the first beginning 



of it, written in Heaven ; and is now proclaimed 
in the Earlh, and read aloud at all market- 
crosses; nor are innumerable volunteer tip- 
staves and headsmen wanting to execute the 
same: for which needful service men inferior 
to him may suffice. Why should the heart of 
the Corn-Law Rhymer be troubled? Spite of 
"Bread-tax," he and his brave children, who 
will emulate their sire, have yet bread: the 
Workhouse, as we rejoice to fancy, has receded 
into the safe distance ; and is now quite shut 
out from his poetic pleasure-ground. Why 
should he afflict himself with devices of "Bo- 
roughmongering gowls," or the rage of the 
Heathen imagming a vain thing! This matter, 
which he calls Corn-Law, will not have com- 
pleted itself, adjusted itself into clearness, for 
the space of a century or two : nay, after 
twenty centuries, what will there, or can there 
be for the son of Adam, but Work, Work, two 
hands quite full of Work ! Meanwhile, is not 
the Corn-Law Rhymer already a king, though 
a belligerent one; king of his own mind and 
faculty, and what man in the long run is king 
of more 1 Not one in the thousand, even 
among sceptered kings, of so much. Be dili- 
gent in business, then ; fervent in spirit. Above 
all things, lay aside anger, uncharitableness, 
hatred, noisy tumult; avoid them, as worse 
than Pestilence, worse than " Bread-tax" itself: 

For it well beseemeth kings, all mortals it beseemeth 

well, 
To possess their souls in patience, and await what can 

betide. 



NOYELLE. 



TRANSLATED FROM GOETHE. 



[Eraser's Magazine, 1832.] 



The spacious courts of the Prince's Castle 
were still veiled in thick mists of an autumnal 
morning; through which veil, meanwhile, as 
it melted into clearness, you could more or 
Jess discern the whole Hunter-company, on 
horseback and on foot, all busily astir. The 
hasty occupations of the nearest were distin- 
guishable : there was lengthening, shortening 
of stirrup-leathers ; there was handling of rifles 
and shot-pouches, there was putting of game- 
bags to rights ; while the hounds, impatient in 
their leashes, threatened to drag their keepers 
olT with them. Here and there, too, a horse 
showed spirit more than enough; driven on 
hy its fiery nature, or excited by the spur of 
its rider, who even now in the half-dusk could 
not repress a certain self-complacent wish to 
exhibit himself. All wailed, however, on the 
Prince, who, taking leave of his young consort, 
was now delaying too long. 

United a short while ago, they already felt 
the happiness of consentaneous dispositions; 
both were of active vivid character; each will- 



ingly participated in the tastes and endeavours 
of the other. The Prince's father had already, 
in his time, discerned and improved the season 
when it became evident that all members of 
the commonwealth should pass their days in 
equal industry; should all, in equal working 
and producing, each in his kind, first earn and 
then enjoy. 

How well this had prospered was visible in 
these very days, when the head-market was a 
holding, which you might well enough have 
named a fair. The Prince yester-even had led 
liis Princess on horseback through the tumult 
of the heaped-up wares; and pointed out to 
her how on this spot the Mountain region met 
the Plain country in profitable barter : he could 
here, with the objects before him, awaken her 
attention to the various industry of his Land. 
\ If the Prince at this time occupied himself 
1 and his servants almost exclusively with these 
[pressing concerns, and in particular worked 
I incessantly with his Finance-minister, yet 
1 would the Hunt-master too have hi.s right; oa 



376 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■whose pleading, the temptation could not be 
resisted to undertake, in this choice autumn 
weather, a Hunt that had already been post- 
poned ; and so for the household itself, and for 
the many stranger visitants, prepare a peculiar 
and singular festivity. 

The Princess stayed behind with reluctance : 
but it was proposed to push far into the Moun- 
tains, and stir up the peaceable inhabitants of 
the forests there with an unexpected invasion. 

At parting, her lord failed not to propose a 
ride for her, with Friedrich, the Prince-Uncle, 
as escort: "I will leave thee," said he, "our 
Honorio too, as Equerry and Page, who will 
manage all." In pursuance of which words, 
he, in descending, gave to a handsome young 
man the needful injunctions; and soon there- 
after disappeared with guests and train. 

The Princess, who had waved her hand- 
kerchief to her husband while still down in 
the court, now retired to the back apartments, 
which commanded a free prospect towards the 
Mountains; and so much the lovelier, as the 
Castle itself stood on a sort of elevation, and 
thus, behind as well as before, afforded mani- 
fold magnificent views. She found the fine 
telescope still in the position where they had 
left it yester-even, when amusing themselves 
over bush and hill and forest-summit, with the 
lofty ruins of the primeval Stammburg, or 
Family Tower; which in the clearness of eve- 
ning stood out noteworthy, as at that hour, with 
its great light-and-shade masses, the best aspect 
of so venerable a memorial of old time was to 
be had. This morning too, with the approxi- 
mating glasses, might be beautifully seen the 
autumnal tinge of the trees, many in kind and 
number, which had struggled up through the 
masonry unhindered and undisturbed during 
long years. The fair dame, however, directed 
the tube somewhat lower, to a waste stony flat, 
over which the Hunting-train was to pass : she 
waited the moment with patience, and was not 
disappointed; for with the clearness and mag- 
nifying power of the instrument her glancing 
eyes plainly distinguished the Prince and the 
Head-Equerry ; nay, she forbore not again to 
wave her handkerchief, as some momentary 
pause and looking-back was fancied perhaps, 
rather than observed. 

Prince-Uncle, Friedrich by name, now with 
announcement, entered, attended by his Pain- 
ter, who carried a large portfolio under his 
arm. "Dear Cousin," said the hale old gen- 
tleman, "we here present you with the Views 
of the Stammburg, taken on various sides to 
show how the mighty Pile, warred oh and 
warring, has from old times fronted the year 
and its weather; how here and there its wall 
had to yield, here and there rush down into 
waste ruins. However, we have now done 
much to make the wild .mass accessible; for 
more there wants not to set every traveller, 
every visitor, into astonishment, into admira- 
tion." 

As the Prince now exhibited the separate 
leaves, he continued: "Here where, advancing 
up the hollow-way, through the outer ring- 
walls, you reach the Fortress proper, rises 
against us a rock, the firmest of the whole 
mountain ; on this there stands a tower built, 



yet when Nature leaves off, and Art and Han- 
dicraft begin, no one can distinguish. Farther 
you perceive sidewards walls abutting on it, 
and donjons terrace-wise stretching down. 
But I speak wrong, for to the eye it is but a 
wood that encircles that old summit; these 
hundred and fifty years no axe has sounded 
there, and the massiest stems have on all sides 
sprung up; wherever you press inwards to the 
walls, the smooth maple, the rough oak, the 
taper pine, with trunk and roots oppnse you; 
round these we have to wind, and pick our 
footsteps with skill. Do but look how artfully 
our Master has brought the character of it on 
paper ; how the roots and stems, the species 
of each distinguishable, twist themselves 
among the masonry, and the huge boughs 
come looping through the holes. It is a wil- 
derness like no other; an accidentally unique 
locality, where ancient traces of long-vanished 
power of Man, and the ever-living, ev^er-work- 
ing poM'er of Nature show themselves in the 
most earnest conflict." 

Exhibiting another leaf, he went on : " What; 
say you now to the Castle-court, which, be- 
come inaccessible by the falling in of the old 
gate-tower, had for immemorial time been 
trodden by no foot] We sought to get at 
it by a side; have pierced through walls,, 
blasted vaults asunder, and so provided a con- 
venient but secret way. Inside it needed no 
clearance; here stretches a flat rock-summit, 
smoothed by nature: but yet strong trees have 
in spots found luck and opportunity for rooting- 
themselves there ; they have softly but de- 
cidedly grown up, and now stretch out their 
boughs into the galleries where the knights 
once walked to and fro ; nay, through the doors 
and windows into the vaulted halls; out of 
which we would not drive them : they have 
even got the mastery, andmaj' keep it. Sweep- 
ing away deep strata of leaves, we have found 
the notablest place all smoothed, the like of 
which were perhaps not to be met with in the 
world. 

"After all this, however, it is still to be re- 
marked, and on the spot itself well worth ex- 
amining, how on the steps that lead up to the 
main tower, a maple has struck root and fash- 
ioned itself to a stout tree, so that you can 
hardly with difficulty press by it, to mount the 
battlements and gaze over the unbounded pros- 
pect. Yet here too, you linger pleased in the 
shade; for that tree is it which high over the 
whole wondrously lifts itself into the air. 

"Let us thank the brave Artist, then, who so 
deservingly in various pictures teaches us the 
whole, even as if we saw it: he has spent the 
fairest hours of the day and of the season 
therein, and for weeks long kept moving about 
these scenes. Here in this corner has there 
for him, and the warder we gave him, been a 
little pleasant dwelling fitted up. You could 
not think, my Best, what a lovely outlook into 
the country, into court and walls, he has got 
there. But now when all is once in outline, so 
pure, so characteristic, he may finish it down 
liere at his ease. With these pictures we will 
decorate our garden-hall; and no one shall 
recreate his eyes over our regular parterres, 
our groves and shady walks, without wishing 



NOVELLE. 



37T 



himself up there, to follow, in actual sight of 
the old and of the new, of the stubborn, inflex- 
ible, indestructible, and of the fresh, pliant, 
irresistible, what reflections and comparisons 
would rise for him." 

Honorio entered, with notice that the horses 
•were brought out; then said the Princess, turn- 
ing to the Uncle: "Let us ride up; and 3rou 
will show me in reality what you have here 
set betbre me in image. Ever since I came 
among you, I have heard of this undertaking; 
and should now like of all things to see with 
my own eyes what in the narrative seemed 
impossible, and in the depicting remains im- 
probable. — "Not yet, my Love," answered the 
Prince: "what you here saw is what it can 
become and is becoming; for the present 
much in the enterprise stands still amid im- 
pediments; Art must first be complete, if Na- 
ture is not to shame it." — "Then let us ride at 
least upwards, were it only to the foot: I have 
the greatest wish to-day to look about me far 
in the world." — " Altogether as you will it," 
replied the Prince. — "Let us ride through the 
Town, however," continued the Lady, "over 
the great market-place, where stands the in- 
numerable crowd of booths, looking like a 
little city, like a camp. It is as if the wants 
and occupations of all the families in the land 
were turned outwards, assembled in this cen- 
tre, and brought into the light of day : for the 
attentive observer can descry whatsoever it is 
that man performs and needs ; you fancy, for 
the moment, there is no money necessary, that 
all business could here be managed by barter, 
and so at bottom it is. Since the Prince, last 
night, set me on these reflections, it is pleasant 
toconsider how here,where Mountain and Plain 
meet together, both so clearly spea^ out what 
they require, and wish. For as the High- 
lander can fashion the timber of his woods 
into a hundred shapes, and mould his iron for 
all manner of uses, so these others from below 
come to meet him with most manifold wares, 
in which often you can hardly discover the 
material or recognise the aim." 

"I am aware," answered the Prince, "that 
my Nephew turns his utmost care to these 
things; for specially, on the present occasion, 
this main point comes to be considered, that 
one receive more than one give out: which to 
manage is, in the long run, the sum of all Po- 
litical Economy, as of the smallest private 
housekeeping. Pardon me, however, my Best: 
I never like to ride through markets ; at every 
step you are hindered and kept back; and then 
flames up in my imagination the monstrous 
misery which, as it were, burnt itself into my 
eyes, when I witnessed one such world of 
wares go off in fire. I had scarcely got to 

"Let us not lose the bright hours," inter- 
rupted the Princess, for the worthy man had 
already more than once afflicted her with the 
minute description of that mischance: how he 
being on a long journey, resting in the best 
inn, on the market-place which was just then 
swarming with a fair, had gone tubed exceed- 
ingly fatigued ; and in the night-time been, by 
shrieks, and flames rolling up against his 
lodging, hideously awakened. 
48 



The Princess hastened to mount her favour- 
ite horse: and led, not through the backgate 
upwards, but through the foregate downwards, 
her reluctant-willing attendant; for who but 
would gladly have ridden by her side, who but 
would gladly have followed after her. And so 
Honorio too had without regret stayed back 
from the otherwise so wished-for Hunt, to be 
exclusively at her service. 

As was to be anticipated, they could only 
ride through the market step by step: but the 
fair Lovely one enlivened every stoppage by 
some sprightly remark, " I repeat my lessoa 
of yester-night," said she, " since Necessity is 
trying our patience." And in truth, the whole 
mass of men so crowded about the riders, that 
their progress was slow. The people gazed 
with joy at the young dame ; and, on so many 
smiling countenances, might be read the plea- 
sure they felt to see that the first woman 
in the land was also the fairest and grace- 
fullest. 

Promiscuously mingled stood, Mountaineers,, 
who had built their still dwellings amid rocks, 
firs, and spruces; Lowlanders from hills, 
meadows, and leas ; craftsmen of the little 
towns ; and what else had all assembled there. 
After a quiet glance, the Princess remarked to 
her attendant, how all these, whencesoever 
they came, had taken more stuff than necessary 
for their clothes, more cloth and linen, more 
ribands for trimming. It is as if the women 
could not be bushy enough, the men not puffy 
enough, to please themselves. 

" We will leave them that," answered the 
uncle: "spend his superfluity on what he will, 
a man is happy in it; happiest when he there- 
with decks and dizens himself." The fair 
dame nodded assent. 

So had they by degrees got upon a clear 
space. M-hich led out to the suburbs, when, at 
the end of many small booths and stands, a 
larger edifice of^ boards showed itself, which 
was scarcely glanced at till an ear-lacerating 
bellow sounded forth from it. The feeding- 
hour of the wild beasts there exhibited seemed 
to have come: the Lion let his forest and 
desert-voice be heard in all vigour; the horses 
shuddered, and all must remark how, in the 
peaceful ways and workings of the cultivated 
world, the King of the wilderness so fearfully 
announced himself. Coming nearer the booth, 
you could not overlook the variegated colossal 
pictures representing with violent colours and 
strong emblems those foreign beasts; to a 
sight of which the peaceful burgher was to be 
irresistibly enticed. The grim monstrous 
tiger was pouncing on a blackamoor, on the 
point of tearing him in shreds; a lion stood 
earnest and majestic, as if he saw no prey 
worthy of him; other wondrous part}--co- 
loured creatures, beside these mighty ones, 
deserved less attention. 

" As we come back," said the Princess, " we 
will alight and take a nearer view of these 
gentry." — " It is strange," observed the Prince, 
"that man always seeks excitement by Terror. 
Inside, there, the Tiger lies quite quiet in his 
cage; and here must he ferociously dart upon 
a black, that the people may fancy the like is 
to be seen within; of murder and sudden death, 
2i2 



378 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



of burning and destruction, there is not enouo;h ; 
but ba'lad-singers must at every corner keep 
repealing it. Good man will have himself 
frightened a little; to feel the belter, in secret, 
how beautiful and laudable it is to draw breath 
in freedom." 

Whatever of apprehensiveness from such 
bugbear images might have remained, was 
soon all and wholly effaced, as, issuing through 
the gate, our party entered on the cheerfuUest 
of scenes. The road led first up the River, as 
yet but a small current, and bearing only light 
boats, but which by and by, as renowned world- 
stream, would carry forth its name and waters, 
and enliven distant lands. They proceeded 
next through well cultivated fruit-gardens and 
pleasure-grounds, softly ascending; and by 
degrees you could look about you in the 
now-disclosed much-peopled region, till first a 
thicket, then a little wood admitted our riders, 
and the gracefullest localities refreshed and 
limited their view. A meadow vale leading 
upwards, shortly before mown for the second 
time, velvet-like to look upon, watered by a 
brook rushing out lively, copious at once from 
the uplands above, received them as with wel- 
come ; and so they approached a higher, freer 
station, which, on issuing from the wood, after 
a stiff ascent, they gained; and could now 
descry, over new clumps of trees, the old 
Castle, the goal of their pilgrimage, rising in 
the distance, as pinnacle of the rock and forest. 
Backwards, again, (for never did one mount 
hither without turning round,) they caught, 
through accidental openings of the high trees, 
the Prince's Castle, on the left, lightened by 
the morning sun ; the well-built higher quarter 
of the Town softened under light smoke-clouds ; 
and so on, rightwards, the under Town, the 
River in several bendings, with its meadows 
and mills; on the farther side, an extensive 
fertile region. 

Having satisfied themselves with the pros- 
pect, or rather as usually happens when Ave 
look round from so high a station, become 
doubly eager for a wider, less limited view, 
they rode on, over a broad stony flat, where 
the mighty Ruin stood fronting them, as a 
green-crowned summit, a few old trees far 
down about its foot: they rode along; and 
so arrived there, just at the steepest, most 
inaccessible side. Great rocks jutting out 
from of old, insensible of every change, firm, 
well-founded, stood clenched together, there; 
and so it towered upwards : what had fallen at 
intervals lay in huge plates and fragments 
confusedly heaped, and seemed to forbid the 
boldest an)' attempt. But the sleep, the pre- 
cipitous is inviting to youth : to undertake it, 
to storm and conquer it, is for young limbs an 
enjoyment. The Princess testified desire for 
an attempt; Honorio was at her hand; the 
Prince-Uncle, if easier to satisfy, took it cheer- 
fully, and would show that he too had strengtli : 
the horses were to wait below among the trees ; 
our climbers make for a certain point, where 
a huge projecting rock affords a standing-room, 
and a prospect, which indeed is already pass- 
ing over into the bird's-eye kind, yet folds itself 
together there picturesquely enough. 

The sun, almost at its meridian, lent the 



clearest light; the Prince's Castle, with its 
compartments, main buildings, wings, domes, 
and towers, lay clear and stately ; the upper 
Town in its whole extent; into the lower also 
you could conveniently look, nay, by the tele- 
scope distinguish the booths in the market- 
place. So furihersome an instrument Honorio 
would never leave behind : they looked at the 
River upwards and downwards, on this side 
the mountainous, terrace-like, interrupted ex- 
panse, on that the upswelling, fruitful land, 
alternating in level and low hill ; places in- 
numerable; for it was long customary to dis- 
pute how many of them were here to be seen. 

Over the great expanse lay a cheerful still- 
ness, as is common at noon ; when, as the 
Ancients were wont to say. Pan is asleep, and 
all Nature holds her breath not to awaken 
him. 

"It is not the first time," said the Princess, 
" that I, on some such high far-seeing spot, 
have reflected how Nature all clear looks so 
pure and peaceful, and gives you the impres- 
sion as if there were nothing contradictory in 
the world; and yet when 3'ou return back into 
the habitation of man, be it lofty or low, wide 
or narrow, there is ever somewhat to contend 
with, to battle with, to smooth and put to 
rights." 

Honorio, who, meanwhile, was looking 
through the glass at the Town, exclaimed: 
"See! see! There is fire in the market!" 
They looked, and could observe some smoke, 
the flames were smothered in the daylight. 
"The fire spreads!" cried he, still looking 
through the glass ; the mischief indeed now 
became noticeable to the good eyes of the 
Princess; from time to time you observed a 
red burst «f flame ; the smoke mounted aloft; 
and Prince-Uncle said: " Let us return : that 
is not good ; I always feared I should see 
that misery a second lime." They descended, 
got back to their horses. "Ride," said the 
Princess to the Uncle, "fast, but not without 
a groom ; leave me Honorio, we will follow 
without dela3^ The Uncle fell the reason- 
ableness, nay necessity of this ; and started 
ofl'down the waste stony slope, at ihe quickest 
pace the ground allowed. 

As the Princess mounted, Honorio said: 
" Please your Excellency to ride slow ! In the 
Town as in the Castle, the fire-apparatus is in 
perfect order; the people, in this unexpected 
accident, will not lose their presence of mind. 
Here, moreover, we have bad ground, little 
stones and short grass ; quick riding is unsafe ; 
in any case, before we arrive, the fire will be 
got under." The Princess did not think so ; 
she observed the smoke spreading, she fancied 
that she saw a flame flash up, that she heard 
an explosion; and now in her imagination all 
the terrific things awoke, which the worthy 
Uncle's repeated narrative of his experiences 
in that market-conflagration had too deeply 
implanted there. 

Prightful doubtless had that business been, 
alarming and impressive enough to leave be- 
hind it, painfully through life long, a boding 
and image of its recurrence, when, in the night- 
season, on the great booth-covered market- 
space, a sudden fire had seized booth after 



NOVELLE. 



379 



booth, before the sleepers in these light huts 
could be shaken out of deep dreams : the 
Prince himself, as a wearied stranger arriving 
only for rest, started from his sleep, sprang to 
the window, saw all fearfully illuminated; 
flame after flame, from the right, from the left, 
darting through each other, rolls quivering to- 
wards him. The houses of the market-place, 
reddened in the shine, seemed already glowing, 
threatened every moment to kindle, and burst 
forth in fire: below, the element raged without 
let; planks cracked, laths cracked, the canvas 
flew abroad, and its dusky fire-peaked tatters 
whirled themselves round and aloft, as if bad 
spirits, in their own element, with perpetual 
change of shape, were, in capricious dance, 
devouring one another; and there and yonder 
would dart up out from their penal fire. And 
then with wild howls each saved what was at 
hand : servants and masters laboured to drag 
forth bales already seized by the flames, to 
snatch away yet somewhat from the burning 
shelves, and pack it into the chests, which too 
they must at last leave a prey to the hastening 
flame. How many a one could have prayed 
but for a moment's pause to the loud-advanc- 
ing fire; as he looked round for the possibility 
of some device, and was with all his possession 
already seized : on the one side, burnt and 
glowed already, what on the other still stood in 
dark night. Obstinate characters, will-strong 
men grimly fronted the grim foe, and saved 
much, with loss of their eyebrows and hair. 
Alas, all this waste confusion now rose anew 
before the fair spirit of the Princess; the gay 
morning prospect was all overclouded, and 
her eyes darkened ; wood and meadow had 
put on a look of strangeness, of danger. 

Entering the peaceful vale, heeding little its 
refreshing coolness, they were but a few steps 
down from the copious fountain of the brook 
•which flowed by them, when the Princess de- 
scried, quite down in the thickets, something 
singular, which she soon recognised for the 
tiger: springing on, as she a short while ago 
had seen him painted, he came towards her ; 
and this image, added to the frightful ones she 
was already busy with, made the strangest 
impression. "Fly! your Grace," cried Honorio, 
" fly !" She turned her horse towards the steep 
hill they had-just descended. The young man, 
rushing on towards the monster, drew his 
pistol and fired when he thought himself near 
enough ; but, alas, without effect ; the tiger 
sprang to a side, the horse faltered, the pro- 
voked wild beast.foUowed his course, upwards 
straight after the Princess. She galloped, what 
her horse could, up the steep stony space; 
scarcely apprehending that so delicate a crea- 
ture,unused to such exertion,could not hold out. 
It overdid itself, driven on by the necessitated 
Princess ; it stumbled on the loose gravel of 
the steep, and again stumbled; and at last 
fell, after violent efforts, powerless to the 
ground. The fair dame, resolute and dextrous, 
failed not instantly to get upon her feet; the 
horse too rose, but the tiger was approaching; 
though not with vehement speed ; the uneven 
ground, the sharp stones seemed to damp his 
impetuosity; and only Honorio flying after him, 
riding with checked speed along with him, ap- 



peared to stimulate and provoke his force 
anew. Both runners, at the same instant, 
reached the spot where the Princess was stand- 
ing by her horse: the Knight bent himself, 
fired, and with this second pistol hit the mon- 
ster through the head, so that it rushed down ; 
and now, stretched out in full length, first 
clearly disclosed the might and terror where- 
of only the bodily hull was left lying. Honorio 
had sprung from his horse ; was already kneel- 
ing on the beast, quenching its last movements, 
and held his drawn hanger in his right hand. 
The youth was beautiful ; he had come dash- 
ing on as in sports of the lance and the ring 
the Princess had often seen him do. Even so 
in the riding-course would his bullet, as he 
darted by, hit the Turk's-head on the pole, 
right under the turban in the brov/ ; even so 
Avould he, lightly prancing up, prick his naked 
sabre into the fallen mass, and lift it from the 
ground. In all such arts he was dextrous 
and felicitous; both now stood him in good 
stead. 

"Give him the rest," said the Princess: "I 
fear he will hurt you with his claws." — " Par- 
don •" answered the youth : " he is already 
dead enough; and I would not hurt the skin, 
which next winter shall shine upon your 
sledge." — " Sport not," said the Princess : 
"whatsoever of pious feeling dwells in the 
depth of the heart unfolds itself in such a mo- 
ment." — " I too," cried Honorio, " was never 
more pious than even now; and therefore do I 
think of what is joyfullest ; I look at the tiger's 
fell only as it can attend you to do you plea- 
sure." — "It would for ever remind me," said 
she, "of this fearful moment." — "Yet is it," 
replied the youth with glowing cheeks, "a more 
harmless spoil than when the weapons of slain 
enemies are carried for show before the vic- 
tor." — "I shall bethink me, at sight of it, of 
your boldness and cleverness; and need not 
add that you may reckon on my thanks and 
the Prince's favour for your life long. But 
rise; the beast is clean dead, let us consider 
what is next: before all things rise !" — "As I 
am once on my knees," replied the youth, 
"once in a posture which in other circum- 
stances would have been forbid, let me beg at 
this moment to receive assurance of the favour, 
of the grace which you vouchsafe me. I have 
already asked so often of your high consort for 
leave and promotion to go on my travels. He 
who has the happiness to sit at your table, 
whom you honour with the privilege to enter- 
tain your company, should have seen the 
world. Travellers stream in on us from all 
parts; and when a town, an important spot in 
any quarter of the world comes in course, the 
question is sure to be asked of us, were we 
ever there 1 Nobody allows one sense, till one 
has seen all that: it is as if you had to instruct 
yourself only for the sake of others." 

" Kise !" repealed the Princess : " I were loth 
to wish or request aught that went against the 
will of my Husband ; however, if I mistake 
not, the cause why he has retained you hitherto 
will soon be at an end. His intention was tc 
see you ripened into a complete self-guided 
nobleman, to do yourself and him credit in 
foreign parts, as hitherto at court ; and I should 



380 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



think this deed of yours was as good a recom- 
mendatory passport as a young man could 
wish for to take abroad with him." 

That, instead of a youthful joy, a certain 
xnournfulness came over his face, the Princess 
had not time to observe, nor had he to indulge 
his emotion ; for, in hot haste, up the steep, 
came a woman, with a boy at her hand, straight 
to the group so well known to us ; and scarcely 
had Honorio, bethinking him, arisen, when 
they howling and shrieking cast themselves on 
the carcass; by which action, as well as by 
their cleanly decent, yet party-coloured and 
unusual dress, might be gathered that it was 
the mistress of this slain creature, and the 
black-eyed, black-locked boy, holding a flute in 
his hand, her son ; weeping like his mother, 
less violent but deeply moved, kneeling beside 
her. 

Now came strong outbreakings of passion 
from this woman; interrupted, indeed, and 
pulse-wise ; a stream of words, leaping like a 
stream in gushes from rock to rock. A natu- 
ral language, short and discontinuous, made 
itself impressive and pathetic: in vain should 
we attempt translating it into our dialects ; the 
approximate purport of it we must not omit. 
"They have murdered thee, poor beast! mur- 
dered without need ! Thou wert tame, and 
wouldst fain have laid down at rest and waited 
our coming ; for thy foot-balls were sore, thy 
claws had no force left. The hot sun to ripen 
them was wanting. Thou wert the beautifullest 
of thy kind: who ever saw a kingly tiger so 
gloriously stretched out in sleep, as thou here 
liest, dead, never to rise more. When thou 
awokest in the early dawn of morning, and 
openedst thy throat, stretching out thy red 
tongue, thou wert as if smiling on us ; and 
even when bellowing, thou tookest thy food 
from the hands of a woman, from the fingers 
of a child. How long have we gone with thee 
on thy journeys ; how long has thy company 
been useful and fruitful to us! To us, to us 
of a very truth, meat came from the eater, and 
sweetness out of the strong. So will it be no 
more. Wo ! wo !" 

She had not done lamenting, when over the 
smoother part of the Castle Mountain, came 
riders rushing down ; soon recognised as the 
Prince's Hunting-traift, himself the foremost. 
Following their sport, in the backward hills, 
they had observed the fire-vapours ; and fast 
through dale and ravine, as in fierce chase, 
taken the shortest path towards this mournful 
sign. Galloping along the stony vacancy, they 
stopped and stared at sight of the unexpected 
group, which in that empty expanse stood out 
so markworlhy. After the first recognition 
there was silence; some pause of breathing- 
time; and then what the view itself did not 
impart, was with brief words explained. So 
stood the Prince, contemplating the strange 
unheard-of incident; a circle round him of 
riders, and followers that had run on foot. 
What to do was still undetermined ; the Prince 
intent on ordering, executing, when a man 
pressed forward into the circle ; large of sta- 
ture, party-coloured, wondrously-apparelled, 
like wife and child. And now the family in 
union testified their sorrow and astonishment. 



The man, however, soon restrained himself, 
bowed in reverent distance before the Prince, 
and said : "It is not the time for lamenting; 
alas, my lord and mighty hunter, the lion too 
is loose, hither towards the mountains is he 
gone: but spare him, have mercy that he 
perish not like this good beast." 

"The Lion !" said the Prince: "Hast thou 
the trace of him 1" — "Yes, Lord! A peasant 
down there, who had heedlessly taken shelter 
on a tree, directed me farther up this way, to 
the left; but I saw the crowd of men and 
horses here ; anxious for tidings of assistance, 
I hastened hither." — "So then," commanded 
the Prince, "draw to the left. Huntsmen ; you 
will load j'our pieces, go softly to work, if you 
drive him into the deep woods, it is no matter: 
but in the end, good man, we shall be obliged 
to kill your animal ; why were you improvi- 
dent enough to let him loose V — "The fire 
broke out," replied he, " we kept quiet and 
attentive ; it spread fast, but at a distance from 
us, we had water enough for our defence; but 
a heap of powder blew up, and threw the 
brands on to us, and over our heads ; we were 
too hasty, and are now ruined people." 

The Prince was still busy directing; but for 
a moment all seemed to pause, as a man was 
observed hastily springing down from the 
heights of the old Castle ; whom the troop soon 
recognised for the watchman that had been 
stationed there to keep the Painter's apart- 
ments, while he lodged there and took charge 
of the workmen. He came running, out of 
breath, yet in few words soon made known 
that the Lion had laid himself down, within 
the high ring-wall, in the sunshine, at the foot 
of a large beech, and was behaving quite 
quietly. With an air of vexation, however, 
the man concluded : " Why did I take my rifle 
to town yester-night, to have it cleaned; he 
had never risen again, the skin had been mine, 
and I might all my life have had the credit of 
the thing." 

The Prince, whom his militarj^ experiences 
here also stood in stead, for he had before now 
been in situations where from various sides 
inevitable evil seemed to threaten, said here- 
upon: "What surety do you give me that if 
we spare your lion, he will not work destruc- 
tion among us, among my people V 

"This woman and this child," answered the 
father hastily, "engage to tame him, to keep 
him peaceable, till I bring up the cage, and 
then we can carry him back unharmed and 
without harming any one." 

The boy put his flute to his lips ; an instru- 
ment of the kind once named soft, or sweet 
flutes; short-beaked like pipes: he, who un- 
derstood the art, could bring out of it the 
gracefullest tones. Meanwhile the Prince had 
inquired of the watchman how the lion came 
up. " By the hollow-way," answered he, 
" which is ■\valled in on both sides, and was 
formerly the only entrance, and is to be the 
only one still: two footpaths, which led in 
elsewhere, we have so blocked up and de- 
stroyed that no human being, except by that 
first narrow passage, can reach the Magic Cas- 
tle which Prince Friedrich's talent and taste 
is making of it." 



NOVELLE. 



381 



After a little thought, during which the 
Prince looked round at the boy, who still con- 
tinued as if softly preluding, he turned to 
Honorio, and said: "Thou hast don§ much 
to-day, complete thy task. Secure that nar- 
row path; keep your rifles in readiness, but 
do not shoot till the creature can no otherwise 
be driven back : in any case, kindle a fire, 
which will frighten him if he make down- 
wards. The man and woman take charge of 
the rest." Honorio rapidly bestirred himself 
to execute these orders. 

The child continued his tune, which was no 
tune; a series of notes without law, and per- 
haps even on that account so heart-touching: 
the by-standers seemed as if enchanted by the 
movement of a song-like melody, when the 
father with dignified enthusiasm began to 
speak in this sort : 

" God has given the Prince wisdom, and also 
knowledge to discern that all God's works are 
wise, each after its kind. Behold the rock, 
how he stands fast and stirs not, defies the 
weather and the sunshine; primeval trees 
adorn his head, and so crowned he looks 
abroad ; neither if a mass rush away, M'ill this 
continue what it was, but falls broken into 
many pieces and covers the side of the de- 
scent. But there too they will not tarry, ca- 
priciously they leap far down, the brook re- 
ceives them, to the river he bears them. Not 
resisting, not contradictory, angular; no, 
smooth and rounded they travel now quicker 
on their way, arrive, from river to river, finally 
at the ocean, whither march the giants in 
hosts, and in the depths whereof dwarfs are 
busy. 

" But who shall exalt the glory of the Lord, 
whom the stars praise from Eternity to Eter- 
nity ! Why look ye far into the distance? 
Consider here the bee: late at the end of har- 
vest she still busily gathers, builds her a house, 
tight of corner, straight of wall, herself the 
architect and mason. Behold the ant: she 
knows her way, and loses it not; she piles her 
a dwelling of grass-halms, earth-crumbs, and 
needles of the fir; she piles it aloft and arches 
it in ; but she has laboured in vain, for the 
horse stamps, and scrapes it all in pieces : lo ! 
he has trodden down her beams, and scattered 
her planks; impatiently he snorts and cannot 
rest ; for the Lord has made the horse comrade 
of the wind and companion of the storm, to 
carry man whither he wills, and woman 
whither she desires. But in the Wood of 
Palms arose he, the Lion, with earnest step 
traversed the wildernesses ; there rules he over 
all creatures, his might who shall withstand? 
Yet man can tame him; and the fiercest of 
living things has reverence for the image of 
God, in which too the angels are made, who 
serve the Lord and his servants. For in the 
den of Lions Daniel was not afraid : he re- 
mained fast and faithful, and the wild bellow- 
ing interrupted not his song of praise." 

This speech, delivered with expression of a 
natural enthusiasm, the child accompanied 
here and there with graceful tones; but now, 
the father having ended, he, with clear melo- 
dious voice and skilful passaging, struck up 
his warble, whereupon the father took the 



flute, and gave note in unison, while the child 
sang: 

From tlie Dens, I, in a deeper, 

Prophet's song of praise can hear ; 

Angel-host he haih for keeper, 
Needs the good man there to fear 1 

Lion, Lioness, agazing. 
Mildly pressing round him came; 

Yea, that hunihle, holy praising, 
It hath made them tame. 

The father continued accompanying this 
strophe with his flute; the mother here and 
there touched in as second voice. 

Impressive, however, in a quite peculiar 
degree, it was, when the child now began to 
shuffle the lines of the strophe into other 
arrangement; and thereby if not bring out a 
new sense, yet heighten the feeling by leading 
it into self-excitement: 

Angel-host around doth hover, 

Us in heavenly tones to cheer: 
In the (lens oiir head doth cover: 

Needs the poor child there to fear? 

For that humble holy praising 

Will permit no evil nigh : 
Angels hover, keeping, gazing, 

Who so safe as H 

Hereupon with emphasis and elevation be- 
gan all three: 

For Ih' Eternal rules above lis, 

Lands and oceans rules his will; 
Lions even as lambs shall love us, 

And the proudest waves be still. 

Whetted sword to sralibard cleaving. 

Faith and flope victorious see : 
Strong, who, loving and believing, 

Prays, O Lord, lo thee. 

All were silent, hearing, hearkening; and 
only when the tones ceased could you remark 
and distinguish the impression they had made. 
All was as if appeased ; each afl^ected in his 
way. The Prince, as if he now first saw the 
misery that a little ago had threatened him, 
looked down on his spouse, who leaning on 
him forebore not to draw out the little em- 
broidered handkerchief, and therewith covered 
her eyes. It was blessedness for her to feel 
her young bosom relieved from Ihe pressure 
with which the preceding minutes had loaded 
it. A perfect silence reigned over the crowd; 
they seemed to have forgotten the dangers: 
the conflagration below; and above, the rising 
up of a dubiously-reposing Lion. 

By a sign to bring the horses, the Prince 
first restored the group lo motion ; he turned 
to the woman, and said : " You think then that, 
once find the lion, you could, by your singing, 
by the singing of this child, with help of these 
flute-tones, appease him, and carry him back 
to his prison, unhurt and hurting no one?" 
They answered Yes, assuring and affirming; 
the Castellan was given them as guide. And 
now the Prince started ofl^ in all speed with 
a few; the Princess followed slower with the 
rest of the train : mother and son, on their 
side, under conduct of the warder, who had 
got himself a musket, mounted up the steeper 
part of the height. 



382 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Before the entrance of the hollow-way which 
opened their access to the Castle, they found 
the hunters busy heaping up dry brushwood, 
to have, in any case, a large fire ready for 
kindling. " There is no need," said the woman : 
"it will all go well and peaceably, without 
that." 

Farther on, sitting on a wall, his double- 
barrel resting in his lap, Honorio appeared ; at 
his post, as if ready for every occurrence. 
However, he seemed hardly to notice our 
party; he sat as if sunk in deep thoughts, he 
looked round like one whose mind was not 
there. The woman addressed him with a 
prayer not to let the fire be lit; he appeared 
not to heed her words ; she spoke oil with 
vivacity, and cried: "Handsome young man, 
thou hast killed my tiger, I do not curse thee ; 
spare my lion, good young man, I will bless 
thee." 

Honorio was looking straight out before him, 
to where the sun on his course began to sink. 
"Thou lookest to the west," cried the woman ; 
"thou dost well, there is much to do there; 
hasten, delay not, thou wilt conquer. But first 
conquer thyself." At this he appeared to give 
a smile ; the woman slept on ; could not, how- 
ever, but look back once more at him : a ruddy 
sua was overshininghis face; she thought she 
had never seen a handsomer youth. 

"If your child," said the warder now, "with 
his fluting and singing, can, as you are per- 
suaded, entice and pacify the lion, we shall 
soon get mastery of him after, for tiie creature 
has lain down quite close to the perforated 
vaults through which, as the main passage 
was blocked up with ruins, we had to bore 
ourselves an entrance into the Castle-Court. 
If the child entice him into this latter, I can 
close the opening with little difficulty ; then the 
boy, if he like, can glide out by one of the lit- 
tle spiral stairs he will find in the corner. We 
must conceal ourselves; but I shall so take 
my place that a rifle-ball can, at any moment, 
help the poor child in case of extremity." 

"All these precautions are unnecessary; 
God and skill, piety and a blessing, must do the 
Avork." — "May be," replied the warder, "how- 
ever, I know my duties. First, I must lead 
you, by a difficult path to the top of the wall, 
right opposite the vaults and opening I have 
mentioned: the child may then go down, as 
into the arena of the show, and lead away the 
animal, if it will follow him." This was 
done : warder and mother looked down in 
concealment as the child, descending the screw- 
stairs, showed himself in the open space of 
the Court, and disappeared opposite them in 
the gloomy opening; but forthwith gave his 
flute voice, which by and by grew weaker, and 
at last sank dumb. The pause was bodeful 
enough; the old Hunter, familiar with danger, 
felt heart-sick at the singular conjuncture; the 
mother, however, with cheerful face, bending 
over to listen, showed not the smallest discom- 
posure. 

At last the flute was again heard ; the child 
stept forth from the cavern with glittering sa- 



tisfied eyes, the lion after him, but slowly, and 
as it seemed, with difficulty. He showed here 
and there desire to lie down; yet the boy led 
him in a half-circle through the few disleaved, 
many-tinted trees, till at length, in the last 
rays of the sun which poured in through a 
hole in the ruins, he set him down, as if trans- 
figured in the bright red light; and again com- 
menced his pacifying song, the repetition of 
which we also cannot forbear: 

From tlie Dens, I, in a deeper. 
Prophet's song of praise can hear; 

Angel-host he hath for keeper. 
Needs the good man there to fear T 

Lion, Lioness, agazing, 
Mildly pressing round him came ; 

Yea, that humble, holy praising, 
U hath made them tame. 

Meanwhile the lion had laid itself down 
quite close to the child, and lifted its heavy 
right fore-paw into his bi^som; the boy as he 
sung gracefully stroked it; but was not long 
in observing that a sharp thorn had stuck it- 
self between the balls. He carefully pulled it 
out; with a smile, took the parly-coloured silk 
handkerchief from his neck, and bound up the 
frightful paw of the monster; so that his mo- 
ther for joy bent herself back with outstretched 
arms, and perhaps, according to custom, would 
have shouted and clapped applause, had not a 
hard hand gripe of the warder reminded her 
that the danger was not yet over. 

Triumphantly the child sang on, having with 
a few tones preluded: 

For th" Eternal rules above us, 
Lands and oceans rules his wilt ; 

Lions even as lanihs shall love us. 
And the proudest waves be still. 

Whetted sword to scabbard cleaving, 
Faith and Hope victorious see : 

.Strong, who, loving and believing, 
Pray.«, O Lord, to thee. 

Were it possible to fancy that in the counte- 
nance of so grim a creature, the tyrant of the 
woods, the despot of the animal kingdom, an 
expression of friendliness, of thankful con- 
tentment could be traced, then here was such 
traceable; and truly the child in his illustrated 
look had the air as of a mighty triumphant 
victor ; the other figure, indeed, not of that one 
vanquished, for his strength lay concealed in 
him ; but yet of one tamed, of one given up to 
his own peaceful will. The child fluted and 
sang on, changing the lines according to his 
way, and adding new : 

And so to good children bringeth 

Blessed Angel help in need; 
Fetters o'er the cruel flingeth, 
Worthy art with wings doth speed. 

So have tamed, and firmly iron'd 
To a poor child's feeble knee, 
Him the forest's lordly tyrant, 
Song and Piety. 



THE TAI<E. 



THE TALE. 



BY GOETHE. 



[Eraser's Magazine, 1832.] 



That Goethe, many years ago, wrote a piece 
named Bus Muhrrhen, {The Tale;) which the 
admiring critics of Germany contrived lo cri- 
ticise by a stroke of the pen; declaring that h 
was indeed The Tale, and worthy to be called 
the Tale of Tales, (das Mahrrhen allcr M^liichen,') 
— may appear certain to most English readers, 
for they have repeatedly seen as much in 
print. To some English readers it may ap- 
pear certain, furthermore, that they personally 
know this Tale of Tales; and can even pro- 
nounce it to deserve no such epithet, and the 
admiring critics of Germany to be little other 
than blockheads. 

English readers ! the first certainty is alto- 
gether indubitable; the second certainty is not 
worth a rush. 

That same Mdhnhen aller Mdhrchen you may 
see with your own eyes, at this hour, in the 
Fifteenth Volume of Guelhe's Wcrke ,■ and see- 
ing is believing. On the other hand, that 
English " Tale of Tales," put forth some years 
ago as the Translation thereof, by an indivi- 
dual connected with the Periodical Press of 
London, (his Periodical vehicle, if we remem- 
ber, broke down soon after, and was rebuilt, 
and still runs, under the name of Court Jour- 
nal,) — was a Translation, miserable enough, 
of a quite different thing ; a thing, not a Aiuhr- 
chen (Fabulous Tale) at all, but an ErzMung 
or common fictitious Narrative; having no 
manner of relation lo the real piece, (beyond 
standing in the same volume;) not so much 
as Milton's Tetrackord<m of Divorce has tn his 
Allegro and Penseroso .' In this way do indivi- 
duals connected with the Periodical Press nf 
London play their part, and commodidusly 
befool thee, O Public of EngliNh readers, and 
can serve thee with a mass of roasted grass, 
and name it stewed venison ; and will con- 
tinue to do so, till thou — open thy eyes, and 
from a blind monster become a seeing one 

This mistake we did not publicly note at the 
time of its occurrence ; for two good reasons : 
first, that while mistakes are increasing, like 
Population, at the rate of Twelve Hundred a 
day, the benefit of seizing one, and throttling 
it, would be perfectly inconsiderable: second, 
that we were not then in existence. The 
highly composite, astonishing Entity, which 
here as "0. Y." addresses mankind for a sea- 
son, still slumbered (his elements scattered 
over Infinitude, and working under other 
shapes) in the womb of Nothing! Meditate 
on us a little, O Reader: if thou wilt consider 
who and what we are; what Powers, of Cash, 
Esurience, Intelligence, Stupidity, and Mystery 
created us, and what work we do and will do, 
there shall be no end to thy amazement. 

This mistake, however, we do now note; in- 
duced thereto by occasion. Bv the fact, name- 
ly, that a genuine English Translation of that 
Mdhrchen has been handed in to us for judg- 
ment; aud now (such judgment having proved 



merciful) comes out from us in the way of 
publication. Of the Translation we cannot 
say much ; by the colour of the paper, it may 
be some seven years old, and have Iain per- 
haps in smoky repositories: it is not a good 
Translation; yet also not wholly bad; faithful 
to the original, (as we can vouch, after strict 
trial;) conveys the real meaning, thcugh with 
an effort: here and there our pen has striven 
to help it, but could not do much. The poor 
Translator, who signs himself " D. 'i'.," and 
aflects lo carry matters with a high hand, 
though, as we have ground to surmise, he is 
probably in straits for the necessaries of life, 
— has, at a more recent date, appended nu- 
merous Notes; wherein he will convince him- 
self that more meaning lies in his Mihrchea 
"than in all the Literature of our century;" 
some of these we have retained, now and then 
with an explanatory or exculpatory word of 
our own ; the most we have cut away, as su- 
perfluous and even absurd. Superfluous and 
even absurd, we say: D. T. can take this of 
us as he likes; we know him, and what is in 
him, and what is not in him ; believe that he 
will prove reasonable; can do either way. At 
all events, let one of the notablest Perform- 
ances produced for the last thousand years, be 
now, through his organs, (since no other, in 
this elapsed half-century, liave offered them- 
selves,) set before an undisceniing public. 

We loo will premise our ccmviction that 
this Mnhrchcn presents aphantasmagoric Adum- 
bration, pregnant with deepest significance; 
though nowise that D. T. has so accurately 
evolved the same. Listen notwithstanding to 
a remark or two, extracted from his immea- 
surable Proem : 

"Dull men of this country," says he, " who 
pretend to admire Goethe, smiled on me when 
I first asked the meaning of this Tale. ' Mean- 
ing !' answered they : ' it is a wild arabesque, 
without meaning or purpose at all, except to 
dash together, copiously enough, confused hues 
of Imagination, and .see what will come of 
them.' Such is still the persuasion of several 
heads ; which nevertheless would perhaps 
grudge to be considered wigblocks." — Not im- 
possible : the first Sin in our Universe was 
Lucifer's, that of Self-conceit. But hear agam; 
what is more to the point: 

"The difficulties of interpretation are ex- 
ceedingly enhanced by one circumstance, not 
unusual in other such writings of Goethe's ; 
namely, that this is no Allegory; which, as in 
the PiLrtii.'s Progress, you have only once for 
all to find the key of, and so go on unlocking: 
it is a Phantasmagory, raiher; wherein things 
the most heterogeneous are, with homogeneity 
of figure, emblemed forth: which would re- 
quire not one key to unlock it, but, at different 
stages of the business, a duzen successivi? 
keys." Here you have epochs of time sha- 
dowed forlh, there Qualities of the Hutnaa 



384 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Soul; now it is Institutions, Historical Events, 
now Doctrines, Philosophic Truths: thus are 
all manner of 'entities and quiddities and 
ghosts of defunct bodies' set flying ; you have 
the whole Four Elements chaotico-creatively 
jumbled together, and spirits enough imbody- 
ing themselves, and roguishly peering through, 
in the confused wild-working mass!" * * * 

"So much, however, I will stake my whole 
money capital and literary character upon : 
that here is a wonderful Emblem of Umvek- 
SAi HisTonx set forth; more especially a 
wonderful Emblem of this our wonderful and 
•woful ' Age of Transition ;' what men have 
been and done, what they are to be and do, is, 
in this Tale of Tales, poeiico-prophetically 
typified, in such a style of grandeur and celes- 
tial brilliancy and life, as the Western Imagi- 
nation has not elsewhere reached ; as only the 
Oriental Imagination, and in the primeval ages, 
was wont to attempt." — Here surely is good 
wine, with a big bush ! Study the Tale of 
Tales, O reader: even in the bald version of 
D. T., there will be meaning found. He con- 
tinues in this triumphant style: 

" Can any mortal head (not a wigblock) doubt 
that the Giant of this Poem means Supersti- 
TioM-T That the Ferryman has something to 
do with the Priesthood ; his Hut with the 
Church 1 

"Again, might it not be presumed that the 
River were Time; and that it flowed (as Time 
does) between two worlds 1 Call the world, 
or country on this side, where the fair Lily 
dwells, the world of Supernaturalism ; the 
country on that side, Naturalism, the work- 
ing week-day world where we all dwell and 
toil: whosoever or whatsoever introduces it- 
self, and appears in the firm earth of human 
business, or as we well say, romes into Exist- 
ence, must proceed from Lily's supernatural 
country; whatsoever of a material sort de- 
ceases and disappears might be expected to 
go thither. Let the reader consider this, and 
note what comes of it. 

"To get a free solid communication esta- 
blished over this same wondrous River of 
Time, so that the Natural and Supernatural 
may stand in friendliest neighbourhood and 
union, forms the grand action of this Phantas- 
magoric Poem : is not such also, let me ask 
thee, the grand action and summary of Uni- 
versal History; the one problem of Human 
Culture ; the thing which Mankind (once the 
three daily meals of victual were moderately 
secured) has ever striven after, and must ever 
strive after 1 — Alas! we observe very soon, 
matters stand on a most distressful footing, in 
this of Natural and Supernatural: there are 
three conveyances across, and all bad, all in- 
cidental, temporary, uncertain: the worst of 
the three, one would think, and the worst con- 
ceivable, were the Giant's Shadow, at sunrise 
and sunset; the best that Snake-bridge at noon, 
yet still only a bad best. Consider again our 
trustless, rotten, revolutionary 'age of transi- 
tion,' and see whether this too does not fit it! 
"If you ask next, Who these other strange 
characters are, the Snake, the Will-o'-Wisps, 
the Man with the Lamp ? I will answer, in 
general and afar off, that Ught must signify 



human Insight, Cultivation, in one sort or 
other. As for the Snake, I know not well what 
name to call it by; nay perhaps, in our scanty 
vocabularies, there is no name for it, though 
that does not hinder its being a thing, genuine 
enough. Meditation; Intellectual Research; 
Understanding; in the most general accepta- 
tion, Thought : all these come near designat- 
ing it; none actually designates it. Were I 
bound, under legal penalties, to give the crea- 
ture a name, I should say Thought rather than 
another. 

"But what if our Snake, and so much else 
that works here beside it, were neither a quuli- 
fy, nor a reality, nor a slate, nor an action, in 
any kind ; none of these things purely and 
alone, but something intermediate and partak- 
ing of them all ! In which case, to name it, in 
vulgar speech, were a still more frantic at- 
tempt: it is unnameable in speech; and re- 
mains only the allegorical Figure known in 
this Tale by the name of Snake, and more or 
less 7-escmhlin» and shadowing forth somewhat 
that speech has namecT^or mlgnt name. It is 
this heterogeneity of nature, pitching your 
solidest Predicables heels over head, throwing 
you half a dozen Categories into the melting- 
pot at once, — that so unspeakably bewilders a 
Commentator, and for moments is nigh reduc- 
ing him to dcUrinm saltans. 

"The Will-o'-wisps, that laugh and jig, and 
compliment the ladies, and eat gold and shake 
it from them, I for my own share take the li- 
berty of viewing as some shadow of Elegant 
Culture, or modern Fine Literature ; which 
by and by became so skeptical-destructive; 
and did, as French Philosophy, eat Gold (or 
Wisdom) enough, and shake it out again. In 
which sense, their coming (into Existence) by 
the old Ferryman's (by the Priesthood's) as- 
sistance, and almost oversetting his boat, and 
then laughing at him, and trying to skip off 
from him, yet being obliged to stop till they 
had satisfied him : all this, to the discerning 
eye, has its significance. 

" As to the Man with the Lamp, in him and 
his gold-g!'rt)ig, jewel-forming, and otherwise 
so miraculous Light, which 'casts no shadow,' 
and 'cannot illuminate what is wholly other- 
wise in darkness,' — I see what you might 
name the celestial Reason of Man, (Reason as 
contrasted with Understanding, and superordi- 
nated to it,) the purest essence of his seeing 
Faculty; which manifests itself as the Spirit 
of Poetry, of Prophecy, or whatever else of 
highest in the intellectual sort man's mind can 
do. We behold this respectable, venerable 
Lamp-bearer everywhere present in time of 
need ; directing, accomplishing, working, won- 
der-working, finally victorious ; — as, in strict 
reality, it is ever (if we will study it) the Po- 
etic Vision that lies at the bottom of all other 
Knowledge or Action; and is the source and 
creative fountain of whatsoever mortal ken or 
ran, and mystically and miraculously guides 
them forward whither they are to go. Be the 
Man with the Lamp, then, named Reason; 
mankind's noblest inspired Insight and Light; 
whereof all the other lights are but eflSuences, 
and more or less discoloured emanations. 

"His Wife, poor old woman, we shall call 



THE TALE. 



385 



Practical Estdeavour; which as married to 
Reason, to spiritual Vision and Belief, first 
makes up man's being here below. Unhappi- 
ly the ancient couple, we find, are but in a de- 
cayed condition : the better emblems are they 
of Reason and Endeavour in this our "iransi- 
tionary age!" The Man presents himself in 
the garb of a peasant, the Woman has grown 
old, garrulous, querulous; both live neverthe- 
less in their ' ancient cottage,' better or worse, 
the roof-tree of which still holds together over 
them. And then those mischievous Will-o'- 
wisps, who pay the old lady such court, and 
eat all the old gold (all that was wise and beau- 
tiful and desirable) off her walls; and show 
the old stones, quite ugly and bare, as they had 
not been forages! Besides, they have killed 
poor Mops, the plaything, and joy and fondling 
of the house; — as has not that same Elegant 
Culture, or French Philosophy done, whereso- 
ever it has arrived 1 Mark, notwithstanding, 
how the Man with the Lamp puts it all right 
again, reconciles every thing, and makes the 
finest business out of what seemed the worst. 

"With regard to the Four Kings, and the 
Temple which lies fashioned under ground, 
please to consider all this as the Future lying 
prepared and certain under the Present: you 
observe, not only inspired Reason (or the Man 
with the Lamp) but scientific Thought (or the 
Snake) can discern it lying there: neverthe- 
less much work must be done, innumerable 
difficulties fronted and conquered, before it can 
rise out of the depths, (of the Future,) and re- 
alize itself as the actual worshipping-place of 
man, and 'the most frequented Temple in the 
whole Earth.' 

"As for the fair Lily and her ambulatory 
necessitous Prince, these are objects that I 
shall admit myself incapable of naming; yet 
nowise admit myself incapable of attaching 
meaning to. Consider them as the two dis- 
jointed Halves of this singular Dualistic Being 
of ours ; a Being, I must say, the most utterly 
Dualistic ; fashioned, from ihe very heart of 
it, out of Positive and Negative, (what we hap- 
pily call Light and Darkness, necessity and 
Freewill, Good and Evil, and the like;) every- 
where out of two mortally opposed things, 
which yet must be united in vital love, if there 
is to be any Life : — a being, I repeat, Dualistic 
beyond expressing; which will split in two, 
strike it in any direction, on any of its six 
sides ; and does of itself split in two, (into Con- 
tradiction,) every hour of the day, — were not 
Life perpetually there, perpetually knitting it 
together again ! But as to that cutting up, and 
parcelling, and labelling of the indivisible 
Human Soul into what are called "Faculties," 
it is a thing I have from of old eschewed, and 
even hated. A thing which you must some- 
times do, (or you cannot speak ;) yet which is 
never done without Error hovering near you ; 
for most part, without her pouncing on you, 
and quite blindfolding you. 

"Let n-)t us, therefore, in looking at Lily 
and her ]Vince be tempted to that practice: 
why should we try to nanir them at all ? Enough 
if we do feel that man's whole Being is riven 
asunder every way (in this ' transitionary age,') 
and yawning in hostile, irreconcilable contra- 
49 



diction with itself: what good were it to know- 
farther in what iHrec ion the rift (as our Poet 
here pleased to represent ii) had taken effect? 
Fancy, however, that these two Halves of 
Man's Soul and Being are separated, in pain 
and enchanted obstruction, from one another. 
The better, fairer Half sits in the Supernatural 
country, deadening and killing; alas, not per- 
mitted lo come across into Ihe Natural visible 
country, and there make all blessed and alive! 
The rugged stronger Half, in such separation, 
is quite lamed and paralytic; wretched, for- 
lorn, in a state of death-life, must he wander to 
and fro over the River of Time ; all that is dear 
and essential to him, imprisoned there; which 
if he look at he grows still weaker, which if 
he touch, he dies. Poor Prince! And let the 
judicious reader, who had read the Era he lives 
in, or even spelt the alphabet thereof, say 
whether, with the paralytic-lamed Activity of 
man (hampered and hamstrung ' in a transi- 
tionary age' of Skepticism, Methodism; atheis- 
tic Sarcasm, hysteric Orgasm ; brazen-faced 
Delusion, Puffery, Hypocrisy, Stupidity, and 
the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill,) it is 
not even sol Must not poor man's Activity 
(like this poor Prince) wander from Natural to 
Supernatural, and back again, disconsolate 
enough; unable to do any thing, except merely 
wring its hands, and, whimpering and blub- 
bering, lamentably inquire : What shall I do] 
"But Courage! Courage! The Temple is 
built, (though under-ground ;) the Bridge shall 
arch itself, the divided Two shall cla-p each 
other as flames do, rushing into one ; and all 
that ends well shall be well ! Mark only how, 
in this imitable Poem, worthy an Olympic 
crown, or prize of the Literary Society, it is 
represented as proceeding!" 

So far D. T. ; a commentator who at least 
does not want confidence in himself; whom 
we shall only caution not to be too confident; 
to remember always that, as he once says, 
" Phantasmagory is not Allegory;" that much 
exists, under our very noses, which has no 
"name," and can get none; that the "River 
of Time" and so forth may be one thing, or 
more than one, or none; that, in short, there 
is risk of the too valiant D. T.'s bamboozling 
himself in this matter ; being led from puddle 
to pool; and so left standing at last, like a 
foolish mystified nose-of-wax, wondering where 
the devil he is. 

To the simpler sort of readers we shall also 
extend an advice ; or be it rather, proffer a 
petition. It is to fancy themselves, for the 
time being, delivered altogether from D. T.'s 
company: and to read this RLUu-rhcn, as if it 
were there only for its own sake, and those 
tag-rag Notes of his were so much blank 
paper. Let the simpler sort of readers say 
now how they like it! If unhappily on look- 
ing back, some spasm of " the malady of 
thought," begin afflicting them, let such Notes 
be (hen inquired of, but not till then, and then 
also with distrust. Pin thy faith to no man's 
sleeve; hast thou not two eyes of thy own 1 

The Commentator himself cannot, it is to be 
hoped, imagine that he has exhausted the mat- 
ter. To decipher and represent the genesis of 
2K 



386 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



this extraordinary Production, and what was 
the Author's state of mind in producing it; to 
see, with dim, common eyes, what the great 
Goethe, with inspired poetic eyes, then saw; 
and paint to oneself the thick-coming; shapes 
and many-coloured splendours of his " Pros- 
pero's Grutto," at that hour: this were what 
we could call complete criticism and com- 
mentary ; what D. T. is far from having done, 
and ought to fall on his face, and confess that 
he can never do. 

We shall conclude with remarking two 
things. First, that D. T. does not appear to 
have set eye on any of those German Com- 
mentaries on this Tale of Tales; or even to 
have heard, credently, that such exist: an 
omission, in a professed Translator, which he 
himself may answer for. Secondly, that with 
all his boundless preluding, he has forgot to 
insert the Author's own prelude; the passage, 
namely, by which this Mdhrchen is especially 
ushered in, and the key-noleof it struck by the 
Composer himself, and the tone of the whole 
prescribed ! This latter allo?ether glaring 
omission we now charitably supply; and then 
let D. T., and his illustrious Original, and the 
Readers of this Magazine take it among them. 
Turn to the latter part of the Deutsrhen Jusge- 
vxmderten (page 208, Volume XV. of the last 
Edition of Goethe's Werke ,) it is written there 
as we render it: 

"'The Imagination,' said Karl, 'is a fine 
faculty; yet I like not when she works on 
what has actually happened: the airy forms 
she creates are welcome as things of their 
own kind; but uniting with Truth she pro- 
duces oftenest nothing bat monsters; and 
seems to me, in such cases, to fly into direct 
variance with Reason and Common sense. 
She ought, you might say, to hang upon no 
object, to force no object on us; she must, if 
she is to produce Works of Art, play like a 
sort of music upon us; move us within our- 
selves, and this in such a way that we forget 
there is any thing without us producing the 
movement.' 

" ' Proceed no farther,' said the old man, 
'with your conditionings! To enjoy a pro- 
duct of Imagination this also is a condition, 
that we enjoy it unconditionally; for Imagina- 
tion herself cannot condition and bargain ; she 
must wait what shall be given her. She forms 
no plans, prescribes for herself no path; but 
is borne and guided by her own pinions ; and 
hovering hither and thither, marks out the 
strangest courses; which in their direction 
are ever altering. Let me but, on my evening 
walk, call up again to life within me, some 
wondrous figures I was wont to play with in 
earlier years. This night I promise you a Tale, 
which shall remind you ofNothingand of AH.'" 

And now for it! O. Y. 

THE TALE. 

In his little Hut, by the great River, which 
a heavy rain had swoln to overflowing, lay the 
ancient Ferryman, asleep, wearied by the toil 
of the day. In the middle of the night,* loud 

* In ihe middle of tJie ni?M triilv ! In ttie middle of the 
Dark Ages, when what with Mohaminedan Conquests, 



voices awoke him; he heard that it was travel- 
lers wishing to be carried over. 

Stepping out, he saw two large Will-o'-wisps, 
hovering to and fro on his boat, which lay 
moored ; they said, they were in violent haste, 
and should have been already on the other 
side. The old Ferryman made no loitering; 
pushed off, and steered with his usual skill 
obliquely through the stream : while the two 
strangers whiffled and hissed together, in an 
unknown very rapid tongue, and every now 
and then broke out in loud laughter, hopping 
about, at one time on the gunwale and the 
seats, at another on the bottom of the boat. 

"The boat is heeling !" cried the old man 
"if you don't be quiet, it will overset; be 
seated, gentlemen of the wisp!" 

At this advice they burst into a fit of laugh- 
ter, mocked the old man, and were more un- 
quiet than ever. He bore their mischief with 
patience, and soon reached the farther shore. 

"Here is for your labour!" cried the travellers, 
and as they shook themselves, a heap of glit- 
tering gold-pieces jingled down into the wet 
boat. "For Heaven's sake, what are you 
about?" cried the old man; "you will ruin me 
for ever! Had a single piece of gold got 
into the water, the stream which cannot suffer 
gold, would have risen in horrid waves, and 
swallowed both my skiff and me ; and who 
knows how it might have fared with you in 
that case : here, take back your gold." 

" We can take nothing back, which we have 
once shaken from us," said the Li.'^liis. 

" Then you give me the trouble, ' said the old 
man, stooping down, and gathering the pieces 
into his cap, " of raking them together, and 
carrying them ashore, and burying them." 

The Lights had leaped from the boat, but the 
old man cried: " Stay ; where is my farel" 

" If you take no gold, you may work for no- 
thing," cried the Will-o'-wisps. — "You must 
know that I am only to be paid with fruits of 
the earth." — " Fruits of the earth 1 we despise 
them and have never tasted them." — " And yet 
I cannot let you go, till you have promised that 
you will deliver me three Cabbages, three Arti- 
chokes, and three large Onions." 

The Lights were making off with jests; but 
they felt themselves, in some inexplicable 
manner, fastened to the ground : it was the un- 
pleasantest feeling they had ever had. They 
engaged to pay him his demand as soon as 
possible : he let them go, and pushed away. 
He was gone a good distance, when they called 
to him : " Old Man ! Holla, old man ! the main 
point is forgotten !"* He was off, however, and 
did not hear them. He had fallen quielly down 
that side of the River, where, in a roclcy spot, 
which the water never reached, he meant to 
bury the pernicious gold. Here, between two 
high crags, he found a monstrous chasm ; shook 



what with Christian Cnisadinss. Destructions of Con- 
stantinople, Discoveries of America, the Time-River 
was indeed swoln to overflowini ; and the In-nes Fnlui 
(of Eleiianl Culltire of I.ileratiire ) must neeils feel in 
haste to £ret over into Existence, beins miuh wanted ; 
and apply to the Priesthood, (respectnlile old Ferryman, 
roused out of s)ee|) tlierehy '■) who willinsly inlrnrliiced 
them mischievous, nnfrateful imps as they were. — D. T. 
* Whil could this he"! To ask whither their next 
road lay 1 It was useless to ask Ihere : the respectable 
old Priesthood "did not bear them."— D. T. 



THE TALE. 



38y' 



the metal into it, and steered back to his cot- 
tage. 

Now, in this chasm, lay the fair green Snake, 
who was roused from her sleep by the gold 
coming chinking down.* No sooner did she 
fix her eye on the glittering coins, than she 
ate them all up, with the greatest relish, on the 
spot; and carefully picked out such pieces as 
■were scattered in the chinks of the rock. 

Scarcely had she swallowed them, when, with 
extreme delight, she began to feel the metal 
melting in her inwards, and spreading all over 
her body ; and soon, to her lively joy, she ob- 
served that she was grown transparent and 
luminous. Long ago she had been told that 
this was possible; but now being doubtful 
whether such a light ccmid last, her curiosity 
and the desire to be secure against the future, 
drove her from her cell, that she might see 
who it was that had shaken in this precious 
metal. She found no one. The more delight- 
ful was it to admire her own appearance, and 
her graceful brightness, as she crawled along 
through roots and bushes, and spread out her 
light among the grass. Every leaf seemed of 
emerald, every flower was dyed with new glory. 
It was in vain that she crossed the solitary 
thickets ; but her hopes rose high, when, on 
reaching the open country, she perceived from 
afar a brilliancy resembling her own. "Shall 
I find my like at last, then 1" cried she, and 
hastened to the spot. The toil of crawling 
through bog and reeds gave her little thought ; 
for though she liked best to live in dry grassy 
spots of the mountains, among the clefts of 
rocks, and for most part fed on spicy herbs, 
and slaked her thirst with mild dew and fresh 
spring water, yet for the sake of this dear gold, 
and in the hope of this glorious light, she 
would have undertaken any thing yoa could 
propose to her. 

At last, with much fatigue, she reached a wet 
rushy spot in the swamp, where our two Will- 
o'-wisps were frisking to and fro. She shoved 
herself along to them ; saluted them, was happy 
to meet such pleasant gentlemen related to her 
family. The Lights glided towards her, 
skipped up over her, and laughed in their 
fashion. "Lady Cousin," said they, "you are 
of the horizontal line, yet what of that? It is 
true we are related only by the look; for ob- 
serve you," here both the Flames, compressing 
their whole breadth, made themselves as high 
and peaked as possible, "how prettily this 
taper length beseems us gentlemen of the ver- 
tical line ! Take it not amiss of us, good 
Lady; what family can boast of such a thing! 
Since there ever was a Jack-o'-lantborn in the 
world, no one of them has either sat or lain." 

The Snake felt exceedingly uncomfortable 
in the company of these relations ; for let her 
hold her head as high as possible, she found 
that she must bend it to the earth again, would 
she stir from the spot ;f and if in the dark 

♦Thought, llnderstandincr, roused from hpr lonp 
Blefip by the first prnduce of modern Belles Lettres ; 
wlii'h Fho easerly devours. — D. T. 

tTriie ptiniirh: Thoncht cannot fly and dance, as 
your wildfire of Belles I.ettres may; she proceeds in the 
svstole-diiistole. irp-and-dowii method ; and tmist ever 
" bend hrr head to the earth aeain." (in the way of Ba- 
conian Experiment,) or she will not siii from (he spol.— 
D. T. 



thicket she had been extremely satisfied ■vri'jfe' 
her appearance, her splendour in the presenee* 
of these cousins seemed to lesson every mo- 
ment, nay she was afraid that at last it woakJ 
go out entirtly. 

In this embarrassment she hastily asked: 
if the gentlemen could not inform her, whence 
the glittering gold came, that had fallen st 
short while ago into the cleft of the rock ; her 
own opinion was, that it had been a goldea- 
shower, and had trickled down direct from the 
sky. The Wil!-o'-wisps laughed, and shook 
themselves, and a multitude of gtdd-pieces 
came clinking down about them. The snake 
pushed nimbly forward to eat the coin. " Much 
good may it do you, Mistress," said the dap- 
per gentlemen :" we can help you to a little 
more." They shook themselves again several 
times with great quickness, so that the Snake 
could scarcely gulp the precious victuals fast 
enough. Her splendour visibly began increas- 
ing; she was really shining beautifully, while 
the Lights had in the measi time grown rather 
lean and short of stature, without however in 
the smallest losing their good-humour. 

"I am obliged to you for ever," said the 
Snake, having got her wind again after the re- 
past ; " ask of me what you will ; all that I can 
I will do." 

" Very good !" cried the Lights. " Then tell 
us where the fair Lily dwells ? Lead us to the 
fair Lily's palace and garden ; and do not lose a 
moment, we are dying of impatience tu fall' 
down at her feet." 

" This service," said the Snake with a deep 
sigh, " I cannot now do for.j'ou. The fair Lily- 
dwells, alas, on the other side of the water."— 
" Other side of the water 1 And we have come 
across it, this stormy night ! How cruel is the 
River to divide us! Would it not be possible 
to call the old man back?" 

" It would he useless," said the Snake ; " for 
if you found him ready on the bank, he would 
not take you in; he can carry any one to thi? 
side, none to yonder." 

"Here is a pretty kettle offish!" cried the 
Lights: "are there no other means of getting- 
through the waterl" — " There are other mean.s, 
but not at this moment. I myself could tak* 
you over, gentlemen, but not till noon." — '■ That 
is an hour we do not like to travel in." — " Then, 
you may go across in the evening, on the great 
Giant's shadow." — "How is that I" — "'J'he groat 
Giant lives not far from this ; with his body he 
has no power ; his hands cannot lift a straw, his 
shoulders could not bear a fagot of twigs; but 
with his shadow he has power over much, nay 
all.* At sun rise and sun set therefore he is strong- 
est; so at eveningyou merely put yourself upon 
the back of his shadov/, the Giant walks softly to ' 
the bank, and the shadow carries you across the 
water. But if you please, about the hour of 
noon, to be in waiting at that corner of the 
wood, where the bushes overhang the bank, I 
myself will take you over and present you to 
the fair Li'y: or on the other hand, if you dis- 
like the noontide, you have just to go at night- 
fall to that bend of the rocks, and pay a visit to 



♦ Is not Superstition strongest wh«n the sun is tow's! 
with body, powerlesa; wkh shadow, omnipoienl^^ 
D. T. 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the Giant; he will certainly receive you like 
-a gentleman." 

With a slight bow, the flames went off; and 
the Snake at bottom was not discontented to 
^et rid of them; partly that she might enjoy 
the brightness of her own light, partly satisfy a 
•curiosity with which, for a long time, she had 
been agitated in a singular way. 

In the chasm, where she often crawled hither 
and thither, she had made a strange discovery. 
I'or although in creeping up and down this 
abyss, she had never had a ray of light, she 
could well enough discriminate the objects in 
it, by her sense of touch. Generally she met 
■with nothing but irregular productions of 
nature; at one time she would wind between 
the teeth of large crystals, at another she would 
feel the barbs and hairs of native silver, and 
now and then carry out with her to the light 
some straggling jewels.* But to her no small 
Wonder, in a rock which was closed on every 
side, she had come on certain objects which 
betrayed the shaping hand of man : smooth 
walls on which she could not climb, sharp 
regular corners, well-formed pillars; and what 
seemed strangest of all, human figures which 
she had entwined more than once, and which 
appeared to her to be of brass, or of the finest 
polished marble. All these experiences she 
now wished to combine by the sense of sight, 
thereby to confirm what as yet she only guessed. 
She believed she could illuminate the whole of 
that subterranean vault by her own light; and 
hoped to get acquainted with these curious 
IhiBgs at once. She hastened back; and soon 
found, by the usual way, the cleft by which she 
used to penetrate the Sanctuary. 

On reaching the place, she gazed around with 
eager curiosity; and though her shining could 
not enlighten every object in the rotunda, yet 
those nearest her were plain enough. With 
astonishment and reverence she looked up into 
a glancing niche, where the image of an 
august King stood formed of pure Gold. In 
size the figure was beyond the stature of man, 
but by its shape it seemed the likeness of a 
little rather than a tall person. His handsome 
body was encircled with an unadorned mantle; 
and a garland of oak bound his hair together. 

No sooHer had the Snake beheld this reve- 
rend figure, than the King began to speak, and 
asked: "Whence comest thou 1" — "From the 
•chasms where the gold dwells," said the Snake. 
"What is grander than gold 1" inquired the 
King. — "Light," replied the Snake. "What 
is more refreshing than light 1" said he. — 
*• Speech," answered she. 

During this conversation she had squinted 
to a side, and in the nearest niche perceived 
another glorious image. It was a Silver King 
in a sitting posture; his shape was long and 
rather iinguid ; he was covered with a deco- 
rated robe ; crown, girdle, and sceptre were 
adorned with precious stones: the cheerfulness 
of pride was in his countenance; he seemed 



* Primitive employments, and attainments, of 
Thousht, in tliis dark den whiltier it is sent to dwell. 
For miiny long asjes, it discerns "nothing but irrei'iilar 
prixluctions of Nature ;" hiiving indeed to pick material 
oed and board out of Nature and Iter irregular produc- 
tions.— D. T. 



about to speak, when a vein which ran dimly- 
coloured over the marble wall, on a suddea 
became bright, and diffused a cheerful light 
throughout the whole Temple. By this bril- 
liancy the Snake perceived a third King, made 
of Brass, and sitting mighty in shape, leaning 
on his club, adorned with a laurel garland, and 
more like a rock than a man. She was looking 
for the fourth, which was standing at the 
greatest distance from her; but the wall opened, 
while the glittering vein started and split, as 
lightning does, and disappeared. 

A Man of middle stature, entering through 
the cleft, attracted the attention of the Snake. 
He was dressed like a peasant, and carried in 
his hand a little Lamp, on whose still flame you 
liked to look, and which in a strange manner, 
without casting any shadow, enlightened the 
whole dome.* 

" Why comest thou, since we have light 1" 
said the golden King. — " You know that I may 
not enlighten w^hat is dark." f — " Will my 
Kingdom end ■?" said the silver King. — "Late 
or never," said the old Man. 

With a stronger voice the brazen King 
began to ask: "When shall I arise?" — 
" Soon," replied the Man. — " With whom shall 
I combine V said the King. — "With thy elder 
brothers," said the Man. — " What will the 
youngest do"!" inquired the King. — " He will 
sit down," replied the Man. 

" I am not tired," cried the fourth King, with 
a rough faltering voice.^: 

While this speech was going on, the Snake 
had glided softly round the temple, viewing 
every thing ; she was now looking at the fourth 
King close by him. He stood leaning on a 
pillar; his considerable form was heavy rather 
than beautiful. But what metal .it was made 
of could not be determined. Closely inspected, 
it seemed a mixture of the three metals which 
its brothers had been formed of. But in the 
founding, these materials did not seem to have 
combined together fully ; gold and silver veins 
ran irregularly through a brazen mass, and 
gave the figure an unpleasant aspect. 

Meanwhile the gold King was asking of the 
Man, "How many secrets knowest thou 1" — 
"Three," leplied the Man. — "Which is the 
most important V said the silver King. — "The 
open one," replied the other.§ — " Wilt thou 
open it to us also?" said the brass King. — 
"When I know the fourth," replied the Man. — 
" What care I ?" grumbled the composite King, 
in an under tone. 

"I know the fourth," said the Snake; ap- 
proached the old Man. and hissed somewhat in 
hU ear. "The time is at hand !" cried the old 
Man, with a strong voice. The temple re- 

* Poetic Light, celestial Reason !— D. T. 

Let the reiider, in one word, attend well to these four 
Kings : much ann itation from U. T is here necessarily 
swept out. — O. Y. 

f What is wholly dark. Understanding precedes 
Reason : modern Science is lome : modern Poesy is still 
but coming, —in Go«ihe. (and whom elsel)— D T. 

J Consider these Kinesas fsrtsoflhe World's Ifistory; 
CO. not as Eras but as I'ri i iples which jointly or seve- 
rally rule Eras. Alas, poor we, in this chaotic soft- 
soldered '• fr msltionary age," are so unfortunate as to 
live under the Koiirth King. — O. T. 

i Reader, hast Ihou any glimpse of the " open secret V* 
I fear, nut. — U. T.— Writer, art thou a goose f 1 fear, 
yes.— O. Y. 



THE TALE. 



echoed, the metal statues sounded; and that 
instant the old Man sank away to the west- 
ward, and the Snake to the eastward; and both 
of them passed through the clefts of the rock, 
with ihe greatest speed. 

All the passages, through which the old 
Man travelled, Hlled themselves immediately 
behind him with gold; for his Lamp had the 
strange property of changing stone into gold, 
wood into silver, dead animals into precious 
stones, and of annihilating all metals. But to 
display this power, it must shine alone. If 
another light were beside it, the Lamp only 
cast from it a pure clear brightness, and all 
living things were refreshed by it.* 

The old Man entered his cottage, which was 
built on the slope of the hill. He found his 
Wife in extreme distress. She was sitting at 
the fire weeping, and refusing to be consoled. 
" How unhappy am I !" cried she : " Did I not 
entreat thee not to go away to-night 1" — " What 
is the matter, then!" inquired the husband, 
quite composed. 

" Scarcely wert thou gone," said she, sobbing, 
" when there came two noisy Travellers to the 
door: unthinkingly I let them in ; they seemed 
to be a couple of genteel, very honourable 
people ; they were dressed in flames, you 
would have taken them for Will-o'-wisps. 
But no sooner were they in the house, than 
they began, like impudent varlets, to compli- 
ment me,f and grew so forward that I feel 
ashamed to think of it." 

"No doubt," said the husband with a smile, 
"the gentlemen were jesting: considering thy 
age, they might have held by general politeness." 

"Age! what age"!" cried the' Wife : "wilt 
thou always be talking of my agel How old 
am I then 1 — General politeness ! But I know 
what I know. Look round there what a face 
the walls have; look at the old stones, which I 
have not seen these hundred years ; every film 
of gold have they licked away, thou couldstnot 
think how fast ; and still they kept assuring me 
that it tasted far beyond common gold. Once 
they had swept the walls, the fellows seemed 
to be in high spirits, and truly in that little 
while they had grown much broader and 
brighter. They now began to be impertinent 
again, they patted me, and called me their 
queen, they shook themselves, and a shower 
of gold pieces sprang from them ! See how they 
are shining there under the bench ! But ah ! 
what misery ! Poor Mops ate a coin or two ; 
and look, he is lyingin the chimney, dead. Poor 
Pug! O well-a-day ! I did not see it till they 
were gone ; else I had never promised to pay 
the Ferryman the debt they owe him." — "What 
do they owe him?" said the Man. — "Three 
Cabbages." replied the Wife, " three Artichokes 
and three Onions : I engaged to go when it was 
day, and take them to the River." 

"Thou mayest do them that civility," said 



♦ In Illuminated A^es, the Age of Miracles is said to 
cease ; but it is onlv we that cease to see it, for we are 
Btill " refreshed by it."— U T. 

+ Poor old Practical Endeavour ! Listen to many an 
Kvcyclopidie-yUiprnt., humanized Philosophe, didactic 
sinser, inarch-of-intellert men, and other "impudent 
varlets" (that would never put their own tinger to the 
work ;) and hear what " compliments" they uttered. — 
D. T. 



the old Man ; « they may chance to be of tjse 
to us again." 

" Whether they will be of use to us I know- 
not ; but they promised and vowed that they 
would." 

Meantime the fire on the hearth had burnt 
low ; the old Man covered up the embers witht 
a heap of ashes, and put the glittering gold 
pieces aside; so that his little Lamp now 
gleamed alone, in the fairest brightness. The 
walls again coated themselves with gold, and 
Mops changed into the prettiest onyx that 
could be imagined. The alternation of the- 
brown and black in this precious stone made 
it the most curious piece of workmanship. 

"Take thy basket," said the Man, "and 
put the onyx into it ; then take the three 
Cabbages, the three Artichokes, and the three 
Onions ; place them round little Mops, and 
carry them to the River. At noon the Snake 
will take thee over ; visit the fair Lily, give 
her the onyx, she will make it alive by her 
touch, as by her touch she kills whatever is, 
alive already. She will have a true com- 
panion in the little dog. Tell her not ta 
mourn; her deliverance is near; the greatest 
misfortune she may look upon as the greatest 
happiness; for the time is at hand." 

The old Woman filled her basket, and set 
out as soon as it was day. The rising sun 
shone clear from the other side of the River,, 
which was glittering in the distance : the old 
Woman walked with slow steps, for the bas- 
ket pressed upon her head, and it was not the 
onyx that so burdened her. Whatever lifeless 
thing she might be carrying, she did not feci 
the weight of it; on the other hand, in those 
cases the basket rose aloft, and hovered along- 
above her head. But to carry any fresh herb- 
age, or any little living animal, she found ex- 
ceedingly laborious.* She had travelled on 
for some time, in a sullen humour, when she 
halted suddenly in fright, for she had almost 
trod upon the Giant's shadow, which was 
stretching towards her across the plain. And 
now, lifting up her eyes, she saw the monster 
of a Giant himself, who had been bathing m 
the River, and was just come out.f and she 
knew not how she should avoid him. The 
moment he perceived her, he began saluting- 
her in sport, and the hands of his shadow soon 
caught hold of the basket; with dexterous, 
ease they picked away from it a Cabbage, an 
Artichoke, and an Onion, and brought them to. 
the Giant's mouth, who then went his wa)' up 
the River, and let the Woman go in peace. 

She considered whether it would not be bet- 
ter to return, and supply from her garden the- 
pieces she had lost ; and amid these doubts,, 
she still kept walking on, so that in a little 
while she was at the bank of the River. She 
sat long waiting for the Ferryman, whom she 
perceived at last, steering over with a very- 



*Why sC? Is it because with "lifeless things '*- 
(with inaTiiinate macliinery) all goes like clock-wnrlc,. 
which it is. and " the basket hovers aloft ;" while witfi. 
living things, (were it but the culture of fnrest-trpes>. 
poor Endeavour has nmre difficulty 'i — D. T. — Or, is it 
chiefly because a Tale must be a Tale ? — O. Y. 

t Very proper in the huge Loggerhead Siiperstitinn, ta> 
bathe himself in the element of Time, and get refresifciw 
ment thereby. — D. T. 

2k2 



MQ 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



rSHigular traveller. A young, noble-looking, 
iandsome man, whom she could not gaze 
npon enough, stepped out of the boat. 

"What is it you bring 1" cried the old man. 
"The greens which those two Will-o'-wisps 
owe you," said the Woman, pointing to her 
■Tware. As the Ferryman found only two of 
«ach sort he grew angry, and declared he 
-would hsve none of them. The Woman ear- 
nestly entreated him to take them ; told him 
that she could not now go home, and that her 
burden for the way which still remained was 
very heav}-. He stood by his refusal, and as- 
sured her that it did not rest with him. " What 
belongs to me," said he "I must leave lying 
.nine hours in a heap, touching none of it, till 
I have given the River its third." After much 
higgling, the old man at last replied: "There 
■is still another way. If you like to pledge 
yourself to the River, and declare yourself its 
debtor, I will take the six pieces ; but there is 
;Some risk in it." — "If I keep my word, I shall 
jun no risk?" — ^^'Not the smallest. Put your 
liand into the stream," continued he, "and pro- 
mise that within four-and-twenty hours you 
will pay the debt." 

The old Woman did so ; but what was her 
■affright, when, on drawing out her hand, she 
found it black as coal ! She loudly scolded 
,the old Ferryman ; declared that her hands 
had always been the fairest part of her ; that 
in spite of her hard work, she had all along 
contrived to keep these noble members white 
.and dainty. She looked at the hand with in- 
dignation, and exclaimed in a despairing tone: 
-•'Worse and worse! Look, it is vanishing 
.■entirely ; it is grown far smaller than the 
■other."* 

"For the present it but seems so," said the 
;Old man ; if you do not keep your word, how- 
ever, it may prove so in earnest. The hand 
will gradually diminish, and at length disap- 
pear altogether, though you have the use of it 
as formerly. Every thing as usual you will 
1)6 able to perform with it, only nobody will 
■see it." — "I had rather that I could not use it, 
.and no one could observe the want," cried 
■she; "but what of that, I will keep my word, 
and rid myself of this black skin, and all anxi- 
eties about it." Thereupon she hastily took 
np her basket, which mounted of itself over 
Jier head, and hovered free above her in the 
air, as she hurried after the Youth, who was 
"walking softly and thoughtfully down the bank. 
His noble form and strange dress had made a 
<3eep impression on her. 

His breast was covered with a glittering 
•coat of mail ; in whose wavings might be 
■traced every motion of his fair body. From 
his shoulders hung a purple cloak; around his 
■uncovered head flowed abundant brown hair 
in beautiful locks : his graceful face, and his 
well-formed feet were exposed to the scorch- 
ing of the sun. With bare soles he walked 
composedly over the hot sand ; and a deep in- 
ward sorrow seemed to blunt him against all 
jxternal things. 



* A dangerous tliiii? to pledae yourself to ttio Time- 
Aiver ;— as many a National Delit, and the like, black- 
ening, liKwitcliing the " beautiful hand " of Endeavour, 
'iisaa witness. — D. T. — Heavens '. — O. Y. 



The garrulous old Woman tried to lead hitn 
into conversation ; but with his short answers 
he gave her small encouragement or informa- 
tion ; so that in the end, notwiihstanding the 
beauty of his eye.=;, she grew tired of speaking 
wiih him to no purpose, and took leave of him 
with these words; "Yoa walk loo slow for 
me, worthy sir ; I must not lose a moment, for 
I have to pass the River on the green Snake, 
and carry this fine present from my husband 
to the fair Lily." So saying she stepped faster 
forward; but the fair Youth pushed on with 
equal speed, and hastened to keep up with 
her. "You are going to the fair Lily!" cried 
he; "then our roads are the same. But 
what present is this you are bringing herl" 

"Sir," said the Woman, "it is hardly fair, 
after so briefly dismissing the questions I put 
to you, to inquire with such vivacity about 
my secrets. But if you like to barter, and tell 
me your adventures, I will not conceal from 
you how it stands with me and my presents." 
They soon made a bargain ; the dame disclosed 
her circumstances to him ; told the history of 
the Pug, and let him see the singular gift. 

He lifted his natural curiosity from the bas- 
ket, and took Mops, who seemed as if sleeping 
softly, into his arms. " Happy beast !" cried 
he ; " thou wilt be touched by her hands, thou 
wilt be made alive by her ; while the living 
are obliged to fly from her presence to escape 
a mournful doom. Yet why say I mournful ! 
Is it not far sadder and more frightful to be in- 
jured by her look, than it would be to die by 
her hand 1 Behold me," said he to the Wo- 
man ; "at my years, what a miserable fate 
have I to undergo. This mail which I have 
honourably borne in war, this purple which I 
sought to merit by a wise reign. Destiny has 
left me ; the one as a useless burden, the other 
as an empty ornament. Crown, and sceptre, 
and sword are gone ; and I am as bare and ^ 
needy as any other son of earth: for so un- 
blessed are her bright eyes, that they take from 
every living creature they look on all its force, 
and those whom the touch of her hand does 
not kill are changed to the state of shadows 
wandering alive." 

Thus did he continue to bewail, nowise con- 
tenting the old Woman's curiosity, who wished 
fur information not so much of his internal as 
of his external situation. She learned neither 
the name of his father, nor of his kingdom. 
He stroked the hard Mops, whom the sun- 
beams and the bosom of the youth had warmed 
as if he had been living. He inquired nar- 
rowly about the man with the Lamp, about 
the influences of the sacred light, appearing 
to expect much good from it in his melan- 
choly case. 

Amid such conversation, they descried from 
afar the majestic arch of the Bridge, which 
extended from the one bank to the other, glit- 
tering with the strangest colours in the splen- 
dours of the sun. Both were astonished; for 
until now they had never seen this edifice so 
grand. "How!" cried the Prince! "was if 
not beautiful enough, as it stood before our 
eyes, piled out of jasper and agate? Shall 
we not fear to tread it, now that it appears 
combined in graceful complexity, of emerald 



THE TALE. 



391 



and chrysopras and chrysolite V Neither of 
them knew the alteration that had talcen place 
upon the Snake: for it was indeed the Snake, 
•wtio every day at noon curved herself over 
the River, and stood forth in the form of a 
bold-swelling bridge.* The travellers stepped 
upon it with a reverential feeling, and passed 
over it in silence. 

No sooner had they reached the other shore, 
then the bridge began to heave and stir; in a 
little while, it touched the surface of the water, 
and the green Snake in her proper form came 
gliding after the wanderers. They had scarcely 
thanked her for the privilege of crossing on 
her back, when they found that, besides them 
three, there must be other persons in the com- 
pany, whom their eyes could not discern. They 
heard a hissing, which the Snake also answer- 
ed with a hissing; they listened, and at length 
caught what follows: "We shall first look 
about us in the fair Lily's Park," said a pair 
of alternating voices.; " and then request you 
at nightfall, so soon as we are anywise pre- 
sentable, to introduce us to this paragon of 
beauty. At the shore of the great Lake, 
you will find us." — " Be it so," replied the 
Snake; and a hissing sound died away in the 
air. 

Our three travellers now consulted in what 
order they should introduce themselves to the 
fair Lady ; for however many people might be 
in her company, they were obliged to enter and 
depart singly, under pain of suflering very hard 
severities. 

The Woman with the metamorphosed Pug 
in the basket first approached the garden, 
looking round for her Patroness ; who was not 
difficult to find, being just engaged in singing 
to her harp. The tinest tones proceeded from 
her, first like circles on the surface of the still 
lake, then like a light breath they set the grass 
and the bushes in motion. In a green enclo- 
sure, under the shadow of a stately group of 
many diverse trees, was she seated; and again 
did she enchant the eyes, the ear, and the heart 
of the woman, who approached with rapture, 
and swore within herself that since she saw 
her last, the fair one had grown fairer than 
ever. With eager gladness from a distance 
she expressed her reverence and admiration 
for the lovely maiden. " What a happiness to 
see you, what a Heaven does your presence 
spread around you ! How charmingly the 
harp is leaning on your bosom, how softly 
your arms surround it, how it seems as if 
longing to be near you, and how it sounds so 
meekly under the touch of your slim fingers ! 
Thrice happy youth, to whom it were permitted 
to be there !" 

So speaking she approached; the fair Lily 
raised her eyes: let her hands drop from the 
harp, and answered : " Trouble me not v;ith 
untimely praise ; I feel my misery but the more 
deeply. Look here, at my feet lies the poor 
Canary-bird, which used so beautifully to ac- 
company my singing; it would sit upon my 
harp, and was trained not to touch me; but to- 



*Tf aititit can overspan the Time-River, then what 
but Understanding, but Thoucht, in its moment of ple- 
nitude, in its favourable noon-moment 1 — D. T. 



day, while I, refreshed by sleep, was raising a 
peaceful morning hymn, and my little singer 
was pouring forth his harmonious tones more 
gaily than ever, a Hawk darts over my head ; 
the poor little creature, in affright, takes reCuge 
in my bosom, and I feel the last palpitations 
of its departing life. The plundering Hawk 
indeed was caught by my locik, and fluttered 
fiinting down into the water; but what can 
his punishment avail mel my darling is dead, 
and his grave will but increase the mournful 
bushes of my garden." 

"Take courage, fairest Lily!" cried the 
Woman, wiping off a tear, which the sttiry of 
the hapless maiden had called into her eyes;- 
"compose yourself; my old man bids me tell 
you to moderate your lamenting, to look upon, 
the greatest misfortune as a forerunner of the 
greatest happiness, for the time is at hand; 
and truly," continued she, " the world is going 
strangely on of late. Do but look at my hand, 
how black it is ! As I live and breathe, it is 
grown far smaller: I must hasten, before it 
vanish altogether! Why did I engage to do 
the Will-o'-wisps a service, why did I meet the 
Giant's shadow, and dip my hand in the RiverT 
Could you not afford me a single cabbage, an 
artichoke, and an onion 1 I would give them 
to the River, and my hand were white as ever, 
so that I could almost show it with one of 
yours. 

" Cabbages and onions thou mayest still find ; 
but artichokes thou wilt search for in vain. No 
plant in my garden bears either flowers or 
fruit ; but every twig that I break, and plant 
upon the grave of a favourite, grows green 
straightway, and shoots up in fair boughs. All 
these groups, these bushes, these groves my 
hard destiny has so raised around me. These 
pines stretching out like parasols, th,ese 
obelisks of cypresses, these colossal oaks and 
beeches, were all little twigs planted by my 
hand, as mournful memorials in a soil that 
otherwise is barren."* 

To this speech the old Woman had paid 
little heed ; she was looking at her hand, which, 
in presence of the fair Lily, seemed every mo- 
ment growing blacker and smaller. She was 
about to snatch her basket and hasten off, when 
she noticed that the best part of her errand had 
been forgotten. She lifted out the onyx Pug, 
and set him down, not far from the fair one, in 
the grass. "My husband," said she, "sends 
you this memorial; you know that you can 
make a jewel live by touching it. This pretty 
faithful dog will certainly afford you much 
enjoyment; and my grief at losing him is 
brightened only by the thought that he will be 
in vour possession." 

The fair Lily viewed the dainty creature 
with a pleased, and as it seemed, with an as- 
tonished look. " Many signs combine," said 
she, " that breathe some hope into me : but ah! 
is it not a natural deception which makes us 
fancy, when misfortunes crowd upon us, that a 
better day is near? 

* In SrpEnNATURALisM, truly, what is there either of 
flower or of fruit ■• Nothine that will (altogether) 
content the ereedy Time-Kiver. Stupendous, funereal 
sacred-groves, "in a soil that otherwise is barren!" — 
D. T. 



892 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



" What can these many signs avail me, 

My Singpr's Oealh, thy coal-black Hand f 
This l)i)g of Onyx, that can never fail me ■> 
And coming at the Lamp's command I 

"From human joys removed for ever, 

With sorrows compassed round I sit : 
Is there a Temple at the River ^ 
Is there a Bridge ■? Alas, not yet !" 

The good old dame had listened with impa- 
tience to this singing, which the fair Lily ac- 
companied with her harp, in a way that would 
have charmed any other. She was on the 
point of taking leave, when the arrival of the 
green Snake again detained her. The Snake 
had caught the last lines of the song, and on 
this matter forthwith began to speak comfort 
to the fair Lily. 

" The Proj)hecy of the Bridge is fulfilled !" 
cried the Snake: "you may ask this worthy 
dame how royally the arch looks now. What 
formerly was untransparent jasper, or agate, 
allowing but a gleam of light to pass about its 
edges, is now become transparent precious 
stone. No beryl is so clear, no emerald so 
beautiful of hue." 

"I wish you joy of it," said Lily; "but you 
will pardon me if I regard the prophecy as yet 
unaccomplished. The lofty arch of your bridge 
can still but admit foot-passengers ; and it is 
promised us that horses and carriages and 
travellers of every sort shall, at the same mo- 
ment, cross this bridge in both directions. Is 
there not something safd, too, about pillars, 
which are to arise of themselves from the 
waters of the River? 

The old Woman still kept her eyes fixed on 
her hand ; she here interrupted their dialogue, 
and was taking leave. "Wait a moment," 
said the fair Lily, "and carry my little bird 
with you. Bid the Lamp change it into topaz ; 
I will enliven it by my touch; with your good 
Mops it shall form my dearest pastime : but 
hasten, hasten ; for, at sunset, intolerable 
putrefaction will fasten on the hapless bird, 
and tear asunder the fair combination of its 
form for ever." 

The old Woman laid the little corpse, wrap- 
ped in soft leaves, into her basket, and hast- 
ened away. 

" However it may be," said the Snake, re- 
commencing their interrupted dialogue, " the 
Temple is built." 

" But it is not at the River," said the fair 
one. 

" It is yet resting in the depths of the Earth," 
said the Snake; "I have seen the Kings and 
conversed with them." 

" But when will they arise 1" inquired Lily. 

The Snake replied: "I heard resounding in 
the Temple these deep words. The time is at 
hand." 

A pleasing cheerfulness spread over the fair 
Lily's face : " 'Tis the second time," said she, 
"that I have heard these happy words to-day: 
when will the day come for me to hear them 
thrice V 

She rose, and immediately there came a 
lovely maiden tVom the grove, and took away her 
harp. Another followed her, and folded up the 
fine-carved ivory stool, on which the fair one 



had been sitting, and put the silvery cushion' 
under her arm. A third then made her ap- 
pearance, with a large parasol worked with 
pearls; and looked whether Lily would require 
her in walking. These three maidens were 
beyond expression beautiful; and yet their 
beauty but exalted that of Lily, for it was plain 
to every one that they could never be com- 
pared to her.* 

Meanwhile the fair one had been looking,, 
with a satisfied aspect, at the strange onyx 
Mops. She bent down, and touched him, and 
that instant he started up. Gaily he looked 
around, ran hither and thi'her, and at last, in 
his kindest manner, hastened to salute his 
benefactress. She took him in her arm,s, and 
pressed him to her. "Cold as t-hou art," cried 
she, " and though but a half-life works in thee, 
thou art welcome to me; tenderly will I love 
thee, prettily will I play with thee, softly caress 
thee, and firmly press thee to my bosom." She 
then let him go, chased him from her, called 
him back, and played so daintily with him, 
and ran about so gayly and so innocently with 
him on the grass, that with new rapture you 
viewed and participated in her jo}', as a little 
while ago her sorrow had attuned every heart 
to sympathy. 

This cheerfulness, these graceful sports 
were interrupted by the entrance of the woful 
Youth. He stepped forward, in his former 
guise and aspect ; save that the heat of the 
day appeared to have fatigued him still more, 
and in the presence of his mistress he grew 
paler every moment. He bore upon his hand 
a Hawk, which was sitting quiet as a dove, 
with its body shrunk and its wings drooping. 

"It is not kind in thee," cried Lily to him, 
" to bring that hateful thing before my eyes, 
the monster, which to-day has killed my little 
singer." 

"Blame not the unhappy bird!" replied the 
Youth ; "rather blame thyself and thy destiny; 
and leave me to keep beside me the companion 
of my wo." 

Meanwhile Mops ceased not teasing the fair 
Lily; and she replied to her transparent 
favourite, with friendly gestures. She clapped 
her hands to scare him oif ; then ran, to entice 
him after her. She tried to get him when he 
fled, and she chased him away when he 
attempted to press near her. The Youth 
looked on in silence, with increasing anger; 
but at last, when she took the odious beast, 
which seemed to him unutterably ugly, on her 
arm, pressed it to her white bosom, and kissed 
its black snout with her heavenly lips, his pa- 
tience altogether failed him, and full of despe- 
ration he exclaimed: "Must I, who by a bale- 
ful fate exist beside thee, perhaps to the end, 
in an absent presence, who by thee have lost 
my all, my very self, must I see before my 
eyes, that so unnatural a monster can charm 
thee into gladness, can awaken thy attachment, 
and enjoy thy embrace? Shall I any longer 
keep wandering to and fro, measuring my 
drearj' course to that side of the River and to 



* Who are these three 1 Faith, Hope, and Charity, or 
others of that kin'!— D. T.— Faith, Hope, and Fiddle- 
stick !—0. Y. 



THE TALE. 



393 



this? No, there is still a spark of the old 
heroic spirit sleeping in my bosom , let it Mart 
this instant into its expiring flame! If stones 
may rest in thy bosom, let me be changed to 
stone; if thy touch kills, I will die by thy 
hands." 

So saying he made a violent movement; the 
Hawk flew from his finger, but he himself 
rushed towards the fair one ; she held out her 
hands to keep him off, and touched him only 
the sooner. Consciousness forsook him; and 
she felt with horror the beloved burden lying 
on her bosom. With a shriek she started 
back, and the gentle youth sank lifeless from 
her arms upon the ground. 

The misery had happened ! The sweet Lily 
stood motionless, gazing on the corpse. Her 
heart seemed to pause in her bosom ; and her 
eyes were without tears. In vain did Mops 
try to gain from her any kindly gesture; with 
her friend, the world for her was all dead as 
the grave. Her silent despair did not look 
round for help ; she knew hot of any help. 

On the other hand, the Snake bestirred her- 
self the more actively; she seemed to meditate 
deliverance; and in fact her strange move- 
ments served at last to keep away, for a little, 
the immediate consequences of the mischief. 
"With her limber body, she formed a wide cir- 
cle round the corpse, and seizing the end of 
her tail between her teeth, she lay quite still. 

Ere long one of Lily's fair waiting-maids 
appeared; brought the ivory folding-stool, and 
with friendly beckoning constrained li^r mis- 
tress to sit down on it. Soon afterwards there 
came a second ; she had in her hand a fire- 
coloured veil, with which she rather decorated 
than concealed the fair Lily's head. The third 
handed her the harp, and scarcely had she 
drawn the gorgeous instrument towards her, 
and struck some tones from its strings, when 
the first maid returned with a clear round 
mirror; took her station opposite the fair one ; 
caught her looks in the glass, and threw back 
to her the loveliest image that was to be found 
in nature.* Sorrow heightened her beauty, 
the veil her charms, the harp her grace; and 
deeply as 3'ou wished to see her mournful 
situation altered, not less deeply did you wish 
to keep her image, as she now looked, for ever 
present with you. 

With a still look at the mirror, she touched 
the harp; now melting tones proceeded from 
the strings, now her pain seemed to mount, 
and the music in strong notes responded to 
her wo; sometimes she opened her lips to 
sing, but her voice- failed her; and ere long 
her sorrow melted into tears, two maidens 
caught her helpfully in their arms, the harp 
sank from her bosom, scarcely could the quick 
servant snatch the instrument and carry it 
aside. 

" Who gets us the Man with the Lamp, be- 



♦ Does not man's soul rent by Faith, and look in the 
mirror of Faith ■? Does not [lope "decorate rather than 
conceall" Is not Charity (Love) the hecinninK of 
mttaic ?— Ilehnld, too, how the Serpent, in this evnt hour, 
has made herself a Serpent-of-Eternity ; and (even as 
genuine Thought, in onr age. has to do for so much) 
preserves the seeming-dead within her folds, that sus- 
pended animation issue not in noisome, horrible, irrevo- 
cable dissolution !— D. T. 

50 



fore the sun set?" hissed the Snake, faintly, 
but audibly: the maids looked at one another, 
and Lily's tears fell faster. At this moment 
came the Woman with the Basket, panting 
and altogether breathless. "I am lost and 
maimed for life!" cried she; "see how my 
hand is almost vanished; neither Ferryman 
nor Giant would take me over, because I am 
the River's debtor; in vain did I promise 
hundreds of Cabbages and hundreds of Onions; 
they will take no more than three; and no 
Artichoke is now to be found in all this 
quarter." 

"Forget your own care," said the Snake, 
"and try to bring help here; perhaps it may 
come to yourself also. Haste with your ut- 
most speed to seek the Will-o'-wisps ; it is too 
light for you to see them, but perhaps you will 
hear them laughing and hopping to and fro. 
If they be speedy, they may cross upon the 
Giant's shadow, and seek the Man with the 
Lamp and send him to us." 

The Woman hurried off at her quickest 
pace, and the Snake seemed expecting as im- 
patiently as Lily the return of the Flames. 
Alas ! the beam of the sinking Sun was already 
gilding only the highest summits of the trees 
in the thicket, and long shadows were stretch- 
ing over lake and meadow; the Snake hitched 
up and down impatiently, and Lily dissolved 
in tears. 

In this extreme need, the Snake kept look- 
ing round on all sides; for she was afraid 
ever)' moment that the Sun would set, and 
corruption penetrate the magic circle, and the 
fair youth immediately moulder away. At 
last she noticed sailing high in the air, with 
purple-red feathers, the Prince's Hawk, whose 
breast was catchitig the last beams of the Sun. 
She shook herself for joy at this good omen ; 
nor was she deceived ; for shortly afterwards 
the Man with the Lamp was seen gliding 
towards them across the Lake, fast and 
smoothly, as if he had been travelling on skates. 

The Snake did not change her posture ; but 
Lily rose and called to him : " What good 
spirit sends thee, at the moment when we 
were desiring thee, and needing thee, so 
much 1" 

"The spirit of my Lamp," replied the Man, 
" has impelled me, and the Hawk has con- 
ducted me. My Lamp sparkles when I am 
needed, and I just look about me in the sky 
for a signal ; some bird or meteor points to the 
quarter towards which I am to turn. Be calm, 
fairest Maiden ! whether I can help I know 
not; an individual helps not, but he who com- 
bines himself with many at the proper hour. 
We will postpone the evil, and keep hoping. 
Hold thy circle fast," continued he, turning to 
the Snake; then set himself upon a hillock 
beside her, and illuminated the dead body. 
"Bring the little Bird* hither too, and lay it in 
the circle !" The maidens took the little corpse 
from the basket, which the old Woman had 
left standing, and did as he directed. 



* What are the Hawk and this Canary-bird, which 
here prove so destructive to one anotlierl Ministering 
serv.Tnts. implements, of these two divided Halves of the 
Human Soul ; name them I will not ; more is not writ- 
ten.— D. T. 



894 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Meanwhile the Sun had set, and as the 
darkness increased, not onlj' the Snake and the 
old Man's Lump began shining in their fd,--hion, 
but also Lily's veil gave out a soft light, which 
gracefully tinged, as with a meek dawning 
red, lierpale cheeks, and her white robe. The 
paity looked ai one another, silently lellecling; 
care and sorrow were mitigated by a suie 
hope. 

It was no unpleasing entrance, therefore, 
that the woman made, attended by the two gay 
Flames, which in truth appeared to have been 
very lavish in the interim, for they had again 
become exlreinely meager; yet they only bore 
themselves the more prettily for that, towards 
Lily and the other ladies. With great tact, 
and expressiveness, they said a multitude of 
rather common things to these fair persons; 
and declared themselves particularly ravished 
by the charm which the gleaming veil* spread 
over Lily and her attendant. The ladies mo- 
destly cast down their eyes, and the praise of 
their beauty made them really beautiful. All 
were peaceful and calm, except the old Wo- 
man. In spite of the assurance of her husband, 
that her hand could diminish no farther, while 
the Lamp shone on it, she asserted more than 
once, that if things went on thus, before mid- 
night this noble member would have utterly 
vanished. 

The Man with the Lamp had listened atten- 
tively to the conversation of the Lights ; and 
was gratified that Lily had been cheered, in 
some measure, and amused by it. And, in 
truth, midnight had arrived they knew not how. 
The old Man looked to the stars, and then be- 
gan speaking: " We are assembled at the pro- 
pitious hour; let each perform his task, let 
each do his duty ; and a universal happiness 
■will swallow up our individual sorrows, as a 
universal grief consumes individual joys." 

At these words arose a wondrous hubbub ;| 
for all the persons in the party spoke aloud, 
each for himself, declaring what they had to 
do; only the three maids were silent; one of 
them had fallen asleep beside the harp, an- 
other near the parasol, the third by the stool ; 
and you could not blame them much, for it was 
late. The Fiery youths, after some passing 
compliments which they devoted to the wait- 
ing-maids, had turned their sole attention to 
the Princess, as alone worthy of exclusive 
homage. 

"Take the mirror," said the Man to the 
Hawk; "and with the first sunbeam illumi- 
nate the three sleepers, and awake them, with 
light reflected from above." 

The Snake now began to move ; she loosen- 
ed her circle, and rolled slowly, in large rings, 
forward to the River. The two Will-o'-vvisps 
followed with a solemn air; you would have 
taken them for the most serious Flames in na- 



* Have not your march-of-intellect Literatnrs al- 
ways expressed themselves particularly ravished with 
any glitter from a veil of Hope ; with "progress of the 
species," and ihe like "? — D. T. 

f Too true: dost thou not hear it, Reader 7 In this 
our Revolutionary " twelfili hour of the night," all per- 
sona speak aloud (some of Ihem by cannon and drums !) 
"declaring what tliey have to do;" and Faith Hope, 
and Charity (alter a few passing compliments from the 
Belles-Leltres Department,) thou seest, have fallen 
asleep t—D. T. 



ture. The old Woman and her husband seized 
the Basket, whose mild light they had scarcely 
observed till now; they lilted it at both sides, 
and it grew still larger and more luminous; 
they lifted the btidy of the Youth into it, laying 
the Canary-bird upon his breast; the Basket 
rose into the air and hovered above the old 
Woman's head, and she followed the Will-o'- 
wisps on foot. The fair Lily took Mops on her 
arm, and followed the Woman; the Man with 
Ihe Lamp concluded the procession, and the 
scene was curiously illuminated by these many 
lights. 

But it was with no small wonder that the 
party saw, when they approached the River, a 
glorious arch mount over it, by which the help- 
ful Snake was affording them a glittering path. 
If by day they had admired the beautiful trans- 
parent precious stones, of which the Bridge 
seemed formed; by night they were astonished 
at its gleaming brilliancy. On the upper side 
the clear circle marked itself sharp against 
the dark sky, but below, vivid beams were 
darting to the centre, and exhibiting the airy 
firmness of the edifice. The procession slow- 
ly moved across it; and the Ferryman who 
saw it from his hut afar off", considered with 
astonishment the gleaming circle, and the 
strange lights which were passing over it.* 

No sooner had they reached the other shore, 
than the arch began, in its usual way, to swag 
up and down, and with a wavy motion to ap- 
proach the water. The Snake then came on 
land, the Basket placed itself upon the ground, 
and the Snake again drew her circle around it. 
The old Man stooped towards her, and said: 
" What hast thou resolved on"!" 

" To sacrifice myself rather than be sacri- 
ficed," replied the Snake; "promise me that 
thou will leave no stone on shore." 

The old Man promised; then addressing 
Lily : " Touch the Snake," said he, " with thy 
left hand, and thy lover with thy right." Lily 
knelt, and touched the Snake, and the Prince's 
body. The latter in the instant seemed to come 
to life; he moved in the basket, nay he raised 
himself into a sitting posture; Lily was about 
to clasp hiin ; but the old Man held her back, 
and himself assisted the youth to rise, and led 
him forth from the Basket and the circle. 

The Prince was standing: the Canary-bird 
was fluttering on his shoulder; there was life 
again in both of them, but the spirit had not 
yet returned ; the fair youth's eyes were" open, 
yet he did not see, at least he seemed to look 
on all without participation. Scarcely had 
their admiration of this incident a little calm- 
ed, when they observed how strange!}' it had 
fared in the meanwhile with the Snake. Her 
fair taper body had crumbled into thousands 
and thousands of shining jewels : the old Wo- 
man reaching at her Basket had chanced to 
come against the circle; and of the shape or 
structure of the Snake there was now nothing 
to be seen, only a bright ring of luminous 
jewels was lying in the grass.f 



* Well he niislit, worthy old man ; as Pope Pius, for 
example, did, when he lived in Fontainbleau :— D. T.^ 
As our nishops, when voting for the Reform Bill •?— O Y. 

t So ! Your Logics, mechanical Philosophies, Politics, 
Sciences, your whole modern System of Thouoht, is 



THE TALE. 



39^ 



The old Man forthwith set himself to gather] said the mixed King. — " We shall see," replied 
the stones into the basket; a task in which his 
wife assisted him. They next carried the Bas- 
ket to an elevated point on the bank ; and here 
the man threw its whole lading, not withont 
contradiction from the fair one and his wife, 
who would gladly have retained some part of 
it, down into the River. Like gleaming twink- 
ling stars the stones floated down with the 
waves; and you could not say whether they 
lost themselves in the distance, or sank to the 
bottom. 

"Gentlemen," said he with the Lamp, in a 
respectful tone to the Lights, "I will now show 



the Man ; " for the time is at hand.' 

The fair Lily fell upon the old Man's neck, 
and kissed him cordially. "Holy Sage!" 
cried she, "a thousand times I thank thee; 
for I hear that fateful word the third time." 
She had scarcely spoken, when she clasped 
the old Man still faster; for the ground began 
to move beneath them; the Youth and the 
old Woman also held by one another; the 
Lights alone did not regard it. 

You could feel plainly that the whole Temple 
was in motion ; as a ship that soflly glides 
away from the harbour, when her anchors are 



you the way, and open you the passage; but lifted ; the depths of the Earth seemed to open 



you will do us an essential service, if you 
please to unbolt the door, by which the Sanc- 
tuary must be entered at present, and which 
none but you can unfasten." 

The Lights made a stately how of assent, 
and kept their place. The old Man of the Lamp 
went foremost into the rock, which opened at 
his presence ; the Youth followed him, as if 
mechanically; silent and uncertain, Lily kept 
at some distance from him; the old Woinan 
would not be left, and stretched out her hand 
that the Light of her husband's Lamp might 
still fall upon it. The rear was closed by the 
two Will-o'-wisps, who bent the peaks of their 
flames tovvards one another, and appeared to 
be engaged in conversation. 

They had not gone far till the procession 
halted in front of a large brazen door, the 
leaves of which were bolted with a golden 
lock. The Man now called upon the Lights 
to advance ; who required small entreaty, and 
with their pointed flames soon ate both bar 
and lock. 

The brass gave a loud clang, as the doors 
sprang suddenly asunder; and the stately 
figures of the Kings appeared within the Sanc- 
tuary, illuminated by the entering Lights. All 
bowed before these dread sovereigns, especially 
the Flames made a profusion of the daintiest 
reverences. 

Altera pause, the gold King asked: "Whence 
come ye ?" — " From the world," said the old 
Man. — "Whither go ye 1" said the silver King. 
— "Into the world," replied the Man. — "What 
■would ye with us 1" cried the brazen King. — 
*' Accompany you," i^eplied the Man. 

The composite King M^as about to speak, 
when the gold one addressed the Lights, who 
had got too near him : " Take yourselves away 
from me, my metal was not made for you." 
Thereupon they turned to the silver King, and 
clasped themselves about him ; and his robe 
glittered beautifully in their yellow brightness. 
"You are welcome," said he, "but I cannot 
feed you ; satisfy yourselves elsewhere, and 
bring me your light." They removed ; and 
gliding past the brazen King who did not seem 
to notice them, they fixed on the compounded 
King. "Who will govern the world 1" cried 
he with a broken voice. — " He who stands up- 
on his feel," replied the old Man. — " I am he," 



for the Building as it went along. It struck 
on nothing; no rock came in its way. 

For a few instants, a small rain seemed to 
drizzle from the opening of the dome ; the old 
Man held the fair Lily fast, and said to her: 
"We are now beneath the Ri\'er: we shall 
soon be at tlie mark." Ere long they thought 
the Temple made a halt; but they were in an 
error; it was mounting upwards. 

And now a strange uproar rose above their 
heads. Planks and beams in disordered com- 
bination now came pressing and crashing 
in, at the opening of the dome. Lily and the 
Woman started to a side; the Man with the 
Lamp laid hold of the Youth, and k'^pl stand- 
ing still. The little cottage of the Ferryman, 
for it was this which the Temple in ascending 
had severed from the ground and carried up 
with it, sank gradually down, and covered the 
old Man and the Youth. 

The women screamed aloud, and the Tem- 
ple shook, like a ship running unexpectedly 
aground. In sorrowful perplexity, the Prin- 
cess and her old attendant wandered round the 
cottage in the dawn ; the door was bolted, and 
to their knocking, no one answered. They 
knocked more loudly, and were not a little 
struck, when at length the wood began to ring. 
By virtue of the Lamp locked up in it, the 
hut had been converted from the inside to the 
outside into solid silver. Ere long too its 
form changed ; for the noble metal shook aside 
the accidental shapes of planks, posts, and 
beams, and stretched itself out into a noble 
case of beaten ornamented workmanship. Thus 
a fair little temple stood erected in the middle 
of the large one ; or if you will, an Altar worthy 
of the Temple.* 

By a stair which ascended from within, the 
noble Youth now mounted aloft, lighted by the 
old man with the Lamp; and, as it seemed, 
supported by another, who advanced in a 
white short robe, with a silver rudder in his 
hand ; and Avas soon recognised as the Ferry- 
man, the former possessor of the cottage. 

The fair Lily mounted the outer steps, which 
led from the floor of the Temple to the Altar; 
but she was still obliged to keep herself apart 
from her Lover. The old Woman, whose 
hand in the absence of the Lamp had grown 



to decense ; and old Endeavour, "grasping at her 
basket," shall "conif affainst" the inanimate remains, 
and "only a briiht rins of luminous jewels" shall be 
left there ! Mark well, however, what next becomes of 
it.— D. T. 



» Good ! The old Church, shaken down " in disordered 
combination," is admitted, in this way, into the new 
perennial Temple of the Future ; and, clarified into 
enriurinc silver, by the I,anip, becomes an Altar worthy 
to stand there. The Ferryman too is not forgotten.—- 
D. T. 



30fl 



CARLYIJl'M MIH(;r,M,ANi:0[J.S Wfti'riN(;s. 



iilill KiiiMlliT, cried: "Am I lli(!ii to ]><• iinli;i|i](y 
afliT all '. AriKiiiK no rnfiiiy inir.ic.JcN, can llnic 
1)1! iiolliiiiK (lone lo save my liand?" Ilcr 
linsliiinit jxiiiiicd til llw djicii dnoi', and said lo 
hei': " Hcc, llic day is |j|fJii(inf( ; Iki.sIi', liallic 
tliyNfdf in Ihc Uivcr." — " What iin advice!" 
r,ric<| .slid ; "it will miiltc nw all Muck ; it will 
malic mc vanJNli ultof^fctlicr ; lor my dcl.i i. 
not yet paid." "(i(),"said llic man, " and do 
Uh I advi^l• llicc : .ill d(d)ls an- now puid." 

'I'lic olil Woman liaHlmicd away ; and nt lliat 
moment ajipearcd ihe liNin^^ Nun, upon llie 
rim oC the dome, '/'he (dd Man slept lielween 
Die Virgm ami (he Youlli, and cried with ii 
loud voice: "There are tliK'e which hiive 
rule on Karlh; Wisdom, Appearance, and 
Hirenf,dli." At the lirht word, llie fi;old Kin^,' 
roNC, at the second the .silver one; and al the 
third the hruNN kiiiK slowly ro.sc, while Ihe 
mijted HiuK i>n a suddLMi very awltwanlly 
plumped down.* 

Whoever nnheed him iciild seareidy l(eep 
/'rom lani-^hinj.^, .volemn as ihi' moineni was; 
lor lit! was not hiltiuK, lie was not lyinij, he 
wn.s not leaning;, liul shapelessly Mink to- 
Ketlier.l 

'I'he l<i^';hl',,t wliii (ill now h.id hern employed 
Upon him, dicw lo ,1 side; they apjieared, 
ulthou(.^h p.ile III Ihe inoiniiif.; radiani'e, yet 
on<'e more well-led, and in ^;ood hiirniiiK con- 
dilion; Willi iheir peaked timj^ues, they had 
(U'Xierously licked out Ihe ^;old veins of the 
Colohsal lif.;urt! lo its very heart. Tlw irre^'ular 
vnciiities which Ihis oeeaMoned had continued 
einjily I'oi' a liine, and Ihe li^^nre iiad inain- 
liiincd lis slandiii;' jiosliiie. Hut when al last 
the very teiidere.st lihimenls were ealen out, 
the imiifje crashed .suddenly tof.',elhei ; ;ini! Ilial, 
alas, in the very parts whicli coniiniie iin- 
alli-red when one sils down ; whereas ihe 
limhs, which should have heni, sprawled Iheni- 
•selves oul unhowed and slill. Whoever iviild 
not lau^h was olili;.'ed lo turn away his eyes; 
this misi'iahle shapi' ami no shape was ollen- 
.sivc lo liidiold. 

'I'he Man wilh ihe Lamp now led the hand- 
Noine S'oulli, who slill ki'|)l t^a/int^ vacanlly 
lierore him, down I'roin lln.' altar, and slrai^;hl 
to Ihe |iia/<Mi Kiuf,'. Al Ihe I'eel of this mi^;hly 
l*olenliil<', lay a swmd in a bra/en sheath. The 
yimiif^; man (-^iil it around him. "'I'he sword 
on the lel'l, the ri^hl I'ree !" cried Ihe hi;i/eii 

V()ice4 They next prot AfA lo llir sihci 

Kinjj; he hent his sceplic lo llie yoiilli; llir 
latter peized it wilh his left hand, and ihe Kiiik 
in a pleiisiiiK V(ucc saiil: "Feed the sheep!" 
On lurniii',' lo the ^.'olden Kiuti, he stooped 
with f^esliires (d' paternal blc;ssin).% and press- 
in;.; his oaken ;.;arlanii on the y'lin^; man's 
head, .said: " riiderslainl wlial is hi:;hesl!" 

* DknI ihoii noil' ihirt, O Iti'iiili'i : iumI I<m>K liiuk wllli 

IKIW cldiiiiir'i rt oil li.i 1 IliliiiiN I A Kdlil KliiK, II hIIvi'I-, 

niiil II lini/j'ii Mum; V\ ikdom, iliKiilllnl Aim'Ioaiiani n, 
Htki Niiiii i lli.'M' tliii'i' liMriiMiiil<i\ihly iiiilii'il l.isir iiili- ; 
>/i»liillllic>Mli>iinlv csililili-il I11P.1MI1111 III hIiiiiii iiiiliiii (iin III 
lli« I'.kiIIkIi isiiiiiKiMJhi KlMM el' oiil t'nollHli -"I'l iiiihIIIoii- 
tiril.") |l|fy,(iii.i' lli« Colli loi u lr<iloiii) Ink// mil ofllinii, 
" vmy iiwIiWMiill) |il |i ilow II h 'I'. 

fAM, Ibl l'\IIIM|lllS lloHN iiol rliMilnN X. (oim III' lllll 

IKior IVmi I I iolii|iiinllr Itrlllllli'H I'llllilrlllKll IlltrrllO 

K'Hl, I'voii now, •• nlm|irlrHnls iiil'Ii hiiiik lOKi'llliM," 

11 llolyrooil. In ihr illy iil' l':ihiiliiiri.'li I I). T. 

t Miiiili iiriiimlldcl l.lKJilii wriii Willi mimlili- ijInUiIi 
u thing.- i). t'. 



Duriiif,^ thi.s prof.';ress, the old Man had cnre- 
fully ohsr-rved ihe I'rince. ACtei ^'inliiif,' on 
the sword, his hreast swelled, his arms waved, 
and his /eel trod hrmer; when h<! took tlu! 
sceptre in his hand, his slrenj^'lh ajipeared to 
soften, and hy an iinspeakalde charm to he- 
come slill more siihduint;; lint as the oak<'ii 
f,'arlanil c,ain(! to deck his hair, Wis features 
kindled, his eyes (j;li!;iined with inexprcssihic 
s|)irit, and the /ii-,i word of his moiilh was 
"Jdly!" 

"Dearest liily!" cried he, Inslenin^; up the 
silver slairs to her, for she had viewed his 
pri);.',ress from the pinnacle of the altar: 
"Dearest liily! what more precious can u 
man, eiimpt wilh all, desire for himself than 
innocence and the slill airei-.tion which thy 
hosoin hrin;.;s me / () my friend !" continiiecl 
Iks lurnin^ to the old Man, and lookiiif;; at tlit) 
lliiee .statues; glorious and secure is thn 
kin^'doin of our /'alhers ; hut thou hast for{j;ot' 
len Ihe fourth power, which rules Ihe world, 
earlier, more universally, more certainly — the 
jiower of hove." With these words, jur fell 
upon till! lovely maiden's neck; she had cast 
away her veil, ;iiid Ihi cheeks w(!re tinj^cd 
Willi the fairest, most iiiiperishahle red. 

Here the old Man said with a smile : " [lOVC 
dees nut rule; hut it Irains,** and that is more." 

Amid this sohMiinily, this happin(!ss and 
rapture, no one had ohserveil that it was now 
hroad day; and ;ill at once, on Inokint; through 
Ihe ojieii portal, a crowd o( allo;.'eiher unex- 
pecled olijecls met the eyts .A lai'tM! space 
:iurroiini|ed wnh pillars formed the fore-court, 
at the end of which was seen a hroad and 
stalely Uridt;e slrelidiinn with many aichcH 
;i<rross the Itiver. It was furnished, on holh 
sides, wilh commodious and maf:;ni(ic(;nt 
colonnades for fooi-iravcdiers, many thousands 
of whom were already there, Imsily passinjf 
this way or lliiit. The hroad p.iveinent in the 
eeiilre was thron;^ed wilh herds and mules, 
wilh horsemen and carriapies, (lowiiif^ like two 
streams, on Iheir several sides, and mdllKir 
interrupting' the other. All admired the splen- 
dour and convfuiience of Ihe structure; and the 
new Kint{ and his Spouse were deli^^hted with 
the motion and activity of this f.;real people, as 
they were ;ilfiswly hajipy in their own mutu;il 
love. 

" Kiiiirmlii T the Nnalie in honour," said the 
man wilh llir Lamp ; "llioil owi'sl her thy life, 
lliV people ovve her the l{nd;.';e, hy which these 
neifhlioiii III!', Ii.iiiks are now animated and 
coniliiiied inio one land. Those swimming 
and sliinin;.,' jewels, the remains id' her sacri- 
liceil hody, are the piers of this royal hridxe; 
upon these she has Iniilt :inil will maintain 
herse|i;"t 

The parly were ahoiil to a' k some expl.imi- 
lioii of this slran^fe mystery, u Inn there entered 
four lovely maidens iit the porlal of the Tem- 
ple. Hy the Harp, the I'm asol, and the folding 
Niool, It was not diliicult to rccoonise the 

* It I'lmliloiiM (hililvt.) Ill- iiiliinitKt.- <). \. 

t lloiioiir to lirr iiiitn.'il I 'I'lii- Mcilmnlriil l'liil.iHo|iliy, 
tliiiiiKli ili'iiil liiiN iioi (lllll mill llvi'il In viiliii liiK liiir 
woiliH iirr Ihiir: '•upon lliimn hIid" ('I'ikiiiiiht, iii'W- 
lioiii, III (.rloiiiii'il nIiii|ii-) " hiiN liiiiti lii'iMi'ir iinil will 
iniiinliiiii lii'iNi'll';" mill llin Nalnnil mnl Hii|iiMimliiriil 
nIiiiII lieiiiDliii'lli, lliuruby, lie uiitv I> T. 



THE TAT.E. 



397 



waiting-maids of Lily ; but the fourth, more 
beautiful than any of the rest, was an unknown 
fair one, and in sisterly sporlfulness she hast- 
ened with them through the TeHi|)le, and 
mounted tlie steps of the Altar.* 

"Wilt thou have heller trusl in me anotlier 
time, good wile!" said the man willi the Lamp 
to th.e fair one: "Well for thee, and every 
living thing that bathes this morning in the 
River !" 

The renewed and beautified old Woman, of 
■whose Ibrmer shape no trace remained, em- 
braced witii young eager arms the man witli 
the Lamp, who kindly received her caresses. 
" If I am too old for thee," said he, smiling, 
"thou mayest choose another husband to-day; 
from this hour no marriage is of force, which 
is not contracted anew." 

"Dost thou not know, tlum," answered she, 
"that thou too art grown younger!" — "It de- 
lights me if to thy young eyes I seem a hand- 
some youth : I take thy hand anew, and am 
well content to live with thee another thousand 
years."! 

The Queen welcomed her new Iriciid, and 
went down with her into the interior of the 
altar, while the King stood l)etweeii his two 
men, looking towaids the bridge, and attentively 
coniemplating the busy tumult of the people. 

But his satisfaction did not last; for ere 
long he saw an object whicdi excited his dis- 
pleasure. The great fiiant, who ajjprared not 
yet to have awoke completely from his morn- 
ing sleep, came stnnibling along the Ui'idge, 
])roducing great confii>ion all around him. As 
usual, he liad risen stu pitied with sleep, and 
had meant to bathe in the well-known bay of 
the IJiver; instead of which he found iirm 
land, arid plunged u[)on the broad pavement 
of the Bridgi;. Yet although he reeled into the 
midst of rnen and cattle in the (clumsiest way, 
bis presence, wondered at by all, was felt by 
iion(! ; but as the sunshine came into his eyes, 
and he raised his hands to rub them, the sha- 
dows of his tnonstrous fists moved to and fro 
behind him with such force and awkwardness, 
that men and beasts were heaped together in 
great masses, were hurt by such rude contact, 
and in danger of being pitched into the Iviver.j 
'I'lie King, as he saw this mischief, grasped 
with an involuntary movement at liis sword; 
but be lieihoiight himself, atifl hjoked calmly 
at his scepire, ihen at the Lamp and the Hud- 
der of his attendants. " I guess thy thoughts," 
said the man wiih the Lamp ; " but we and our 
gifts are powerless against this powerless 
monster. Becalm! He is doing hurt for the last 
lime.and happilyhis shadow is notturned l(j us." 
Meanwhile the Giant was approaching 
iK'arer; in astonishment al what he saw with 
open eyes, he had dropt his hands; lu; was 
now doing no injury, and came staring and 
agape into the fore-court. 

♦ Murk HlirtI cnniPH of li:illiinc in tlie TiME-River, at 
tlip riilriiiiii- ot'ii N(!W fOra '. I). T. 

\ And so ItKAHdN anil iO N i) K A V i) irn heln({ n!i(<! more 
married, and in llu! hoiicy-iiioon, need we wIhIi lliein 
j,.yt I), 'I'. 

J: 'I'lioii ri'ioeiiihereHt tli<> Calluilir lirMr.f Hill; wit- 
iicHH"Ht till! h-i.th Kihirnliov Him llaHl licanl, five liiiii- 
dreil limes, ili:it Hie "(:hiirrli"was "in Damrer," iind 
now al leiiLMli liellevest il ■? I). 'I'. Ih I), T. of llie 
t'uurlh E«lal(i, and l'o|)isli-Jnlidel, tlienl—O. Y. 



He was walking straight to the door of the 
Temple, when all al once in the mi<ldle of tne 
court, he hailed, ami was fixed to the ground. 
He stood there like a stnmg colossal statue, of 
reddish glillering stone, and his shadow point 
ed out llie hours,* which were? marked in a 
circle on the door around him, not in numbers, 
liiil in noble and expressive emUhuns. 

Much delighted was the King to see the 
monster's shadow turned to some useful pur- 
pose; much astonished was ihe Queen ; who, 
on mounting from within the Altar, decked in 
royal pomp with her virgins, first noticed the 
huge (igiire, which almost closed the prospect 
from the Temple to the Bridge. 

Meaiiwliile the peo|)le had crowded after the 
(iiani, as he ccascHl to move; Ihey were walk- 
ing round him, wondering at his metamor- 
phosis. From him tiiey turned to the Temple, 
which they now (irsl appeared to notice,"!- and 
pressed towards the door. 

Al this instant the Hawk with the mirror 
soared alol'l above the dome; caught the light 
iif the sun, and reflected it upon the group, 
which was standing on the allar. The King, 
Ihe Queen, and their attendants, in the dusky 
concave of the Temple, seemed illuminated by 
a heavenly splendour, and the people fell upon 
their (aces. When the crowd had recovered 
and risen, the King witli his followers bad 
descended into the Altar, to proceed by secret 
passages into his palace; and the multitude 
disyiersed about the Temple to content their 
curiosity. The three Kings that were standing 
erect they viewed with astonishment and re- 
verence; but the more eager were they to dis- 
cover what mass it could be that was hid 
behiiid Ihe hangings, in the fourth niche; for 
by suinr band or another, charitable decency 
had si)ieail over the resting-place of the Fallen 
King a gorgeous curia ill, wliich no eye can pene- 
trate, and no hand may dare to draw aside. 

The people would have found no end to their 
gazing ami their aibniiaiion, and the crowding 
multitude would have even suffocated one 
another in the 'i'emple, had not their atlemtioii 
been again attracted to the open space. 

Unexpectedly some gold-pieces, as if falling 
from the air, came tinkling down upon the 
marble flags; the ncjarest passers-by rushed 
thither to pick them up; the wonder was re- 
pealed several limes, now here, now there. It 
is easy to conceive that the shower proceeded 
from our two retiring Flames, who wished to 
have a little sport here once more, and were 
thus gaily spending, ere they went away, the 
gold which they had licked from the mem- 
bers of the sunken King. The people still ran 
eagerly about, pressing and pulling mie ano- 
ther, even when the gold had ceased to fall. 
At length they gradually dispersed, and went 
their way; and to the present hour the Bridge 
is swarming with travellers, and the Temple 
is the most frequented on the whole Earth. t 



♦ Hnivo!— I). T. 

t Now lirst ; when Ihe tieasl of a Hiu'isiiNTiTioN-Oiant 
lias I'ol hiM iinieliis. Uir.'hl ! I). V. 

X II is the Temiili' olllie vvliole eivili/.ed earth. I''iniilly, 
may I lalui leave to eoTisider lliin JUilhriiini aH Ihe 
dee|)eHl I'liem of ils mirt in exihieiii-e; a«Ilie only Iriid 
I'mjilieiy emitled lor who knowH how many lentiirieH T 
— 1). T.- Cerluiiily ; Kn^hmd in a Creu country.— O. Y. 
'Z L 



398 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



DIDEROT. 



[Foreign Quarterly Review, 1833.] 



The Jlds of the Christian Jpostles, on which, 
as we may say, the world has now for eighteen 
centuries had its foundation, are written in so 
small a compass, that they can be read in one 
little hour. The Ads of the French Philmophes, 
the importance of which is already fast ex- 
hausting itself, lie recorded in whole acres of 
typography, and would furnish reading for a 
lifetime. Nor is the stock, as we see, yet any- 
wise complete, or within computable distance 
of completion. Here are Four quite new Oc- 
tavos, recording the labours, voyages, victo- 
ries, amours, and indigestions of the Apostle 
Denis: it is but a y.ear or two since a new 
contribution on Voltaire came before us; 
since Jean Jacques had a new Life written for 
him ; and then of those Fcuillcs dc Grimm, 
what incalculable masses may yet lie dormant 
in the Petersburgh Library, waiting only to be 
awakened and let slip! — Reading for a life- 
lime ■? Thomas Parr might begin reading in 
long-clothes, and stop in his last hundred and 
fiftieth year without having ended. And then, 
as to when the process of addition will cease, 
and the Acts and Epistles of the Parisian 
Church of Antichrist will have completed 
themselves; except in so far as the quantity 
of paper written on, or even manufactured, in 
those days being finite and not infinite, the 
business one day or other must cease, and the 
Antichristian Canon close fur the last time, — 
we yet know nothing. 

Meanwhile, let us nowise be understood as 
lamenting this stupendous copiousness, but ra- 
ther as viewing it historically with patience, 
and indeed with satisfaction. Memoirs, so long 
as they are true, how stupid soever, can hardly 
be accumulated in excess. The stupider they 
are, let them simply be the sooner cast into 
the oven; if true, they will always instruct 
more or less, were it only in the way of con- 
firmation and repetition ; and, what is of vast 
moment, they do not wis-instruct. Day after 
day looking "at the high destinies which yet 
await Literature, which Literature will ere 
long address herself with more decisiveness 
than ever to fulfil, it grows clearer to us that 
the proper task of Literature lies in the do- 
main of Belief ; within which " Poetic Fic- 
tion," as it is charitably named, will have to 
take a quite new figure, if allowed a settle- 
ment there. Whereby were it not reasonable 
to prophesy that this exceeding great multi- 
tude of Novel-writers, and such like, must (in 
a new generation) gradually do one of two 
things : either retire into nurseries, and work 
for children, minors, and semi-fatuous persons 



»1. M6moires, Correspondance, et Ouvrap-es inMits 
de Diderot ; publiis dUiprts les manuscnts covfik":. en 
■mourantc, par I'auteur i Grimm. 4 torn. 8vo. Paris, 
1831. 

2. (Euvres de Denis Diderot ; procideee de Mkmoxres 
kisturiques et philosophiqucs sur sa Vie et xes Ouvrages, 
par J. A. JVaigton. 22 torn. 8vo. Paris, 1821. 



of both sexes ; or else, what were far better, 
sweep their Novel-fabric into the dust-cart, 
and betake them with such facult}' as they 
have to understand and record what is true, — 
of which, surely, there is, and will for ever be, 
a whole Infinitude unknown to us, of infinite 
importance to us ! Poetry, it will more and 
more come to be understood, is nothing but 
higher Knowledge ; and the only genuine Ro- 
mance (for grown persons) Reality. The 
Thinker is the Poet, the Seer: let him who 
sees write down according to his gift of sight ; 
if deep and with inspired vision, then cre- 
atively, poetically; if common, and with only 
uninspired, every-day vision, let him at least 
be faithful in this and write Memoirs. 

On us still so near at hand, that Eighteenth 
century in Paris presenting itself nowise as 
portion of the magic web of Universal His- 
tory, but only as the confused and ravelled 
mass of threads and thrums, ycleped Memoirs, 
in process of beiitg woven into such, — im- 
poses a rather complex relation. Of which, 
however, as of all such, the leading rules may 
be happily ci>mprised in this very plain one, 
prescrib''d I'V Nature herself: to search in them, 
so far as they seem worthy, for whatsoever 
can help us forward on our own path, were it in 
the shape of intellectual instruction, of moral 
edification, nay of mere solacement and amuse- 
ment. The Bourbons, indeed, took a shorter 
method, (the like of which has been often 
recommended elsewhere;) they shut up and 
hid the graves of the Philosophes, hoping that 
their lives and writings might likewise thereby 
go out of sight, and out of mind ; and thus the 
whole business would be, so to speak, sup- 
pressed. Foolish Bourbons! These things 
were not done in a corner, but on high places, 
before the anxious eyes of all mankind: hid- 
den they can in nowise be: to conquer them, 
to resist them, our first indispensable prelimi- 
nary is to see and comprehend them. To us, 
indeed, as their immediate successors, the 
right comprehension of them is of prime ne- 
cessity ; for, sent of God or of the Devil, they 
have plainly enough gone before us, and left 
us such and such a world : it is on ground of 
their tillage, with the stubble of their harvest 
standing on it, that we now have to plough. 
Before all things then, let us understand what 
ground it is ; what manner of men and hus- 
bandmen these were. For which reason, be- 
all authentic Philosophe-Memoirs welcome, 
each in its kind! For which reason, let us 
now, without the smallest reluctance, pene- 
trate into this wondrous Gospel according to 
Denis Diderot, and expatiate there to see whe- 
ther it will yield us aught. 

In any phenomenon, one of the most import- 
ant moments is the eruL Now this epoch of 
the Eighteenth or Philosophe-ceniury was pro- 



DIDEROT. 



399 



perly the End ; the End of a Social System 
which for above a thousand years had been 
building itself together, and, after that, had 
begun, for some centuries, (as human things 
all do,) to moulder down. The mouldering 
down of a Social System is no cheerful busi- 
ness either to form pari of, or to look at: how- 
ever, at length, in the cour-^e of it, there comes 
a time when the mouldering changes into a 
rushing; active hands drive in their wedges, 
set to their crowbars ; there is a comfortable 
appearance of work going on. Instead of 
here and there a stone falling out, here and 
there a handful of dust, whole masses tumble 
down, whole clouds and whirlwinds of dust: 
torches too are applied, and the rotten easily 
takes fire : so what with flame-whirlwind, what 
with dust-whirlwind, and the crush of falling 
towers, the concern grows eminently interest- 
ing; and our assiduous craftsmen can encou- 
rage one another with Vivals, and cries of 
Speed the u'ork. Add to this, that of ail labour- 
ers, no one can see such rapid extensive fruit 
of his labour as the Destroyer can and does: 
it will not seem unreasonable that measuring 
from effect to cause, he should esteem his 
labour as the best and gieatest : and a Vol- 
taire, for example, be by his guild-brethren 
and apprentices confidently accounted "not 
only the greatest man of this age, but of all 
past ages, and perhaps the greatest that Na- 
ture could produce." Worthy old Nature ! 
She goes on producing whatsoever is needful 
in each season of her course; and produces, 
with perfect composure, that Encyclopedist 
opinion, that she can produce no more. 

Such a torch-and-crowbar period of quick 
rushing down and conflagration, was this of 
the Slide dc Louis Qmnze : when the Social 
System having all fallen to rottenness, rain- 
holes, and noisome decay, the shivering na- 
tives resolved to cheer their dull abode by the 
questionable step of setting it on fire. Ques- 
tionable we call their Manner of procedure ; 
the thing itself, as all men may now see, was 
inevitable ; one way or other, whether by 
prior burning or milder methods, the old 
house must needs be new-built. We behold 
the business of pulling down, or at least of as- 
sorting the rubbish, still go resolutely on, all 
over Europe: here and there some traces of 
new foundation, of new building up, may now 
also, to the eye of Hope, disclose themselves. 

To get acquainted with Denis Diderot and 
his life were to see the significant epitome of 
all this, as it works on the thinking and acting 
soul of a man, fashions for him a singular 
element of existence, gives himself therein a 
peculiar hue and figure. Unhappily, after all 
that has been written, the matter still is not 
luminous : to us strangers, much in that foreign 
economy, and method of working and living, 
remains obscure; much in the man himself, 
and his inward nature and structure. But, 
indeed, it is several years since the present 
Reviewer gave up the idea of what could be 
called understanding any Man whatever, even 
himself. Every Man, within that inconsider- 
able figure of his, contains a whole spirit- 
kingdom and Reflex of the An; and though 
to the eye but some six standard feet in size. 



reaches downwards and upwards, utisurvey- 
able, fading into the regions of Immensity and 
of Eternity. Life eveiywl*ere, as woven on 
that stupendous ever-marvellous ''Loom of 
Time," may be said to fashion itself of a woof 
of light indeed, yet on a warp of mystic dark- 
ness : only he that created it can understand it- 
As to this Diderot, had we once got so far that 
we could, in the faintest degree, personate him ; 
take upon ourselves his character and his en- 
vironment of circumstances, and act hi.> Life 
over again in that small Private-Theatre of 
ours, (under our own Hat,) with moderate II- 
lusiveness and histrionic effjct, — ha' were 
what, in confonnity with common speech, we 
should name u,:dirst<indi,ig' him, and could be 
abundantly content with. 

In his manner of appearance before the 
world, Diderot has been,perhHps to an extreme 
degree, unfortunate. His literary productions 
were invariably dashed off in hottest haste, 
and left generally, (on the waste of Accident,) 
with an ostrich-like indifference. He had to 
live, in France, in the sour days of a Journal 
dcs Tievoux; of a suspicious, decaying Sor- 
bonne. He was too poor to set foreign presses, 
at Kehl, or elsewhere, in motion ; too headlong 
and quick of temper to seek help fmm those 
that could : thus must he, if his pen was not 
to lie idle, write much of which there was no 
publishing. His Papers accordingly are found 
flying about, like Sybil's leaves, in all corners 
of the world: for many years no tolerable col- 
lection of his Writings was attempted; !o this 
day there is none that in any sense can be 
called perfect. Two spurious, surreptitious 
Amsterdam Editions," or rather formless, blun- 
dering Aggloinerations," were all that the 
world saw during his life. Diderot did not 
hear of these for several years, and then only, 
it is said, " with peals of laught'^r," and no 
other practical step whatever. Of the four 
that have since been printed, (or rt-prmted, for 
Naigeon's of 1798, is the great original,) no 
one so much as pretends either to be complete 
,or selected on any system. Briere's, the latest, 
of which alone we have much personal know- 
ledge, is a well-printed book, perhaps better 
worth buying than any of the others; yet 
without arrangement, without coherence, pur- 
port ; often lamentably in need of commentary : 
on the whole, in reference u> the wants and 
specialities of this time, as good as 7/-.e(liteii. 
Briere seems, indeed, to have hired some 
person, or thing, to play the part of Editor; or 
rather more things than one, for they si-gn 
themselves Editors in the plural number; and 
from time to time, throughout the work, some 
asterisk attracts us to the bottom of ihe leaf, 
and to some printed matter subscribed 
"Edits.": but unhappily the journey is for 
most part in vain ; in the course of a volume 
or two, we learn two well that nothing is to be 
gained there; that the Note, whattn-er it pro- 
fessedly treat of, will, in strict logical speech, 
mean only as much as to say : " Render ! thou 
perceivest that we Editors, to the number of 
at least two, are alive, and if we had any in- 
formation would impart it to thee. — Edits." 
For the rest, these" Edits." n re polite pt^ople ; 
and with this uncertainty (as to their being 



400 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



persons orthings) clearly before them, continue, 
to all appearance, in moderately good spirits. 

One service ihey, or Briere for them, (if, 
indeed, Briere is not himself they, as we some- 
times surmise,) have accomplished for us : 
sought out and printed the long-loolied-fir, 
long-ljst Life of Didero' by Naigeon. The 
lovers of biography had for years sorrowed 
over this concealed Manuscript, with a wistful- 
nessfrom which hope had nigh fled. A certain 
Naigeon, the beloved disciple of Diderot, had 
(if his own word, in his own editorial Preface, 
was to be credited) written a Life of him ; 
and, alas ! whither was it now vanished 1 
Surely all that was dark in Denis the Fatalist 
had there been illuininated ; nay, was there 
not, probably, a glorious " Light-street" carried 
through that whole Literary Eighteenth Cen- 
tury? And was not Diderot, long belauded as 
" the most encyclopedical head that perhaps 
ever existed," now to show himself as such 
in, — the new Practical Encyclopedia, philoso- 
phic, economic, speculative, digestive, of Life, 
— in three score and ten Years, or Volumes 1 
Diderot too was known as the vividest, noblest 
talker of his time: considering all that Bos- 
well, with his slender opportunities, had made 
of Johnson, what was there we had not a right 
to expect ! 

By Briere's endeavour, as we said, the con- 
cealed Manuscript of Naigeon now lies, as 
published Volume, on this desk. Alas! a 
written Ufc, too like many an acted life, where 
hope is one thing, fulfilment quite another I 
Perhaps, indeed, of all biographies ever put 
together by the hand of man, this of Naigeon's 
is the most uninteresting. Foolish .Naigeon ! 
We wanted to see and know how it stood with 
the bodily man, the clothed, boarded, bedded, 
working, and warfaring Denis Diderot, in that 
Paris of his; how he looked and lived, what 
he did, what he said : had the foolish Biographer 
so much as told us what colour his stockings 
were ! Of all this, beyond a date or two, not a 
syllable, not a hint ! nothing but a dull, sulky, 
snuffling, droning, interminable lecture on 
Atheistic Philosophy ; how Diderot came upon 
Atheism, how he taught it, how true it is, how 
inexpressibly important. Singular enough, the 
zealof «//e ,/t[n7',s- house hath eaten Naigeon up. 
A man of coarse, mechanical, perhaps intrin- 
sically rather feeble intellect; and then, with 
the vehemence of some pulpit-drumming 
"Gowkthrapple," or "precious Mr. Jabesh 
Rentowel," — only that his kirk is of the nher 
complexion ! Yet must he too see himself in 
a wholly backsliding world, where much the- 
ism and other scandal still rules; and many 
times Gowkthrapple Naigeon be tempted to 
weep by the streams of Babel. Withal, how- 
ever, he is ivooden ; thoroughly mechanical, as 
if Vaucanson himself had made him; and that 
singularly tempers his fury. — Let the reader, 
finally, admire the bounteous produce of this 
Earth, and how one element bears nothing but 
the other m.ttches it: here have we not the 
truest odium ihcoloj^icum, wi>rking quite demono- 
logically, in a worshipper of the Everlasting 
Nothing! So much for Naigeon; what we 
looked for from him, and what we have got. 

Must Diderot then be given up to oblivion, 



or remembered not as Man, but merely as Phi- 
losophic-Atheistic Logic-Mill ? Did not Dide- 
rot live, as well as think? An amateur re- 
porter in some of the Biographical Dictiona- 
ries declares that he heard him talk one day, 
in nightgown and slippers, for the space of 
two hours, concerning earth, sea, and air, with 
a fulgorous impetuosity almost beyond human, 
rising from- height to height, and at length 
finish the climax by "dashing his nightcap 
against the wall." Most readers will admit 
this to be biography; we, alas, must say, it 
comprises nearly all about the Man Diderot 
that hitherto would abide with us. 

Here, however, coines "Paulin, Publishing- 
Bookseller," with a quite new contribution : a 
long series of Letters, extending over fifteen 
years; unhappily only love-letters, and from a 
married sexagenarian ; yet still letters from his 
own hand. Amid these insipid floods of 
tendresfe, sensiliilile, and so forth, vapid, like long- 
decanted small-beer, many a curious biographic 
trait comes to light; indeed, we can hereby 
see more of the individual Diderot, and his 
environment, and method of procedure there, 
than by all the other books that have yet been 
published of him. Forgetting or conquering 
the species of nausea that such a business, on 
the first announcement of it, may occasion, and 
in inany of the details of it cannot but confirm, 
the biographic reader will find this well worth 
looking into. Nay, is it not something of 
itself, to see that Spectacle of the Philosophe 
in Love, or, at least, zealously endeavouring 
to fancy himself so ? For scientific purposes 
a considerable tedium, of " noble sentiment" 
(and even worse things) can be undergone. 
How the most encyclopedical head that per- 
haps ever existed, now on the borders of his 
grand climacteric, and already, provided with 
wife and child, comports himself in that trying 
circumstance of preternupiial (and, indeed, at 
such age, and with so many "indigestions," 
almost preternatural) devotion to the queens 
of this earth, may, by the curious in science, 
(who have nerves for it,) be here seen. There 
is besides a lively Memoir of him by Made- 
moiselle Diderot, though too brief, and not very 
true-looking. Finally, in one large Volume, 
his ' re nil nf d^Alemhcri, greatly regretted and 
commented upon by Naigeon ; whi^h we could 
have done without. For its bulk, that little 
Memoir is the best of the whole. Unfortunately, 
as hinted. Mademoiselle, resolute of all things 
to be piqvnn^e, writes, or rather tlnnkf:, in a 
smart, antithetic manner, nowise the fittest for 
clearness or credibility: without suspicion of 
voluntary falsehood, there is no appearance 
that this is a camera-lncida picture, or a por- 
trait drawn by legitimate rules of art. Such 
resolution to be piquant is the besetting sin of 
innumerable persons of both sexes, and wofully 
mars any use there might otherwise be in their 
writing or their speaking. It is, or was, the 
fault specially imputed to the French: in a 
woman and Frenchwoman, who besides has 
much to tell us, it must even be borne with. 
And now, from these diverse scattered mate- 
rials, let us try how coherent a figure of Denis 
Diderot, and his earthly Pilgrimage and Per- 
formance, we can piece together. 



DroEROT. 



401 



In the ancient Town of Langres, in the 
month of October, 1713, it begins. Fancy 
Langres, aloft on its hill lop, amid Roman 
ruins, nigh ihe sources of the Saone and of the 
Marne, with its coarse substantial houses, and 
fifteen thousand inhabitants, mostly engaged 
in knife-grinding; and one of the quickest, 
clearest, most volatile, and susceptive little 
figures of that century, just landed in the 
World there. ' In this French Sheffield, Dide- 
rot's Father was a Cutler, master of his craft; 
a much-respected and respect-worthy man; 
one of those ancient craftsmen (now, alas ! 
nearly departed from the earth, and sought, 
with little effect, by idyllists, among the "Scot- 
tish peasantry," and elsewhere) who, in the 
school of practice, have learned not only skill 
of hand, but the far harder skill of head and 
of heart; whose whole knowledge and virtue, 
being by necessity a knowledge and virtue to 
do somewhat, is true, and has stood trial : 
humble modern patriarchs, brave, wise, sim- 
ple ; of worth rude, but unperverted, like 
genuine unwrought silver, native from the 
mine! Diderot loved his father, as he well 
might, and regrets on several occasions that he 
was painted in holiday clothes, and not in the 
workday costume of his trade, " with apron 
and grinder's-wheel, and spectacles pushed 
up," — even as he lived and laboured, and 
honestly made good for himself the small sec- 
lion of the Universe he pretended to occupy. 
A man of strictest veracity and integrity was 
this ancient master; of great insight and 
patient discretion, so that he was often chosei 
as umpire and adviser; of great humanity, si 
that one day crowds of poor were to •'follo^\■ 
him with tears to his long hoir.e." An out- 
spoken Langres neighbour gratified the now 
fatherless Philosopher with this saying — "Ah, 
Monsieur Diderot, you are a famous man, bu' 
you will never be your father's equal." 7Vuly. 
of all the wonderful illustrious persons that 
come to view in the bioeraphic part of these 
six-and-twenty Volumes, it is a question whe- 
ther this old Langres Cutler is not the wor- 
thiest ; to us no other suggests himself whose 
worth can be admitted, without lamentable 
pollutions and defacements to be deducted 
from it. The Mother also was a loving-hearted 
just woman: so Diderot might account him- 
self well-born: and it is a credit to the man 
that he always (and sometimes in the circle 
of kings and empresses) gratefully did so. 

The Jesuits were his schoolmasters: at the 
age of twelve, the encyclopedical head wa.> 
" tonsured." He was quick in seizing, strong 
in remembering and arranging ; otherwise 
flighty enough; fond of sport, and from time 
to time getting into trouble. One grand event 
significant of all this, he has himself com- 
memorated: his Daughter records it in these 
terms. 

"He had chanced to have a quarrel with his 
comrades : it had been serious enough to bring 
on him a sentence of exclusion from college 
on some day of public examination and distri- 
buiion of prizes. The idea of passing this im- 
portant time at heme, and grieving his parents, 
was intolerable: he proceeded to the college- 
gate; the porter refused him admittance; he 
51 



presses in while some crowd is entering, and 
sets oflT running at full speed; the porter gets 
at him with a sort of pike he carried, and 
wounds him in the side: the boy will not be 
driven back; arrives, takes the place that be- 
longed to him : prizes of all sorts, for composi- 
tion, for memory, for poetry, he obtains them 
all. No doubt he had deserved them; since 
even the resolution to punish him could not 
withstand the sense of justice in his superiors. 
Several volumes, a number of garlands had 
fallen to his lot; being too weak to carry them 
all, he put the garlands round his neck, and, 
with his arms full of books, returned home. 
His mother was at the door; and saw him 
coming through the public square in this 
equipment, and surrounded by his school-fel- 
lows : one should be a mother to conceive 
what she must have felt. He was feasted, he 
was caressed : but next Sunday, in dressing 
him for church, a considerable wound was 
found on him, of which he had not so much as 
thought of complaining." 

" One of the sweetest moments of my life," 
writes Diderot himself of this same business, 
with a slight variation, "was more than thirty 
years ago, and I remember it like yesterday, 
when my Father saw me coming home from 
the college, with my arms full of prizes that I 
had carried off, and my shoulders with the gar- 
lands they had given me, which, being too big 
for my brow, had let my head slip through 
them. Noticing me at a distance, he threw 
down his work, hastened to the door to meet 
me, and could not help weeping. It is a fine 
sight, a true man and rigorous falling to 
weep !" 

Mademoiselle, in her quick-sparkling way, 
informs us, nevertheless, that the school-victor, 
getting tired of pedagogic admonitions and in- 
flictions, whereof there were many, said "one 
morning" to his father, "that he meant to sive 
up school !" — "Thou hadst rather be a cutler, 
then 1" — " With all my heart." — They handed 
him an apron, and he placed himself beside 
his father. He spoiled whatever he laid hands 
on, penknives, whittles, blades of all kinds. It 
went on for four or five days; at the end of 
which he rose, proceeded to his room, got his 
books there, and returned to college, — and 
having, it would appear, in this simple man- 
ner sown his college wild-oats, never stirred 
from it again. 

To the Reverend Fathers, it seemed that 
Denis would make an excellent Jesuit; where- 
fore they set about coaxing and courting, with 
intent to crimp him. Here, in some minds, a 
certain comfortable reflection on the diabolic 
cunning and assiduity of these Holy Fathers, 
now happily all dissolved and expellpd. will 
suggest itself. Along with which may another 
melancholy reflection no less be in place: 
namely, that these Devil-serving Jesuits should 
have shown a skill and zeal in their teaching 
vocation, such as no Heaven-serving body, of 
what complexion soever, anywhere on our 
earth now exhibits. To decipher the talent of 
a young vague Capability, who must one day- 
be a man and a Reality; to take him by the 
hand, and train him to a spiritual trade, and 
set him up ia it, with tools, shop, and good- 
2 I, 2 



402 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■will, were doing him in most cases an un- 
speakable service, — on this one proviso, it is 
true, thai the trade be a just and honest one; 
in which proviso surely there should lie no 
hinderance to such servive, but rather a help. 
Nay, could many a poor Dermody, Hazlitl, He- 
ron, Derrick, and such like, have been trained 
to be a good Jesuit, were ii greatly worse than 
to have lived painfully as abad Nothing-at-all 1 
But indeed, as was said, the Jesuits are dis- 
solved; and Corporations of all sorts have 
perished, (from corpulence ;) and now, instead of 
the seven corporate selfish spirits, we have the 
one-and-lhiriy millions of discorporate se!lish ; 
and the rule, Man, mind thyself, makes a jum- 
ble and a scramble, and crushing press (with 
dead-pressed figures, and dismembered limbs 
enough ;) into whose dark chaotic deptlis (for 
human Life is ever unfathomable) one shud- 
ders to look. Loneliest cf all, weakest and 
worsi-besied, in that world-scramble, is the 
extraordinary figure known in these times as 
Man of Letters! It appears to be indubitable 
that this state of matters will alter and im- 
prove itself, — in a century or two. But to re- 
turn : 

"The Jesuits," thus sparkles Mademoiselle, 
"employed the temptation, which is always so 
seductive, of travelling and of liberty; they 
persuaded the youth to quit his home, and set 
forth with a Jesuit, to whom he was attached. 
Denis had a friend, a cousin of his own age; 
he intrusted his secret to him, wishing that he 
should accompany them. But the cousin, a 
tamer and discreeter personage, discovered the 
whole project to the father; the day of depar- 
ture, the hour, all was betrayed. My grandfa- 
ther kept the strictest silence; but before going 
to sleep he carried off the keys of the street 
door; and at midnight, hearing his son de- 
spend, he presented himself before him, with 
the question,' Whither bound, at such an hour?' 
' To Paris,' replied the young man, 'where I 
am to join the Jesuits.' — 'That will not be to- 
night; but your desires shall be fulfilled: let 
us in the fir-t place go to sleep.' 

" Next morning his father engaged two 
places in the public conveyance, and carried 
him to Paris, to the CMllege d'Harcourt. He 
settled the terms of his liitle establishment, 
and bade his son go: d-b'ye. But the worthy 
man loved his child too well to leave him 
without being quite satisfied about his situa- 
tion : he had the constancy to stay a fortnight 
longer, killing the time, and dying of tedium, 
in an inn, without seeing the sole object he 
was delaying for. At the end, he proceeded to 
the College; and my father has often told me 
that this proof of tenderness would have made 
him go to the end of the world, if the old man 
had required it. 'Friend,' said he, 'I am come 
to know if your health keeps good ; if you are 
coment with your superiors, with your diet, 
with others, and with yourself. If you are not 
well, if you are not happy, we will go back 
again to your mother. If you like better to 
remain here, I have but to speak a word with 
you, to embrace you, and give you my Mess- 
ing.' T(ie youth assured him that he was per- 
fectly contented, that he liked his new abode 
very much. My grandfather then took leave 



of him, and went to the Principal, to know if 
he was satisfied with his pupil." 

On which side also the answer proving fa- 
vourable, the worthy father returned home. 
Denis saw little more of him ; never again re- 
sided under his roof, though for many years, 
and to the last, a proper intercourse was kept 
up; not, as appears, without a visit or two on 
the son's part, and certainly with the most un- 
wearied, prudent superintendence and assist- 
ance (m the father's. Indeed, it was a worthy 
family, that of the Diderots ; and a fair degree 
of natural affection must be numbered among 
the virtues of our Philo5iophe. Those scenes 
about rural Langres, and the old homely way 
of life there, as delineated fictitiously in ihe 
Entrc'ieti (Citn Pere avec ses Eiifovf, and how 
more fully, as a matter of fact, in this just- 
published Ccrrespcm'ai'rejare of a most innocent, 
cheerful, peacefully-secluded character; mure 
pleasing, we might almost say more poetical, 
than could elsewhere be gathered out of Dide- 
rot's whole Writings. Denis was the eldest 
of Ihe family, and much looked up to, with all 
his short-comings : there was a Brother, who 
became a clergyman ; and a iruehearted, sharp- 
witted Sister, who remained unmarried, and 
at times tried to live in partnership with this 
latter, — rather unsuccessfully. The Clergyman 
being a conscientious, even straight-laced man, 
and Denis such as we know, they had, natural- 
ly enough, their own difficulties to keep oa 
brotherly terms; and indeed, at length, aban- 
doned the task as hopeless. The Abbe stood 
rigorous by his Breviary, from time to time 
addressing solemn monitions to the lost Phi- 
losophe, who also went on his way. He is 
somewhat snarled at by the Deni^ian side of 
the house for this ; but surely wiihout ground : 
it was his virtue rather; at lowest his destiny. 
The true Priest, who could, or should, look 
peaceably on an Encydopedie, is yet perhaps 
waited for in the world; and of all false 
things, is not a false Priest the falsest 1 

Meanwhile Deni-;, at the College d'Harcourt, 
learns additional Greek and Mathematics, and 
quite loses taste for the Jesuit career. Mad 
pranks enough he played, we doubt not ; fol- 
lowed by reprimands. He made several friends, 
however; got intimate with the Abbe Bernis, 
poet at that time ; afterwards Cardinal. " They 
used to dine together, for six sous apiece, at 
the neighbouring Traieur's: and I have often 
heard him vaunt the gayety of these repasts." 

" His studies being finished," continues Ma- 
demoiselle, '-his father wrote to M. Clement de 
Ris, a Procureurat Paris, and his countryman, 
to take him as boarder, that he might study 
Jurisprudence and the Laws. He continued 
here two years ; but the business of acics and 
invrniairfs had few charms for him. .'^11 the 
time he could steal from the office-desk was 
employed in prosecuting Latin and Greek, in 
which he thought himself still imperfect; Ma- 
thematics, which he to the last continued pas- 
sicuiately fond of; Italian, English, &c. In the 
end he gave himself up so completely to his 
taste for letiers, that M. Clement thought it 
right to inform his father hon- ill the youth 
was employing his time. My grandfather then 
expressly commissioned M. Clement to urge 



DroEROT. 



4Q@r 



and constrain him to make choice of some | little toast and wine; he goes to bed. 'That 
profession, and once for all to become Doctor, day,' he has often said to me, ' I swore that, if 
Procureur, or Advocate. My father begged i ever I came to have any thing, I would never 
time to think of it; time was given. At the in my life refuse a poor man help, never con- 



end of several months these proposals were 
again laid before him: he answered that the 
profession of Doctor did not please him, for he 
could not think of killing any body; that the 
Procureur business was too difficult to execute 
with delicacy ; that he would willingly choose 
the profession of Advocate, were it not that he 
felt an invincible repugnance to occupj^ him- 
self all his life with other people's business. 
'But,' said M. Clement, 'what will you be 
then?' — 'On my word, nothing, nothing what- 
ever, {Ma foi, rien, mais rien du tout.) I love 
study; I am very happy, very content, and 
want nothing else.' " 

Here clearly is a youth of spirit, determined 
to take the world on the broadside, and eat 
thereof, and be filled. His decided turn, like 
that of so many others, is for the trade of sove- 
reign prince, in one shape or other; unhap- 
pily, however, the capital and outfit to set it 
up is wanting. Under which circumstances, 
nothing remains but to instruct M. Clement de 
Ris that no more board-wages will henceforth 
be paid, and the young sovereign may, at his 
earliest convenience, be turned out of doors. 

What Denis, perched aloft in his own-hired 
attic, may have though' of it now, does not ap- 
pear. The good old Father, in stopping his 
allowance, had reasonably enough insisted on 
one .if two things: either that he should be- 
take him to some intelligible method of exist- 
ence, wherein all help should be furnished 
him ; or else return home within the week. 
Neither of which could Denis think of doing. 
A similar demand continued to be reiterated 
for the next ten years, but always with the 
like none-effect. King Denis, in his furnished 
attic, with or without money to pay for it, was 
now living and reigning, like other kings, " by 
the grace of Cod ;" and could nowise resolve 
to abdicate. A sanguineous, vehement, volatile 
mortal ; young, and in so wide an earth, it 
seemed to him next to impossible but he must 
find gold-mines there. He lived, while victual 
was to be got, taking no thought for the mor- 
row. He had books, he had merry company, a 
whole piping and dancing Paris round him; 
he could teach Mathematics, he could turn 
himself so many ways; nay, might not he be- 
come a Mathematician one day; a glorified 
Savant, and strike the stars with his sublime 
head! Meanwhile he is like to be overtaken 
by one of the sharpest of human calamities, 
" cleanness of teeth." 

"One Shrove Tuesday morning, he rises, 
gropes in his pocket; he has not wherewith to 
dine; will not trouble his friends who have 
not invited him. This day, which in child- 
hood he had so "^ften passed in the middle of 
relations who adored him, becomes sadder by 
remembrance: he cannot work; he hopes to 
dissipaie his melancholy by a walk; goes to 
the Invalides, to the Courts, to the Bibliotheque 
du Roi, to the Jardin des Plantes. You may 
drive away tedium ; but you cannot give hunger 
the slip. He returns to his quarters; on enter- 
ing he feels unwell; the landlady gives him a 



demn my fellow-creatures to a day as pain- 
ful.' " 

That Diderot, during all this period, escaped 
starvation, is plain enough by the result: but 
how he specially accomplished that, and the 
other business of living, remains mostly left 
to conjecture. Mademoiselle, confined at any 
rate within narrow limits, continues as usual 
toointenton sparkling: is bnllante andpeHllune, 
rather than lucent and illuminating. How in- 
ferior, for seeing with, is your brightest train 
of fireworks to the humblest farthing candle ! 
Who Diderot's companions, friends, enemies, 
patrons were, what his way of life was, what 
the Paris he lived in and from his garret looked 
down on was, we learn only in hints, dislocated, 
enigmatic. It is in general to be impressed 
on us, that young Denis, as a sort of spiritual 
swashbuckler, who went about conquering 
Destiny, in light rapier-fence, by way of amuse- 
ment ; or at lowest, in reverses, gracefully 
insulting her with mock reverences, — lived 
and acted like no other man ; all which being^ 
freely admitted, we ask, with small increase 
of knowledge. How he did act then 1 

He gave lessons in Mathematics, we find ; 
but with the princeliest indifl^erence as to pay- 
ment : " was his scholar lively, and prompt of 
conception, he sat by him teaching all day; 
did he chance on a blockhead, he returned not 
back. They paid him in books, in movables, 
in linen, in money, or not at all ; it was quite 
the same." Farther, he made Sermons, (to 
order;) as the Devil is said to quote Scripture : 
a Missionary bespoke half-a-dozen of him (of 
Denis, that is) for the Portuguese Colonies, 
and paid for them very handsomely at fifty 
crowns each. Once, a family Tutorship came 
in his way. with tolerable appointments, but 
likewise with incessant duties : at the end of 
three months, he waits upon the house-father' 
with this abrupt communication : " I am come. 
Monsieur, to request you to seek a new tutor; 
I cannot remain with you any longer." — "But, 
Monsieur Diderot, what is your grievance 1 
Have you too little salary 1 I will double it. 
Are you ill-lodged ] Choose your apartment, - 
Is your table ill-served 1 Order your own 
dinner. All will be cheap lo parting with you." 
— "Monsieur, look at me: a citron is not so 
yellow as my face. I am making men of your 
children ; but every day I am becoming a child 
with them. I feel a hundred times tco rich 
and two well off in your house ; yet I must 
leave it: the object of my wishes is not to live 
better, but to keep from dying." 

Mademoiselle grants that, if sometimes 
"drunk with gayety," he was often enough 
plunged in bitterness; but then a Newtonian 
problem, a fine thought, or any small godsend 
of that sort, would instantly cheer him again. 
The "gold mines" had not yet come to light. 
Meanwhile, between him and starvation we 
can still discern Langres covertly stretching 
out its hand. Of any Langres man, coming 
in his way, Denis frankly borrows; and the 
good old Father refuses not to pay. The 



404 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Mother is still kinder, at least softer : she sends 
him direct help, as she can; not by the post, 
but by a serving-maid, who travelled these 
sixty leagues on foot; delivered him a small 
gum from his mother; and, without mention- 
ing it, added all her own savings thereto. This 
Samaritan journey she performed three times. 
^' I saw her some years ago," adds Mademoi- 
selle ; " she spoke of my father with tears ; her 
whole desire was to see him again : sixty 
years' service had impaired neither her sense 
nor her sensibility." 

It is granted also that his company was 
-'"sometimes good, sometimes indifferent, not 
to say bad." Indeed putting all things to- 
gether, we can easily fancy that the last sort 
was the preponderating. It seems probable 
that Denis, during these ten years of probation, 
walked chiefly in the subterranean shades of 
Rascaldom; now swilling from full Circe- 
goblets, now snufnngwith haggard expectancy 
the hungry wind; always "sorely flamed on 
/rom the neighbouring hell." In some of his 
fictitious writings, a most intimate acquaint- 
ance with the nether-world of Polissons, Es- 
jcrocs, Filles de Joye, Maroutles, Maquerelles, 
and their ways of doing, comes to light : among 
X)ther things, (as may be seen in Jacques le 
Fataliste, and elsewhere,) a singular theoretic 
expertness in what is technically named " rais- 
ing the wind ;" which miracle, indeed, Denis 
himself is expressly (in this Menwire) found 
once performing, and in a style to require 
legal cognisance, had not the worthy Father 
"sneered at the dupe, and paid." The dupe 
here was a proselytizing Abbe, whom the dog 
glozed with professions of life-weariness and 
turning monk; which all evaporated, once the 
money was in his hands. On other occasions, 
it might turn out otherwise, and the gudgeon- 
fisher hook some shark of prey. 

Literature, except in the way of Sermons for 
the Portuguese Colonies, or other the like 
small privaic dealings, had not yet opened her 
hospitable bosom to him. Epistles, precatory 
and amatory, for such as had more cash than 
grammar, he may have written ; Catalogues 
also, Indexes, Advertisements, and, in these 
latter cases, even seen himself in print. But 
now he ventures forward, with bolder step, to- 
wards the interior mysteries, and begins pro- 
ducing Translations from the English. Litera- 
ture, it is true, was then, as now, the universal 
free-hospital and Refuge for the Destitute, 
where all mortals, of what colour and kind so- 
ever, had liberty to live, or at least to die: never- 
theless, foran enterprising man, its resources at 
that time were comparatively limited. News- 
papers were few; Reporting existed not, still 
less the inferior branches, with their fixed rate 
per line : Packwood and Warren, much more 
Panckoucke, and Ladvocat, and Colburn, as 
yet slumbered (the last century of their slum- 
ber) in the womb of Chaos; Fragmentary 
Panegyric-literature had not yet come into 
being, therefore could not be paid for. Talent 
wanted a free staple and workshop, where wages 
might be certain; and too often, like virtue, 
was praised and left starving. Lest the reader 
overrate the munificence of the literary cornu- 
gojpia in France at this epoch, let us lead him 



into a small historical scene, that he may see 
with his own eyes. Diderot is the historian ; 
the date too is many years later, when times, 
if any thing, were mended : 

"I had given a poor devil a manuscript to 
copy. The time he had promised it at having 
expired, and my man not appearing, I growr 
uneasy; set off to hunt him out. I find 
him in a hole the size of my hand, almost 
without daylight, not the wretchedest tatter of 
serge to cover his walls ; two straw-bottom 
chairs, a flock-bed, the coverlet chiselled with 
worms, without curtains; a trunk in a corner 
of the chimney, rags of all sorts hooked above 
it; a little white-iron lamp, with a bottle for 
pediment to it; on a deal shelf a dozen of ex- 
cellent books. I chatted with him three quar- 
ters of an hour. My gentleman was naked as 
a worm," {nu comuic un ver: it was August;) 
" lean, dingy, dry, yet serene, complaining of 
nothing, eating his junk of bread with appe- 
tite, and from time to time caressing his be- 
loved, who reclined on that miserable truckle, 
taking up two-thirds of the room. If I had 
not known that happiness resides in the soul, 
my Epictetus of the Rue Hyacinthe might 
have taught it me." 

Notwithstanding all which, Denis, now in 
his twenty-ninth year, sees himself necessitated 
to fall desperately, and over head and ears, in 
love. It was a virtuous, pure attachment: 
his first of that sort, probably also his last. 
Readers who would see the business poetically 
delineated, and what talent Diderot had for 
such delineations, may read this Scene in the 
once-noted Drama of the Fere de Faimlle. It 
is known that he drew from the life; and with 
^evi embellishments, which too, except in the 
French Theatre, do not beautify. 

" Act I. — Scene VII. 

Snint-Mbin. Father, you shall know all. 
Alas! how else can I move you? — The first 
time I ever saw her was at church. She was 
on her knees at the font of the altar, beside an 
aged woman, whom I took fcir her muther. 
Ah father! what modesty, what charms!.... 
Her im ige followed me by day, haunted me by 
night, left me rest nowhere. I lost my cheer- 
fulness, my health, my peace. I could not 

live without seeking to find her She has 

changed me; I am no longer what I was. 
From the first moment all shameful desires 
fade away from my soul ; resppct and admira- 
tion succeed them. Wiihout rebuke or restraint 
on her part, perhaps before she had raised her 
eyes on me, I became timid; more so frora 
day to day; and soon I felt as little free to 
attempt her virtue as her life. 

The Father. And who are these women? 
How do they live 1 

Siii.t-Jllh.n. Ah! if you knew it, unhappy 
as they are ! Imagine that their toil begins 
before day, and often they have to continue it 
through the night. The mother spins on the 
wheel; hard coarse cloth is between the soft 
small fingers of S iphie, and wounds them.* 



• The. rent Iradp appe:xrs to have licen a "sempstress 
one in \m;c,s am! linens:" ihe poverty is soinewliat ex- 
aizserated : otherwise the shadow may be faithful 
enough. 



DIDEROT. 



Her eyes, the brightest eyes in this world, are 
■worn at the lighi of a lamp. She lives in a 
garret, within four bare walls ; a wooden table, 
a couple of chairs, a truckle-bed, that is their 
furniture. Heavens, when ye fashioned 
such a creature, was this the lot ye destined 
her! 

The Father. And how got you access ? Speak 
me truth. 

Saint-Albin. It is incredible what obstacles 
I had, what I surmounted. Though now lodged 
there, under the same roof, I at first did not 
seek to see them: if we met on the stairs, 
coming up, going down, I saluted them re- 
spectfully. At night, when I came home, (for 
all day I was supposed to be at my work,) I 
■would go knock gently at their door; ask them 
for the little services usual among neighbours 
— as water, fire, light. By degrees they grew 
accustomed to me ; rather took to me. I 
offered to serve them in little things : for 
instance, they disliked going out at night; I 
fetched and carried for them." 

The real truth here is, " I ordered a set of 
shirts from them ; said I was a Church-licen- 
tiate just bound for the Seminary of St. Nich- 
olas, — and, above all, had the tongue of the 
old serpent." But to skip much, and finish : 

"Yesterday I came as usual: Sophie was 
alone; she was sitting with her elbows on the 
table, her head leant on her hand; her work 
had fallen at her feet. I entered without her 
hearing me : she sighed. Tears escaped from 
between her fingers, and ran along her arms. 
For some time, of late, I had seen her sad. 
"Why was she weeping"! What was it that 
grieved her? Want it could no longer be; 
her labour and my attentions provided against 
that. Threatened by the only misfortune ter- 
rible to me, I did not hesitate : I threw myself 
at her knees. What was her surprise : Sophie, 
said I, you weep; what ails you 1 Do not 
hide your trouble from me.: speak to me ; oh 
speak to me ! She spoke not. Her tears con- 
tinued flowing. Her eyes, where calmness no 
longer dwelt, but tears and anxiety, bent to- 
wards me, then turned away, then turned to 
me again. She said only, Poor Sergi! un- 
happy Sophie ! — I had laid my face on her 
knees ; I was wetting her apron with my tears." 

In a word, there is nothing for it but mar- 
riage. Old Diderot, joyous as he was to see 
his Son once more, started back in indignation 
and derision from such a proposal; and young 
Diderot had to return to Paris, and be forbid 
the beloved house, and fall sick, and come to 
the point of death, before the fair one's scruples 
could be subdued. However, she sent to get 
news of him; "learnt that his room was a 
perfert dog-kennel, that he lay ■n'ithout nou- 
rishment, without attendance, wasted, sad: 
thereupon she took her resolution: mounted 
to him, promised to be his wife; and mother 
and daughter now became his nurses. So 
soon as he recovered, they went to Saint- 
Pierre, and were married at midnight, (1744)." 
It only remains to add, that if the Sophie whom 
he had wedded fell much short of tliis Sophie 
■whom he delineates, the fault was less in her 
qualities, than in his own unstable fancy : as 
in youth she was " tall, beautiful, pious, and 



wise," so through a long life she seems tcf 
have approved herself a woman of courage^ 
discretion, faithful affection ; far too good » 
wife for such a husband. 

" My father was of too jealous a character to 
let my mother continue a tratnc, which obliged 
her to receive strangers and treat with them ; 
he begged her therefore to give up that busi- 
ness ; she was very loath to consent ; poverty 
did not alarm her on her'ov/n account, but her 
mother was old, unlikely to remain with her 
long, and the fear of not being able to provide 
for all her wants was afflicting: nevertheless, 
persuading herself that this sacrifice was ne- 
cessarjr for her husband's happiness, she made 
it. A charwoman looked in daily, to sweep 
their little lodging, and fetch provisions for the 
day ; my mother managed all the rest. Often, 
when my father dined or supped out, she would 
dine or sup on bread ; and took a great plea- 
sure in the thought that, next day, she could 
double her little ordinary for him. Coffee was 
too considerable a luxury for a household 
of this sort: but she could not think of his 
wanting it, and every day gave him six sous to 
go and have his cup, at the Cafe de la Kegence, 
and see the chess-playing there. 

" It was now that he translated the History of 
Greece in three volumes," (by the English 
Stanyan ;) " he sold it for a hundred crowns. 
This sum brought a sort of supply into the 
house. * * * 

" My mother had been brought to bed of a 
daughter : she was now big a second time. In 
spite of her precautions, solitary life, and the 
pains she had taken to pass oft' her husband 
as her brother, his family, in the seclusion of 
their province, learnt that he was living with- 
two women. Directly the birth, the morals, 
the character of my mother became objects 
of the blackest calumny. He foresaw that 
discussions by letter would be endless ; he 
found it simpler to put his wife into the stage- 
coach, and send her to his parents. She had 
just been delivered of a son ; he announced 
this event to his father, and the departure of 
my mother. ' She set out yesterday,' said he, 
" she will be with j-ou in three days. You 
will say to her what shall please you, and send 
her back when you are tired of her.' Singular 
as this sort of explanation was, they determined, 
in any case, on sending my father's sister tu 
receive her. Their first welcome was more 
than cold: the evening grew less painful to 
her; but next morning betimes she went in to 
her father-in-law; treated him as if he had 
been her own father: her respect and her ca- 
resses charmed the good, sensible old man. 
Coming down stairs, she began working: re- 
fused nothing that could please a family whom 
she was not afraid of, and wished to be loved 
by. Her conduct was the only excuse she 
gave for her husband's choice: her appear- 
ance had prepossessed them in her favour;: 
her simplicity, her piety, her talents for house- 
hold economy secui'ed her their tenderness; 
they promised her that m}^ father's disinherit- 
ment should be revoked. They kept her three 
months; and sent her back loaded with what- 
ever they could think would be useful or agree--- 
able to her." 



406 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



All this is beautiful, told with a graceful 
simplicity ; the beautiful, real-ideal prose-idyl 
of a Literary Life : but, alas, in the music of 
your prose-idyl there lurks ever an accursed 
dissonance (or the players make one ;) where 
men are, there will be mischief. "This jour- 
ney," writes Mademoiselle, "cost my mother 
many tears." What will the reader say, when 
he finds that Monsieur Diderot has, in the in- 
terim, taken up with a certain Madame de Piii- 
sieux; and welcomes his brave Wife (worthy 
to have been a true man's) with a heart and 
bosom henceforth estranged from her! Ma- 
dame Diderot "made two journeys to Langres, 
and both were fatal to her peace." This af- 
fair of the Puisieux, for whom he despicably 
enough not only burned, but toiled and made 
money, kept him busy for some ten years ; till 
at length, finding that she played false, he 
gave her up ; and minor miscellaneous flirta- 
tions seem to have succeeded. But, returning 
from her second journey, the much-enduring 
House-mother finds him in a meridian glory 
with one Voland, the wji-maiden Daughter of a 
" Financier's Widow ;" to whom we owe this 
present preternuplial Correspondence ; to whom 
indeed he mainly devoted himself for the rest 
•of his life, "parting his time between his 
study and her ;" to his own Wife and house- 
hold giving little save the trouble of cooking 
for him, and of painfully, with repressed or 
irrepressible discontent, Iceeping up some ap- 
pearance of terms with him. Alas ! alas ! 
.and his Puisieux seems to have been a hollow 
Mercenary (to whose scandalous soul he 
ij-eckons obscenest of Books fit nutriment ;) 
:and the Vol and an elderly Spinster, with cmir 
sensible, canir honnete, ame tcndre et bonne ! And 
:then those old dinings on bread ; the six sous 
rspared for his cup of cofl^ee ! Foolish Diderot, 
■scarcely pardonable Diderot ! A hard saying 
it is, yet a true one: scoundrelism signifies 
injustice, and should be left to scoundrels 
alone. For thy wronged Wife, whom thou 
hast sworn far other things to, ever in her af- 
flictions (here so hostilely scanned and writ- 
ten of,) a true sympathy will awaken ; and 
sorrow that the patient, or even impatient, en- 
durances of such a woman should be matter of 
speculation and self-gratulation to such another. 

But looking out of doors now, from an in- 
difTerently-guided Household, which must have 
fallen shamefully in pieces, had not a wife 
been wiser and stronger than her husband, — 
we find the Philosophe making distinct way 
with the Bibliopolic world ; and, likely, in the 
end, to pick up a kind of living there. The 
■Stanyan's History of Greece : the other English- 
translated, nameless Medical Dictionary, are 
dropped by all editors as worthless : a like 
fate might, with little damage, have overtaken 
the Essai sur le Merite et la Vertu, rendered or 
redacted out of Shaftesbury's Characteristics. 
In which redaction, with its Notes, of anxious 
■Orthodoxy, (and bottomless Falsehood looking 
through it,) we individually have found no- 
thing, save a confirmation of the old twice- 
repeated experience, That in Shaftesbury's 
famed Book there lay, if any meaning, a 
meaning of such Icng-windedness, circumvo- 
.lutiou, and lubricity, that, like an eel, it must 



for ever slip through our fingers, and leave tta 
alone among the gravel. One reason may 
partly be, that Shaftesbury was not only a 
Skeptic but an Amateur Skeptic; which sort 
a darker, more earnest, have long since swal- 
lowed aiid abolished. Tde meaning of a deli- 
cate, perfumed, gentlem-uiiy individual stand- 
ing there, in that war of Titans, (hill meeting 
hill with all its woods,) and putting out hand 
to it — with a pair of tweezers 1 

However, our Denis has now emerged from 
the intermediate Hades of Translatorship into 
the Heaven of perfected Authorship; empties 
his common-place book of Pensees Philoso' 
plii(jncs, (it is said in the space of four days;) 
writes his metaphysico-Baconian phantasma- 
j gories on the Intcrpt elation cle la Nature, (an 
endless business to "interpret;") and casts 
the money-produce of both into the lap of his 
Scarlet-woman Puisieux. Then forthwith, for 
the same object, in a shameful fortnight, puts 
together the beastliest of all past, present, or 
future dull Novels; a difficult feat, unhappily 
not an impossible one. If any mortal crea- 
ture, even a Reviewer, be again compelled to 
glance into that Book, let him bathe himself 
in running water, put on change of raiment, 
and be unclean until the even. As yet the 
metaphysico-Atheistic Lettre sur les Sourds et 
AIucls, and Lettre sur les Jlveiigles, which brings 
glory and a three months' lodging in the Cas- 
tle of Vincennes, are at years' distance in the 
background. But already by his gilded tongue, 
growing repute, and sanguineous, projecting 
temper, he has persuaded Booksellers to pay 
off the Abbe Gua, with his lean Version of 
Chambers's Dictionary of Jlrts, and convert it in- 
to an Encyclopedic, with himself and D'Alem- 
bert for Editors ; and is henceforth (from the 
year of grace 1751) a duly dis-indentured 
Man of Letters, an indisputable and more and 
more conspicuous member of that surprising 
guild. 

Literature, ever since its appearance in our 
European world, especiall}' since it emerged 
out of Cloisters into the open Market-place, 
and endeavoured to make itself room, and 
gain a subsistence there, has offered the strang- 
est phases, and consciously or unconsciously 
done the strangest work. Wonderful Ark of the 
Deluge, where so much that is precious, nay 
priceless to mankind, floats carelessly onwards 
through the Chaos of distracted Times, — if so 
be it may one day find an Ararat to rest on, 
and see the waters abate ! The History of 
Literature, especially for the last two centu- 
ries, is our proper Church History; the other 
Church, during that time, having more and 
more decayed from its old functions and influ- 
ence, and ceased to have a history. And now, 
to look only at the outside of the matter, think 
of the Tassos and older or later Racines, 
struggling to raise their oflice from its pristine 
abasement of Court-jester: and teach and ele- 
vate the World, in conjunction with that other 
quite heteroclite task of solacing and glorify- 
ing some Pulliis Jovis, in plush cloak and other 
gilt or golden king-tackle, that they in the in- 
terim might live thereby ! Consider the Shak- 
speares and Molieres, plying a like trade, bu^ 
on a double material : glad of any royal or 



DIDEROT. 



407 



noble patronage, but eliciting, as their surer 
stavi some fiaclional contribution from the 
thick-si\innpd, many-pockeled million. Saii- 
maises, now bully-figlilirig "for a hundred 
gold Jacobuses," now closeted with Queen 
Christinas, who blow the fire with iheir own 
queenly mouth, t<i make a pedant's breakfast; 
annn cast forth (being scouted and cunfuied,) 
and dying of heartbreak, coupled with hen- 
peck. Then the Laws of ("opynght, the 
Quarrels of Authors, the Calamities of Au- 
thors ; the Heynes dining on boiled peasecods, 
the Jean Pauls on water; the Johnsons bed- 
ded and boarded on fourpence-halfpenny a-day. 
Lastly, the unutterable confusion worse con- 
founded of our present Periodical existence; 
when, among other phenomena, a young 
Fourth Estate (whom all the three elder may 
try if they can hold) is seen sprawling and 
staggering tumtiltuously through the world; 
as yet but a huge, raw-boned, lean calf; fast 
growing, however, to be a Pharaoh's lean cow, 
— of whom let the fat-kine beware ! All this of 
the mere exterior, or dwelling-place of Litera- 
ture, not yet glancing at the internal, at the 
Doctrines emitted or striven after, will the fu- 
ture Eusebius and Mosheim have to record ; 
and (in some small degree) explain to us 
what it means. Unfathomable is its meaning: 
Life, mankind's Life, ever from its unfathom- 
able fountains, rolls wondrous on, another 
though the same; in Literature too, the seeing 
eye will distinguish Apostles of the Gentiles, 
Proto and Deutero-martyrs ; still less will the 
Simon Magus, or Apollonius with the golden 
thigh be wanting. But all now is on an infi- 
nitely ividcr scale : the elements of it all swim 
far scattered, and still only striving towards 
union ; — whereby, indeed, it happens that to 
the most, under this new figure, they are unre- 
cognisable. 

French Literature, in Diderot's time, presents 
itself in a certain state of culmination, where 
causes long prepared are rapidly becoming 
effects; and was doubtless in one of its more 
notable epochs. Under the Economic aspect, 
in France, as in England, this was the Age of 
Book-sellers ; when, as a Dodsley and Miller 
could risk capital in an Enghsh Diciio.tanj, a 
Lebreton and Briasson could become purvey- 
ors and commissariat officers for a French En- 
cyclopedic. The world for ever loves Knowledge, 
and would part its last sixpence in payment 
thereof: this your Dodsleys and Lebretons 
■well saw ; moreover they could act on it, for as 
yet PuFFEnY was not. Alas, offences must come; 
Puffery from the first was inevitable: wo 
to them, nevertheless, by whom it did come! 
Meanwhile, as we said, it slept in Chaos: the 
Word of man and tradesman was still partially 
credible to man. Booksellers were therefore a 
possible, were even a necessary class of mor- 
tals, though a strangely anomalous one; had 
they kept from lying, or lied with any sort of 
moderation, the anomaly might have lasted 
still longer. For the present, they managed in 
Paris as elsewhere : the Timber-headed could 
perceive that for Thought the world would give 
money; farther, by mere shopkeeper cunning, 
that true Thought, as in the end sure to be re- 
cognised, and by nature infinitely more dura- 



ble, was better to deal in than false; farther, by 
credible tradition of public consent, that such 
and such had the talent of furnishing true 
Thought, (say rather iruer, as the more correct 
word:) on this hint the Timbt^r-headed spake 
and bargained. Nay, let us say he bargnined, 
and worked, for most part with industrious as- 
siduity, with patience, suitable prudence; nay, 
someiimes with touches of gt-nerosity and 
naagnanimity, beautifully irradiating the cir- 
cumambient mass of greed and dulness. For 
the rest, the two high contracting parties 
roughed it out as they could; so that if Book- 
sellers, in their back parlour Valhalla, drank 
wine out of the sculls of Authors, (as they were 
fabled to do,) Authors, in the front-apartments, 
from time to time, gave them a Rowland for 
their Oliver: a Johnson can knock his Os- 
borne on the head, like any other Bull of 
Bashan ; a Diderot commands his corpulent 
Panckouke to "leave the room and go to the 
devil ;" allcz au diable, sortcz dc chez moi! 

Under the interna] or Doctrinal aspect, again, 
French Literature, we can see, knew far better 
what it was about than English. That fable, 
indeed, first set afloat by some Trevoux Jour- 
nalist of that period, and M'hich has floated 
foolishly enough into every European ear since 
then, of there being an Association specially 
organized for the destruction of government, 
religion, society, civility, (not to speak of tithes, 
rents, life, and property,) all over the world; 
which hell-serving Associaiion met at the 
Baron d'Holbach's, there had its blue-light 
sederunts, and published Transactions legible 
to all, — was and remains nothing but a fable. 
Minute-books, president's hammer, ballot-box, 
punch-bowl of such Pandemonium have not 
been produced to the world. The sect of Phi- 
losophes existed at Paris, but as other sects 
do; held together by loosest, informal, unre- 
cognised ties; within which every one, no 
doubt, followed his own natural objects, of 
proselytism, of glory, of getting a livelihood. 
Meanwhile, whether in constituted association 
or not, French Philosophy resided in the per- 
sons of the French Philosophes; and, as a 
mighty deep-struggling force, was at work 
there. Deep struggling, irrepressible ; the sub- 
terranean fire, which long heaved unquietly, 
and shook all things with an ominous motion, 
was here, we can say, forming itself a decided 
spiracle ;^which, by and by, as French Revo- 
lution, became that volcano-crater, world- 
famous, world-appalling, world-maddening, as 
yet very far from closed! Fontenelle said, 
he wished he could live sixty years longer, and 
see whattliat universal infidelity,depravity,and 
dissolution of all ties would turn to. Li three- 
score years Fontenelle might have seen strange 
things ; but not the end of the phenomenon, 
perhaps in three hundred. 

Why France became such a volcano-crater, 
what specialities there were in the French 
national character, and political, moral, intel- 
lectual condition, by virtue whereof French Phi- 
losophy there and not elsewhere, then and not 
sooner or later, evolved itself, — is an inquiry 
that has been often put, and cheerfully an- 
swered; the true answer of which might lead 
us far. Still deeper than this Whence were the 



408 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



question of WhVher : — with which, also, we in- 
termeddle not here. Enough fur us to under- 
stand that there verily a Scene of Universal 
History is being enacted (a little living time- 
picture in ihe bosom of eternity) — and with 
the feeling due in that case, to ask not so much 
Why it is, as What it is. Leaving priorities 
and posteriorities aside, and cause-and-efTect to 
adjust itself elsewhere, conceive so many vivid 
spirits thrown together into Europe, into the 
Paris of that day, and see how they demean 
themselves, what they work out and attain 
there. 

As the mysfiral enjoyment of an object goes 
infinitely farther than the inlcllect'ual, and we 
can look at a picture with delight and profit, 
after all that we can be taught about it is grown 
poor and wearisome ; so here, and by far 
stronger reason, these light Letters of Diderot 
to the Voland, again unveiling and showing 
Parisian Life, are worth more to us than many 
a heavy tome laboriously struggling to explain 
it. True, we have seen the picture (that same 
Parisian life-picture) ten times already; but 
can look at it an eleventh time; nay this, as we 
said, is not a canvas-picture, but a life-picture, 
of whose significance there is no end for us. 
Grudge not the elderly Spinster her existence, 
then; say not she has lived in vain. For what 
of History there is, in this Preternuptial Cor- 
respondence, should we not endeavour to for- 
give and forget all else, the sensibilite itself] 
The curtain which had fallen for almost a cen- 
tury is again drawn up ; the scene is alive and 
busy. Figures grown historical are here seen 
face to face, and again live before us. 

A strange theatre that of French Philoso- 
phism ; a strange dramatic corps ! Such ano- 
ther corps for brilliancy and levity, for gifts 
and vices, and all manner of sparkling incon- 
sistencies, the world is not like to see again. 
There is Patriarch Voltaire, of all Frenchmen 
the most French ; he whom the French had, as 
it were, long wailed for, "to produce at once, 
in a single life, all that French genius most 
prized and most excelled in ;" of him and his 
wondrous ways, as of one known, we need say 
little. Instant enough to " crush the Abomina- 
tion" (ecra^er Vhifamc,) he has prosecuted his 
Jesuit-hunt over many lands and many centu- 
ries, in many ways, with an- alacrity that has 
made him dangerous, and endangered him : 
he now sits at Ferney, withdrawn from the ac- 
tive toils of the chase; cheers on his hunting- 
dogs mostly from afar: Diderot, a beagle of the 
first vehemence, he has rather to restrain. That 
all extant and possible Theology be abolished, 
■will not content the fell Denis, as surely it 
might have done; the Patriarch must address 
him a friendly admonition on his Atheism, and 
make him eat it again. 

D'Alembert, too, we may consider as one 
known; of all the Philosophe fraternity, he 
■who in speech and conduct agrees best wilh 
our English notions; an independent, patient, 
prudent man; of great faculty, especially of 
great clearness and method ; famous in Mathe- 
matics; no less so, to the wonder of some, in 
the intellectual provinces of Literature. A 
foolish wonder; as if the Thinker could think 
only on one thing, and not on any thing he had 



a call towards. D'Alembert's Melanges, as the 
impress of a genuine spirit, in peculiar posi- 
tion and probation, have still instruction for 
us, both of head and heart. The man lives 
retired here, in questionable seclusion with his 
Espinasse; incurs the suspicifm of apostasy, 
because in the Eiirydopcdie he sawnoEvangile 
and celestial Revelation, but only a huge Folio 
Dictionary; and would not venture life and 
limb on it, without a "consideration." Sad 
was it to Diderot to see his fellow-voyager 
make for port, and disregard signals, when the 
sea-krakens rose round him! They did not 
quarrel; were always friendly when they met, 
but latterly met only at the rate of "once in 
the two years." D'Alembert died when Diderot 
was on his death-bed: " My friend," said the 
latter to the news-bringer, " a great light is 
gone out." 

Hovering in the distance, with wQ-struck, 
minatory air, stern-beckoning, comes Rous- 
seau. Poor Jean Jacques ! Alternately deified, 
and cast to the dogs; a deep-minded, high- 
minded, even noble, yet wofully misarranged 
mortal, with all misformations of Nature in- 
lensated to the verge of madness by unfavour- 
able Fortune. A lonely man ; his life a long 
soliloquy! The wandering Tiresias of the 
time ; — in whom, however, did lie prophetic 
meaning, such as none of the others ofl^er. 
Whereby indeed it might partly be that the 
world went to such extremes about him; that, 
long after his departure, we have seen one 
whole nation worship him, and a Burke, in 
the name of another, class him with the off"- 
scourings of the earth. His true character, 
with its lofty aspirings and poor performings; 
and how the spirit of the man worked so 
wildly, like celestial fire in a thick dark ele- 
ment of chaos, and shot forth ethereal radi- 
ance, all-piercing lightning, yet could not 
illuminate, was quenched and did not conquer: 
this, with what lies in it, may now be pretty 
accurately appreciated. Let his history teach 
all whom it concerns, to " hnirkn themselves 
against the ills which Mother Nature will try 
them with;" to seek within their own soul 
what the world must for ever deny them; and 
say composedly to the Prince of the Power of 
this lower Earth and Air: Go thou thy way; 
I go mine! 

Rousseau and Diderot were early friends: 
who has forgotten how Jean Jacques walked 
to the Castle of Vincennes, where Denis (for 
heretical Metaphysics, and irreverence to the 
Strumpetocracy) languishes in durance; and 
devised his first Literary Paradox on the road 
thilherl Their Quarrel, which, as a fashion- 
able hero of the time complains, occupied all 
Paris, is likewise famous enough. The reader 
recollects that heroical epistle of Diderot to 
Grimm on that occasion, and the sentence: 
" Oh, my friend, let us continue virtuous, for 
the state (if those who have ceased to be so 
makes me shudder." But is the reader aware 
what the fault of him "who had ceased to be 
so" was? A series of ravelment*; and squab- 
bling grudges, "which," says Mademoiselle 
with much simplicity, " the Devil himself could 
not understand." Alas, the Devil well under- 
stood it, and Tyrant Grimm too did, who had 



DIDEROT. 



409 



the ear of Diderot, and poured into it his own 
■unjust, almost abominable spleen. Clean 
paper need not be soiled with a foul story, 
where the main actor is only "Tyran le 
Blanc;"' enough to know that the "continually 
virtuous" Tyrant found Diderot "extremely 
impressionable ;" so poor Jean Jacques must go 
his ways, (wiih both the scath and the scorn,) 
and among his many woes bear this also. 
Diderot is notblamable; pitiable rather; for 
who would be a pipe, which not Fortune only, 
but any Sycophant may play tunes on 1 

Of this same Tyrant Grimm, desiring to 
speak peaceably, we shall say little. The 
man himself is less remarkable than his for- 
tune. Changed times indeed, since the thread- 
bare German Bursch quitted Ratisbon, with 
the sound of cat-calls in his ears, the con- 
demned " Tragedy, Banise," in his pocket ; and 
fled southward, on a thin travelling-tutorship; 
— since Rousseau met you, Herr Grimm, "a 
young man described as seeking a situation, 
and whose appearance indicated the pressing 
necessity he was in of soon finding one!" 
Of a truth, you have flourished since then, 
Herr Grimm : his introductions of you to 
Diderot, to Holbach, to the black-locked 
D'Epinay, where not only you are wormed in, 
but he is wormed out, have turned to some- 
what; the Thread-bare has become well- 
napped, and got ruffles and jewel-rings, and 
■walks abroad in sword and bag-wig, and 
lackers his brass countenance with rouge, and 
so (as Tyran Ic Blanc) recommends himself to 
the fair; and writes Parisian Philosophe- 
gossip to the Hyperborean Kings, and his 
Grimm's Leaves, copied "to the number of 
twenty," are bread of life to many ; and cringes 
here, and domineers there: and lives at his 
ease in the Creation, in an effective tcndrcsse 
■with the D'Epinay, husband or custom of the 
country not objecting! — Poor Borne, the new 
German flying Sansculotte, feels his mouth 
■water, at Paris, over these fleshpots of Grimm ; 
reflecting with what heart he too could write 
"Leaves," and be fed thereby. Borne, my 
friend, those days are done ! While Northern 
Courts were a "Lunar Versailles," it was well 
to have an Uriel stationed in their Sun there ; 
but of all spots in this Universe (hardly ex- 
cepting Tophet; Paris now is the one we at 
court could best dispense with news from ; never 
more, in these centuries, will a Grimm he mis- 
sioned thither; never a "Leaf of Borne" be 
blown court-wards by any wind. As for the 
Grimm, we can see that he was a man made 
to rise in the world: a fair, even handsome 
outfit of talent, wholly marketable; skill in 
music, and the like, encyclopedical readiness 
in all ephemera; saloon-wit, a trenchant, un- 
hesitating head; above all, a heart ever in the 
right place, — in the marketplace, namely, and i 
marked " for sale to the highest bidder." 
Really a methodical, adroit, managing man. 
By "hero-worship," and the cunning appliance 
of alternate sweet and sull(>n, he has brought 
Diderot to be his patient m.ilch-cow, whom he 
can milk an Essay froin, a Volume from, when 
he lists. Victorious Grimm! He even es- 
caped those same "horrors of the French 
52 



Revolution," (with loss of his ruffles ;) and was 
seen at the Court of Gotha, sleek and well to 
live, within the memory of man. 

The world has heard of M. le Chevalier de 
Saint-Lambert; considerable in Literature, in 
Love, and War. He is here again, singing the 
frostiest Pastorals; happily, however, only in 
the distance, and the jingle of his wires soon, 
dies away. Of another Chevalier, worthy. 
Jancourl, be the name mentioned, and little 
more : he digs unweariedly, mole-wise, in the 
Encyclopedic field, catching what he can, and 
shuns the light. Then there is Helvetius, the 
well-fed Farmer-general, enlivening his sybari- 
tic life with metaphysic paradoxes. His reve- 
lations, Dc I' Homme and l)e VEs^prit, breathe the 
free.'-t Philosophe-spirit, with Philanthropy and 
Sensibility enough : the greater is our astonish- 
ment to find him here so ardent a Preserver 
of the Game: 

"This Madame de Noce," writes Diderot, 
treating of the Bourbonne Hot-springs, " is a 
neighbour of Helvetius. She told us, the 
Philosopher was the unhappiest man in the 
world on his estates. He is surrounded there 
by neighbours and peasants who detest him. 
They break the windows of his mansion, 
plunder his grounds by night, cut his trees, 
throw down his walls, tear up his spiked, 
paling. He dare not go to shoot a hare,, 
without a train of people to guard him. You 
will ask me, how it has come to pass ? By a 
boundless zeal for his game. M. Fagon, his 
predecessor, used to guard the grounds with 
two keepers and two guns. Helvetius has 
twenty-four, and cannot do it. These men 
have a small premium for ever}^ poacher they 
can catch ; and there is no sort of mischief 
they will not cause to get more and more of 
these. Besides, they are themselves so many 
hired poachers. Again, the border of his 
woods was inhabited by a set of poor people, 
who had got huts there ; he has caused all 
the huts to be swept away. It is these, and 
such acts of repeated tyranny, that have raised 
him enemies of all kinds; and the more inso- 
lent, says Madame de Noce, as they have dis- 
covered that the worthy Philosopher is a 
coward. I would not have his fine estate of 
Vore as a present, had I to live there in these 
perpetual alarms. What profits he draws from 
that mode of management I know not: but 
he is alone there; he is hated, — he is in fear. 
Ah ! how much wiser was our lady Geoffrin, 
when speaking of a lawsuit that tormented her, 
she said to me, 'Get done with my lawsuit; 
they want money'? I have it. Give thera 
money. What better use can I inake of my 
money than to buy peace with it V In Helve- 
tius's place, I would have said, 'They kill me 
a lew hares and rabbits, let them be doing. 
These poor creatures have no shelter but my 
forest, let them stay there.' I should have 
reasoned like M. Fagon, and been adored like 
him." 

Alas! are not Helvetius's preserves, at this 
hour, all broken up, and lying desecrated? 
Neither can the others, in what latitude and 
longitude soever, remain eternally impregna- 
ble. But if a Rome was once saved by geese^ 
2M 



410 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



need we wonder that an En2;land is lost by 
partridges ? We are sons of Eve, who bartered 
Paradise for an apple. 

But to return to Paris and its Philosophe 
Church militant. Here is a Marmontel, an 
active subaltern thereof, who fights in a small 
way, through the Merrnre ; and, in rose-pink 
romance-pictures, strives to celebrate the 
"moral sublime." An Abbe Moreilet, busy 
with the Corn Laws, walks in at intervals, 
stooping, shrunk together, "as if to get nearer 
himself" (pour eire plus pres dc lui-nien.e.) The 
rogue Galiani alternates between Naples and 
Paris; Galiani, by good luck, has, "for ever 
settled the question of the Corn Laws;" an 
idle fellow otherwise; a spiritual Lazzarone ; 
full of frolics, wanton quips, anti-jesuit gestn, 
and wild Italian humour; the sight of his 
swart, sharp face is the signal for Laughter, — 
in which indeed, the Man himself has unhap- 
pily evaporated, leaving no result behind 
him. 

Of the Baron d'Holbach thus much maybe 
said, that both at Paris and at Grandval he gives 
good dinners. His two or three score volumes 
of Atheistic Philosophism, which he published, 
(at his own expense,) may now be forgotten 
and even forgiven. A purse open and deep, 
a heart kindly-disposed, quiet, sociable, or even 
friendly ; these, with excellent wines, gain 
him a literary elevation, which no thinking 
faculty he had could have pretended to. An 
easy, laconic gentleman; of grave politeness; 
apt to lose temper at play; yet, on the whole, 
good-humoured, eupeptic, and eupractic: there 
may he live and let live. 

Nor is heaven's last gift to man wanting 
here; the natural sovereignty of women. Your 
Chatelets, Epinays, Espinasses, GeofTrins, Def- 
fands, will play their part too; there shall, in 
all senses, be not only Philosophers, but Phi- 
losophesses. Strange enough is the figure 
these women make : good souls, it was a 
strange world for them. What with meta- 
physics and flirtation, system of nature, fashion 
of dress-caps, vanity, curiosity, jealousy, 
atheism, rheumatism, trail es, bouts-rimes, noble- 
sentiments, and rouge-pots, — the A'ehement fe- 
male intellect sees itself sailing on a chaos, 
where a wiser might have wavered, if not 
foundered. For the rest, (as an accurate ob- 
server has remarked,) they become a sort of 
Lady-Presidents in that society; attain great 
influence ; and, imparting as well as receiving, 
communicate to all that is done or said some- 
what of their own peculiar tone. 

In a world so wide and multifarious, this 
little band of Philosophes, acting and speaking 
as they did, had a most various reception to 
expect; votes divided to the uttermost. The 
mass of mankind, busy enough with their own 
work, of course heeded them only when forced 
to do it; these, meanwhile, form the great 
neutral element, in which the battle has to 
fight itself; the two hosts, according to their 
several success, to recruit themselves. Of the 
Higher Classes, it appears, the small propor- 
tion not wholly occupied in eating and dressing, 
and therefore open to such a question, are in 
their favour, — strange as to us it may seem; 



the spectacle of a Church pulled down is, in 

siagnatit times, amusing, nor do the generality, 
on eitiier side, yet see whiiher ulieriorly it is 
tending. The Reading World, which was 
then more ihan now the inielligent, inquiring 
world, reads eagerly (as it will ever do) what- 
soever sUilful, sprightly, reasonable-looking 
■V(ird is written for it; enjoying, appropriating 
the same; perhaps without fixed judgment, or 
deep care of any kind. Carelul enough, fi.\ed 
enough, on the other hand, is the Jesuit 
Brotherhood; in these days sick unto death; 
but only the bitterer and angrier for that. 
Dangerous are the death-convulsions of aa 
expiring Sorbonne, ever and anon filling Paris 
with agitation : it behooves your Philosophe 
to walk warily, and, in many a critical circum- 
stance, to weep with the one cheek, and 
smile with the other. Nor is Literature itself 
wholly Philosophe : apart from the Jesuit 
regulars, in their Trevoux Journals, Sermons, 
Episcopal Charges, and other camps or case- 
mates, a considerable Guerrilla, or Reviewer 
force (consisting, as usual, of smugglers, un- 
employed destitute persons, deserters who have 
been refused promotion, and other the like 
broken characters) has organized itself, and 
maintains a harassing bush-warfare: of these 
the chieftain is Freron, once in tolerable repute 
with the world, had he not, carrying too high 
a head, struck his foot on stones, and stumbled. 
By the continual depreciating of talent, grown 
at length undeniable, he has sunk low enough : 
Voltaire, in the Ecossaise, ca.r\ bring him on the 
stage, and have him killed by laughter, under 
the name, sufficiently recognisable, of IVnsp, 
(in French, Frclon.) Another Empecenador, 
still more hateful, is Palissot, who has written 
and got acted a Comedy of Les Philosoplics, at 
which the Parisians, spite of its dulness, have 
also laughed. To laugh at us I The so merito- 
rious us! Heard mankind ever the like? For 
poor Palissot, had he fallen into Philosophe 
hands, serious bodily tar-aud-feathering might 
have been apprehended: as it wa';, they do 
what the pen, with its gall and copperas, can ; 
invoke Heaven and Earth to witness the treat- 
ment of divine Philosophy; — with which view, 
in particular, friend Diderot seems to have 
composed his Rameau^s Ncplino, wherein Palis- 
sot and others of his kidney are (figuratively 
speaking) mauled and mangled, and left not 
in dog's likeness. So divided was the world, 
Literary, Courtly, Miscellaneous, on this mat- 
ter: it was a confused anomalous time. 

Among its more notable anomalies may be 
reckoned the relations of French Philosophism 
to foreign Crowned Heads. In Prussia there 
is a Philosophe King; in Russia a Philosophe 
Empress : the whole North swarms with king- 
lets and queenlets of the like temper. Nay, as 
we have seen, they entertain their special am- 
bassador in Phi losophedom, their lion's-provider 
to furnish spiritual Philosophe-provender; and 
pay him well. The great Frederic, the great 
Catherine, are as nursing-father and nursing- 
mother to this new Church of Antichrist; in 
all straits, ready with money, honourable royal 
asylum, help of every sort, — which, however, 
except in the money-shape, the wiser of our 
Philosophes are shy of receiving. Voltaire has 



DIDEROT. 



411 



tried it in the asylum shape, and fonnd it un- 
suitable; D'Alembert and Diderot decline re- 
peatinij the experiment. What miracles are 
wrought by ihe arch-majrician Time! Could 
these Frederics, Catherines, Josephs, have 
looked forward some three-score years; and 
beheld the Holy Alliance in conference at 
Laybach ! Bat so goes the world : kings are 
not seraphic doctors, wiih gifi, of prescience, 
but only men, with common eyesij^ht, partici- 
paiing in the inlluences of their generation: 
kings too, like all mortals, have a certain love 
of knowledge; still more infallibly, a certain 
desire of applause; a certain delight in morti- 
fying one another. Thus what is persecuted 
here finds refuge there; and ever, one way or 
other, the New works itself out full-formed 
from under the Old; nay the Old, as in this 
instance, sits sedulously hatching a cockatrice 
that will one day devour it. 

No less anomalous, confused, and contradic- 
tory is the relation of the Philosophes to their 
own Government. How, indeed, could it be 
otherwise, their relation to Society being still 
so undecided; and the Government, which 
might have endeavoured to adjust and preside 
over this, being itself in a state of anomaly, 
death-lethargy, and doting decrepitude] The 
true conduct and position for a French Sove- 
reign towards French Literature, in that coun- 
try, might have been, though perhaps of all 
things the most important, one of the most dif- 
ficult to discover and accomplish. What chance 
was there that a thick-blooded Louis Quinze, 
from his Pmc aux Ccrfs, should discover it, 
should have the faintest inkling of it ] His 
"peaceable soul" was quite otherwise employ- 
ed: Minister after Minister must consult his 
own several insight, his own whim, above all 
his own ease: and so the whole business, now 
when we look on it, comes out one of the most 
botched, piebald, inconsistent, lamentable, and 
even ludicrous objects in the history of State- 
craft. Alas, necessity has no law: the slates- 
man, without light, perhaps even without eyes, 
whom Destiny nevertheless constrains to go- 
vern (what is still called governing) his nation 
in a time of World-Downfal, what shall he do, 
but if so may be, collect the taxes, prevent 
(in some degree) murder and arson ; and for 
the rest, wriggle hither and thither, return upon 
his steps, clout up old rents and open new, — 
and, on the whole, eat his victuals, and let the 
devil take it? Of the pass to which States- 
manship had come in respect of Philosophism, 
let this one fact be evidence instead of a thou- 
sand. M. de Malesherbes writes to warn Di- 
derot that next day he will give orders to have 
all his papers seized. — Impossible! answers 
Diderol: juste cicl! how shall I sort ihem, where 
shall I hide them, within four-and-twentj 
hours ? Send ihcni to me, answers M. de Males- 
herbes ! Thither accordingly they go, under 
lock and seal; and the hungry catchpoles find 
nothing but empty drawers. 

The Encyclopedic was set forth first " with 
approbation" and Piivile^e du Roi ; next, it was 
stopped by Authority; next, the public mur- 
muring suffered to proceed; then again, posi- 
tively for the last time, stopped, — and, no whit 
the less, printed, and written, and circulated, 



under thin disguises, some hundred and fifty 
printers working at it with open doors, all 
Paris knowing of it, only Authority winking 
hard. Choiseul, in his resolute way, had now 
shut the eyes of Authority, and kept them shut. 
Finally, to crown the whole mailer, a copy of 
the prohibited Book lies in the King's private 
library: and owes favour, and a withdrawal 
of the prohibition, to the foolishest accident: 

"One of Louis Fifteenth's domestics told 
me," says Voltaire, "that once, the king his 
master supping, in private circle (en peti erom- 
pagnie,) at Trianon, the conversation turned 
first on the chase, and from this on gunpowder. 
Some one said that the best powder was made 
of sulphur, saltpetre, and charcoal, in equal 
parts. The Due de la Valliere, with better 
knowledge, maintained that for good powder 
there must be but one part of sulphur, one of 
charcoal, with five of saltpetre, well filtered, 
well evaporated, well crystallized. 

"'It is pleasant,' said the Due de Nivernois, 
' that we who daily amuse ourselves with kill- 
ing partridges in the Park of Versailles, and 
sometimes with killing men, or getting our- 
selves killed, on the frontiers, should not know 
what that same work of killing is done with.' 

" ' Alas ! we are in the like case with all 
things in this world,' answered Madame de 
Pompadour; 'I know not what the rouge I put 
upon my cheeks is made of; you would bring 
me to a nonplus, if you asked how the silk 
hose I wear are manufactured.' ' 'Tis a pity,' 
said the Due de Valliere, ' that his majesty 
confiscated our Didionnaircs Encychpediques, 
which cost us our hundred pistoles ; we should 
soon find the decision of all our questions 
there.' The King justified the act of confis- 
cation ; he had been informed that these twen- 
ty-one folio volumes, to be found lying on all 
ladies' toilettes, were the most pernicious 
things in the world for the kingdom of France; 
he had resolved to look for himself if this 
were true, before sufl^ering the book to circu- 
late. Towards the end of the repast, he sends 
three of his valets to bring him a copy ; they 
enter, struggling under seven volumes each. 
The article jiowdcr is turned up ; the Due de la 
Valliere is found to be right: and soon Ma- 
dame Pompadour learns the difference between 
the old rouge d'Espugne with which the ladies 
of Madrid coloured their cheeks, and therowge 
dcs dames of Paris. She finds that the Greek 
and Roman ladies painted with a purple ex- 
tracted from the nmre.r, and that consequently 
our scarlet is the purple of the ancients ; that 
there is more purple in the rouge d'Espagne, 
and more cochineal in that of France. She 
learns how stockings are woven; the stock- 
ing-frame described there fills her with amaze- 
ment. 'Ah, what a glorious book !' cried she. 
'Sire, did you confiscate this magazine of all 
useful things, that you might have it wholly to 
yourself, then, and be the one learned man in 
your kingdom V Each threw himself on the 
volumes, like the daughters of Lycomedes on 
the jewels of Ulysses ; each found forthwith 
whatever he was seeking. Some who had 
lawsuits were surprised to find the decision of 
them there. The King reads there all the 
rights of his crown. ' Well, in truth,' (tnaU 



412 



CARLYLE'S MISCELT-ANEOUS WRITINGS. 



vraiment,) said he, ' I know not why they said 
so much ill of the book.' 'Ah, Sire,' said the 
Due de Nivernois, 'does not your majesty 
see,' &c. &c." 

In such a confused world, under such un- 
heard of circumstances, must friend Diderot 
ply his editorial labours. No sinecure is it! 
Penetrating into all subjects and sciences ; 
waiting and rummaging in all libraries, labo- 
ratories ; nay, for many years, fearlessly div- 
ing into all manner of workshops, unscrewing 
stocking looms, and even working thereon, 
(that the department of Jlrts and Trades might 
be perfect;) then seeking out contributors, and 
flattering them ; quickening their laziness, get- 
ting payment for them ; quarrelling with Book- 
scllerand Printer; bearing all miscalculations, 
misfortunes, misdoings of so many fallible men 
(for there all at last lands) on his single back: 
surely this was enougl), v/ilhout having farther 
to do battle with the beagles of Ollice, peri- 
lously withstand them, expensively sop them, 
toilsomely elude them ! Nevertheless, he per- 
severes, and will not but persevere; — less, per- 
haps, with the deliberate courage of a Man, 
who has compared result and outlay, than with 
the passionate obstinacy of a Woman who, 
having made up her mind, will shrink at no 
ladder of ropes, but ride with her lover, though 
all the four Elements gainsay it. At every 
new concussion from the Powers, he roars ; say 
rather, shrieks, for there is a female shrillness 
in it; proclaiming, Murder! Kobbery ! Rape! 
invoking men and angels ; meanwhile proceeds 
unweariedly with the printing. It is a hostile 
building up (not of the Holy Temple at Jeru- 
salem, but of the Unholy one at Paris :) thus 
must Diderot, like Ezra, come to strange ex- 
tremities ; and every workman works with his 
trowel in one hand, in the olherhis weapon of 
war; that so, in spite of all Tiglaths, the work 
go on, and the top-stone of it be brought out 
with shouting. 

Shouting! Ah! what faint broken quaver is 
that in the shout; as of a man that shouted with 
the throat only, and inwardly was bowed down 
with dispiritmcni'? It is Diderot's faint broken 
quaver: he is sick and heavy of soul. Scan- 
dalous enough : the Goth, Lebrelon, loving, 
as he says, his head better even than his profit, 
has for years gone privily at dead of night, to 
the finished Encyclopedic proof-sheets, and 
there with nefarious pen, scratched out what- 
ever to livin seemed dangerous ; filling up the 
gap as Ifc could, or merely letting it fill itself 
up. Heaven and Earth ! Not only are the 
finer Philosophe sallies mostly cut out, — but 
hereby has the work become a sunken, hitch- 
ing, ungainly mass, little better than a mon- 
strosity. Goth ! Hun ! sacrilegious Attila of 
the book-trade ! Oh, surely for this treason 
the hottest of Dante's Purgatory were too tem- 
perate. Infamous art thou, Lebreton, to all 
ages, — that read the Eiiryrlopedic : and Phi- 
losojihes not yet in s\'adJling-clothes shall 
gnash their teeth over ll ee, and spit upon thy 
memory. — Lebreton pockets both the abuse 
and the cash, and sleeps sound in a whole 
skin. The able Editor could never be said to 
get the better of it. 

Now, however, it is time that, quitting gen- 



eralities, we go, in this fine autumn weather, 
to Ilolbach's at Grandval, where the hard- 
worked, but unwearied Encyclopedist, with 
plenty of ink and writing paper, is sure to be. 
Ever in the Holbach household, his arrival is 
a holiday; if a quarrel spring up, it is only 
because he will not come, or too soon goes 
away. A man of social talent, with such a 
tongue as Diderot's, in a mansion where the 
only want to be guarded against was that of 
wit, could not be other than welcome. He 
composes Articles there, and walks, and dines, 
and plays cards, and talks; Ijinguishingly 
waits letters from his Voland, copiously writes 
to her. It is in these copious love-despatches 
that the whole matter is graphically painted: 
we have an Asmodeus' view of the interior 
life there, and live it over again with him. 
The Baroness in red silk, tempered with 
snow-white gauze, is beauty and grace itself; 
her old Mother is a perfect romp of fifteen, 
or younger; the house is lively with com- 
pany : the Baron, as we said, speaks little, 
but to the purpose ; is seen sometimes with 
his pipe, in dressing gown and red slippers; 
otherwise the best of landlords. Remarkable 
figures drop in: generals disabled at Quebec; 
fashionable gentlemen rusticating in the neigh- 
bourhood; Abbes, such as Galiani, Raynal, 
Morellet; perhaps Grimm and his Epinay ; 
other Philosophes and Philosophesses. Guests 
too of less dignity, acting rather as butts than 
as bowmen: for it is the part of every one 
either to have wit, or to be the cause of hav- 
ing it. 

Among these latter, omitting many, there is 
one whom, for country's sake, we must parti- 
cularize; an ancient personage, named Hoop 
(Hope,) whom they call Pare Hoop; by birth 
a Scotchman. Hoop seems to be a sort of 
fixture at Grandval, not bowman, therefore 
butt; and is shot at for his lodging. A most 
shrivelled, wind-dried, dyspeptic, chill-shiver- 
ing individual; Professor of Life-weariness; 
sits dozing there, — dozes there, however, with 
one eye open. He submits to be called Mummy 
without a shrug ; cowers over the fire, at the 
warmest corner. Yet is there a certain sar- 
donic subacidity in Pcre Hoop ; when he slow- 
ly unlocks his leathern jaw, we hear him with 
a sort of pleasure. Hoop has been in various 
countries and situations ; in that croaking 
metallic voice of his, can tell a distinct story. 
Diderot apprehended he would one day hang 
himself: if so, what Museum now holds his 
remains 1 The Parent Hoops, it would seem, 
still dwelt in the city of Edinburgh ; he, the 
second son, as Bourdeaux Merchant, having 
helped them thither, out of some proud Manor- 
house no longer weather-tight. Can any an- 
cient person of that city give us trace of such 
a man ] It must be inquired into. One only 
of Father Hoop's reminiscences we shall re- 
port, as the highest instance on rectu'd of a 
national virtue: At the battle of Piesionpans, 
a kinsman of Hoop, a gentleman with gold 
rings on his fingers, stands fighting and fenc- 
ing for life with a rough Highlander; the 
Highlander, by some clever stroke, whisks the 
jewelled hand clear off, and then — picks it up 
from the gro\ind, slicks it in his sporran for 



DIDEROT. 



413 



future leisure, and fights on! The force of 
Vir ue* could no further go. 

It cannot be uninteresting to the general 
reader to learn, that in the last days of October, 
in the year of grace 1770, Denis Diderot over- 
ale hiin-eif (as he was in the habit of doing,) 
atOrandval; and had an obstinate " indiges- 
tion of bread." He writes to fJrimm that it is 
the worst of all indigestions : to his fair Voland 
that it lay more than fifieen hours on his sto- 
mach, with a weight like to crush the life out 
of him; would neither remnnler nor (lesrendrc 
nor indeed stir a hairsbreadth for warm water, 
de quelque cote que je la (the warm waler) prixsc. 

Cliisterium donare, 
Ensuita purgare ! 

Such things, we grieve tosay, arc of frequent 
occurrence: the Holbachian table is all too 
plenteous ; there are cooks too, we know, who 
boast of their diabolic ability to cause the 
patient, by successive intensations of their art. 
to eat with new and ever new appetite, till he 
explode on the spot. Diderot writes to his faif 
one, that his clothes will hardly button, th;ii 
he is thus " stuffed," and thus ; and so indiges- 
tion succeeds indigestion. Such Narrative:- 
fill the heart of sensibility with amazement; 
nor to the woes that chequer this imperfect 
caco-gastric state of existence, is the tear 
wanting. 

The societyat Grandval cannot be acconnted 
very dull: nevertheless let no man regreifull) 
compare it with any neighbourhood he ma\ 
have drawn by lot, in the present day; or even 
with any no-neighbourhood, if that be hi- 
affliction. The gayety at Grandval was of thf 
kind that could not last. Were it not that some 
Belief is left in Mankind, how could the spor' 
of emitting Unbelief continue? On whicl 
ground, indeeil. Swift, in his masterly ar^nmen' 
*• Against abolishing the Christian Religion," 
urges, not without pathos, that innumerable 
men of wit, enjoying a comfortable status b\' 
virtue of jokes on the Catechism, would here- 
by he left without pabulum, the stnff of life cm 
away from their hand. The Holbachs were 
blind to this consideration ; and joked away 
as if it would last for ever. So too with regard 
to Obscene Tulk : where were the merit (fi 
riotous Moiher-in-law, saying and doing, in 
public, tht>se never-imagined scandals, had no' 
a cunningly-devised fable of Modesty been 
set afloat; were there not some remnants of 
Modesty still extant among the unphilosophir 
classes? The Samoeids (according to Travel- 
lers) have few double meanings; among stall 
cattle the witty effect of such is lost altogether. 
Be advised, then, for)lish old woman ! " Burn 
n= t thy brd ;" the light of it will soon go out 
and then?— Apart from the common house- 
hold topics, which the "daily household 
epochs" bring with them everywhere, two 
main elements, we regret to say, come to light 
in the conversaticm at Grandval ; these, with a 
spicin? of Noble-seniiincnt, are, unfortunatelv, 
Blasphpmy and Bawdry. Whereby, at this 
distance, the whole matter grows to look poor, 

♦ VtIiih (prnpprly mnTilinpss. tlio chinf duty of man) 
-nip int. in aMMomc.-pjiioeriiffi'htiiifr: iiipnns, in modern 
Jlomo, Connoisneurship ; in Scotland, Thrift.— Jio. 



and effete ; and we can honestly rejoice that it 
all has been, and need not be again. 

But now, hastening back to Paris, friend 
Diderot finds proof-sheets enough on his desk, 
and notes, and invitations, and applications 
from distressed men of letters; nevertheless 
runs over, in the first place, to seek news from 
the Voland; will then see what is to be done. 
He writes much; talks and visits much: be- 
sides the Savans, Artists, spiritual Notabilities, 
domestic or migratory, of the period, he has a 
liberal allowance of unnotable Associates; es- 
pecially a whole bevy of young or oldish, mostly 
rather spiteful Women; in whose gossip he is 
perfect. We hear the rustling of their silks, the 
clack of their pretty tongues, tittle-tattle " like 
theirpattens when they walk ;"and the sound of 
it, fresh as yesterday, through this long vista of 
Time has become significant, almost prophetic. 
Iiife could not hang heavy on Diderot's hands : 
he is a vivid, open, all-embracing creature ; 
could have found occupation anywhere; has 
occupation here forced on him, enough and to 
spare. "He had much to do, and did much 
of his own," says Mademoiselle; "yet three- 
fourths of his life was employed in helping 
whomsoever had need of his purse, of his 
talents, of his management: his study, for the 
five and twenty years I knew it, was like a 
well-frequented shop, where, as one customer 
went, another came." He could not find it in 
his h(!art to refuse any one. He has recon- 
ciled Brothers, sought out Tutorages, settled 
Lawsuits; solicited Pensions; advised, and 
refreshed hungry Authors, instructed ignorant 
ones: he has written advertisements for in- 
cipient helpless Grocers; he once wrote the 
dedication (to a pious Due d'Orleans) of a 
lampoon against himself, — and so raised some 
five and twenty gold louis, for the famishing 
limpooner. For all these things, let not the 
light Diderot want his reward with us! Other 
reward, except from himself, he got none; but 
often the reverse ; as in his little Drama, /^h 
Piece e' le Pr<.logve, may be seen humorously 
and good-humoured'y set forth under his own 
hand. Indeed, his clients, by a vast majority, 
were of the scoundrel species; in any case, 
Denis knew well, that to expect gratituele is to 
deserve ingratitude. — " Rivit're, well contented," 
(hear Mademoiselle,) " now thanks my father, 
both for his services and his advices; sits 
chatting another quarter of an ht)ur, and then 
takes leave; my father shows him down. As 
they are on the stairs. Riviere stops, turns 
round, and asks: ' M. Diderot, are you ac- 
quainted with Natural History?' — 'Why, a 
little, I know an aloe from a sago; a pigeon 
from a colibri." — ' Do you know the history of 
the Fi:rmic(i-hof' — 'No.' — 'It is a little insect 
of great industry : it digs a hole in the ground 
like a reversed funnel ; covers the top with 
fine light sand; entices foolish insects into it; 
takes them, sucks them, then says to them: M. 
Diderot, I have the honour to wish you good 
day.' My father stood laughing like to split at 
this adventure." 

Thus, amid labour and recrea'ion ; question- 
able Literature, unquestionable Loves ; eating 
and digesting, (better or worse;) in gladness 
and vexation of spirit, in laughter ending ia 
2 M 2 



414 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



sighs, does Diderot pass his days. He has 
been hard toiled, but then well flattered, and is 
nothing of a hypochondriac. What little ser- 
vice renown can do him, may now be consi- 
dered as done : he is in the centre of the litera- 
ture, science, art, of his nation ; not numbered 
among the Academical Forty; yet, in his 
heterodox heart, entitled to be almost proud of 
the exclusion ; successful in Criticism, suc- 
cessful in Philosophism, nay, (highest of sub- 
lunary glories,) successful in the Theatie; 
vanity may whisper, if she please, that ex- 
cepting the unattainable Voltaire alone, he is 
the first of Frenchmen. High heads are in 
correspondence with him, the low-born ; from 
Catharine the Empress to Phiiidor the Chess- 
player, he is in honoured relation with all 
manner of men ; with scientific Buffons, Eulers, 
D'Alemberts; with artistic Falconnets, Van- 
loos, Riccobonis,Garrick&. He was ambitions 
of being a Phiiosophe ; and now the whole 
fast-growing sect of Philosoplies look up to 
him as their head and mystagogue. To Denis 
Diderot, when he slept out of the Langres Dili- 
gen'-e at the College d'Harcourt; or after- 
wards, when he walked in the subterranean 
shades of Rascaldom, with uneasy steps over the 
burning marie, a much smaller destiny would 
have seemed desirable. Within doors, again, 
matters stand rather disjointed, as surely they 
might well do : however, Madame Diderot is 
always true and assiduous ; if one Daughter 
talk enthusiastically, and at length (though 
her father has written the Rcligieiise) die mad 
in a convent, the other, a quick, intelligent, 
graceful girl, is waxing into womanhood, and 
takes after the father's Philosophism, leaving 
the mother's Piety far enough aside. To 
which elements of mixed good and evil from 
without, add this so incalculably favourable 
one from within, that of a'l literary men Dide- 
rot is the least a self-listener; none of your 
puzzling, repenting, forecasting, earnest-bilious 
temperaments, but sanguineous-lymphatic ev- 
ery fibre of him, living lightly from hand to 
mouth, in a world mostly painted rose-colour. 
The E ■cyclopedie, &i\&r nigh thirty years of 
endeavour, (to which only the siege of Troy 
may offer some faint parallel,) is finished. Scat- 
tered Compositions of all sorts, printed or 
manuscript, making many Volumes, lie also 
6nished; the Phiiosophe has reaped no golden 
harvest from them. He is getting old: can 
live out of debt, but is still poor. Thinking to 
settle his daughter in marriage, he must re- 
solve to sell his Library; money is not other- 
wise to be raised. Here, however, the northern 
Cleopatra steps imperially torward ; purchases 
his Library for its full value; gives him a 
handsome pension, as librarian to keep it for 
her; and pays him moreover fifty years thereof 
by advance in ready mcmey. This we call 
imperial, (in a world so necessitous as ours.) 
though the whole munificence, did not (we 
find) Cost above three thousand pounds; a 
trifle to the Empress of ail the Russiis. In 
fact, it is about the sum your first-rate king 
eats, as board wages, in one day ; who, how- 
ever, has seld im sufficient: not to speak of 
charitable oveiplis. In admiration of his Em- 
press, (he vivid Phiiosophe is now louder than 



ever; he even breaks forth into (rather husky) 
singing. Who shall blame him? The North- 
ern Cleopatra (whom, in any case, he must 
regard with other eyes than we) has stretched 
out a generous, helping hand to him, where 
otherwise there was no help, but only hindrance 
and injury: all men will, and should, more or 
less, obey the proverb, to praise the fair as 
their own market goes in it. 

One of the last great scenes in Diderot's 
Ijjfe, is his personal visit to this Benefactress. 
There is but one letter from him with Peters- 
burgh for date, and that of ominous brevity. 
Tlie Phiiosophe was of open, unheedful, free- 
and-easy disposition; Prince and Polisson 
were singularly alike to him; it was "hail 
fellow well met," with every Son of Adam, be 
his clothes of one stuff or the other. Such a 
man could be no court-sycophant, was ill cal- 
culated to succeed at court. We can imagine 
that the Neva-cholic, and the character of the 
Neva-water were not the only things hurtful 
to his nerves there. For King Denis, who had 
dictated such wonderful anti-regalities in the 
Abbe Raynal's History ;* and himself, in a mo- 
ment of sibylism, emitted that surprising an- 
nouncement (surpassing all yet uttered, or 
utterable, in the Tyrtcean way) how 

Ses waivs (the freeman's) ourderaient les eutrailles du 

pretrc, 
■jlu defaut d'un cordon, pour ctraitgler Ics rois ; 

for such a one, the climate of the Neva must 
have had soi^ething oppressive in it. The 
cntrailles du pie'.re were, indeed, much at his 
service here, (could he get clutch of them;) 
but only for musical phiiosophe fiddle-strings;, 
nowise for a cordon! Nevertheless, Cleopatra 
is an uncommon woman, (or rather an uncom- 
mon man,) and can put up with many things; 
and, in a gentle, skilful way, make the crooked 
straight. As hrr Phiiosophe presents himself 
in common apparel, she sends him a splendid 
court-suit; and as he can now enter in a 
civilized manner, she sees him often, confers 
with him largely: by happy chance, Grimm 
too at length arrives; and the winter passes 
without accident. Returning home in triumph, 
he can express himself contented, charmed 
with his reception ; has mineral specimens, 
and all manner of h3'perborean memorials for 
friends; unheard-of-things to tell; how he 
crossed the bottomless, half-thawed Dwina, 
with the water boiling up round his whefls, 
the ice bending like leather, yet crackling like 



* " But who dare stand for this 1" would Diderot ex- 
claim. " I will ! I !" eagerly resjionded the Ablje. '■ Do 
l)ut iiroceed." (^la M^moire de Diderot, by De Meister.) 
— Wns ihe f. llnwiMjr one of the passnges i 

"Happily thi'se perverse insiruclora (of Kinss) are 
chistised, sooner or later, by the ineralitude and con- 
tempt of thi ir pupils. Happily, these pupils too. inise- 
rahle in ihi; bosom of grandeur, are tormented all their 
life hy a deep ennui which they cinnot banish from their 
pataie^ H;ippily. the religions pr jiidices whii h have 
been planted in their souls return on l hem to affrieht 
them. H ippily. the iiiournfiil silence of their people 
learhes them, from time to time, the deep hitred that is 
biirne them. H ippily, they are too cowardly to deaiise 
lliath tred. Hrippily, (//eitrci/.'sertienC.) afier a li:"e which 
no morl.il not even the meanest of his subjects, would 
iicept if he knew all its wretchedness, they find Mack 
inquietude, terror and despair, seated on the pillow of 
their deaili-'ied, (/s.< 7iui-fs inquittndet. la lerreur et Is 
d^-seapiiir assis ait rlievet de leur lit 4e vturt)'" Surely, 
'■ kin'-'^! hive pour times of it, to be run foul of by tlie- 
like of tijee I" 



DIDEROT. 



415 



mere ice, — and shuddered, and got through 
safe; how he was carried, coach and all, into 
the ferry-boat at Mittau, on thirty wild men's 
backs, who floundered in the mud, and nigh 
broke his shoulder-blade; how he investigated 
Holland, and had conversed with Empresses, 
and High Mightinesses, and principalities and 
powers, and so seen, and conquered (lor his 
own spiritual behoof) several of the Seven 
W<>nders. 

But, alas! his health is broken; old age is 
knocking at the gate, like an importunate 
creditor, who has warrant for entering. The 
radiant, lightly-bounding soul is now getting 
all dim, and stiff, and heavy with sleep : Dide- 
rot too must adjust himself, for the hour draws 
nigh. These last years he passes retired and 
private, not idle or miserable. Philosophy or 
Philosophism has nowise lost its charm ; 
whatsoever so much as calls itself Philosopher 
can interest him. Thus poor Seneca (on occ^a- 
sion of some new Version of his Works) 
having come before the public, and been 
roughly dealt with, Diderot, with a long, last, 
concentrated effort, writes his Vie de Senapic : 
struggling to make the hollow solid. Which, 
alas! after all his tinkering still sounds hol- 
low ; and notable Seneca, so wistfully desirous 
to stand well with Truth, and yet not ill with 
Nero, is and remains only our perhaps nice- 
liest-proportioned Half-and-half, the plausiblest 
Plausible on record; no great man, no true 
man, no man at all; yet how much lovelier 
than such, — as the mild-spiken, tolerating, 
charity-sermoning, immaculate Bishop Dog- 
bolt, to a rude, self-helping:, sharp-tongued 
Apostle Paul! Under which view, indeed. 
Seneca (though surely erroneously, for the 
origin of the thing was different) has been 
called, in this generation, "the father of all 
such as wear shovel-hats." 

The Vie de Seiie(j7<r, as we said, was Diderot's 
last effort. It remains only to be added of him 
that he too died; a lingerinsr but quiet deatli, 
vhich took place on the 30th of July, 1784. 
He once quotes from Montaigne the following, 
as Skeptic's viaticum: "I plunge stupidly, 
head foremost, into this dumb Deep, which 
swallows me. and chokes me, in a moment. — 
full of insipidity and indolence. Death, which 
is but a quarter of an hour's suffering, without 
consequence and without injury, does not re- 
quire peculiar precepts." It was Diderot's 
allotment to die with all due "stupidity:" he 
was leaning on his elbows; had eaten an 
apricot two minutes before, and answered his 
wife's remonstrances with: Mais gvc dinlle r'c 
nml veuT-'.u que rein, me fafse? (How the dense 
can that hurt me?) She spoke again, and he 
answered not. His House, which the curious 
will visit when they go to Paris, was in the 
Rue Taranne, at the intersection thereof with 
the Rue Saint-Benoit. The dust that was once 
his Body went to mingle with the common 
earth, in the church of Saint-Roch; his I-ife, 
the wondrous manifcdd Force that was in him, 
that was He, — returned to Etsunity, and m 
there, and continues there ! 

Two things, as we saw, are celebrated of 
Diderot. First, that he had the most encyclo- 



pedical head ever seen in this world : second,, 
that he talked as never man talked ; — properly, 
as never man his admirers had heard, or as no 
man living in Paris then. That is to say, his 
was at once the widest, fertilest, and readiest 
of minds. 

With regard to the Encyclopedical Head, 
suppose it to mean that he was of such viva- 
city as to admit, and look upon with interest, 
almost all things which the circle of Existence 
could offer him; in which sense, this exag- 
gerated laudation, of Encyclope.Hsm, is not 
without its fraction of meaning. Of extra- 
ordinary openness and compass we must grant 
the mind of Diderot to be; of a susceptibility, 
quick activity; even naturally of a depth, and 
in its practical realized shape, of a univer- 
sality, which bring it into kindred with the 
highest order of minds. On all forms of this 
wondrous Creation he can look with loving 
wonder; whatsoever thing stands there, has 
some brotherhood with him, some beauty and 
meaning for him. Neither is the faculty to 
see and interpret wanting; as, indeed, this 
faculty to see is inseparable from that other 
faculty to look; from that true wish to look; 
moreover (under another figure,) Intellect is 
not a tool, but a hand that can handle any tool. 
Nay, in Diderot we may discern a far deeper 
universality than that shown, or showable, in 
Lebreton's Enryrlopedie : namely, a poetical; 
for, in slight gleams, this too manifests itself. 
A universality less of the head than of the 
character; such, we say, is traceable in this 
man, at lowest the power to have acquired 
such. Your true Encyclopedical is the Homer, 
the Shakspeare; every genuine Poet is a liv- 
ing eiTibodied, real Encyclopedia. — in more or 
fewer volumes; were his experience, his in- 
sight of details, never so limited, the whole 
world lies imaged as a whole within him; 
whosoever has not seized the whole cannot 
yet speak truly (much less can he speak vm- 
nciUy, which is harmoniously, concorduntly) of 
any part, but will perpetually need new guid- 
ance, rectification. The fit use of such a 
man is as hodman; not feeling the plan of the 
edifice, let him carry stones to it; if he build 
the smallest stone, it is likeliest to be wrong, 
and cannot continue there. 

But the truth is, as regards Diderot, this 
saying of the encyclopedical head comes 
mainly from his having edited a Bookseller's 
Encyclopedia, and can afford us little direc- 
tion. Looking into the man, and omitting his 
trade, we find him by nature gifted in a high 
degree with openness and versatility, yet no- 
wise in the highest degree ; alas, in quite an- 
other degree than that. Nay, if it be meant 
further that in practice, as a writer and think- 
er, he has taken in the Appearances of Life 
and the World, and images them back with 
such freedom, clearness, fidelity, as we have 
not many times witnessed elsewhere, as we 
have not various times seen infinitely sur- 
passed elsewhere. — this same encyclopedical 
praise must altogetherbedenied him. Didei-ot's 
habitual world, we must on the contrary say, 
is a ha'f-world, distorted into looking like a 
whole; it is properly, a poor, fractional, insig- 
nificant world ; partial, inaccurate, perverted 



416 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



from end to end. Alas, it was the destiny of 
the man to live as a Polemic; to be born also 
in the mornin°; tide and first splendour of the 
Mechanical Era; not to know, with the small- 
est asMirance or continuance, that in the Uni- 
verse, other than a mechanical meaning could 
exist: which force of destiny acting on him 
through his whole course, we have obtained 
what now stands before us : no Seer, but only 
possibilities of a Seer, transient irradiations 
of a Seer, looking through the organs of a 
Philosophe. 

'I'hese two considerations, which indeed are 
properly but one, (for a thinker, especially of 
French birth, in the Mechanical Era, could 
not be other than a Polemic,) must never for 
a moment be left out of view in judging the 
■works of Diderot. It is a great truth, one side 
of a great truth, that the Man makes the Cir- 
cumstances, and spiritually as well as econo- 
mically, is the artificer of his own fortune. 
But there is another side of the same truth, 
that the man's circumstances are the element 
he is appointed to live and work in ; that he 
by necessity takes his complexion, vesture, 
imbodyment, from these, and is, in all practi- 
cal manifestations, modified by them almost 
without limit; so that in another no less ge- 
nuine sense, it can be said the Circumstances 
make the Man. Now, if it continually be- 
hoves us to insist on the foriner truth towards 
ourselves, it equally behoves us to bear in 
mind the latter when we judge of other men. 
The most gifted soul, appearing in France in 
the Eighteenth Century, can as little imbody 
himself in the intellectual vesture of an Athe- 
nian Plato, as in the grammatical one; his 
thought can no more be Greek, than his lan- 
guage can. He thinks of the things belong- 
ing to the French eighteenth century, and in 
the dialect he has learned there; in the light, 
and under the conditions prescribed there. 
Thus, as the most original, resolute, and self- 
directing of all the Moderns has written : 
"Let a man be but born ten years sooner, or 
ten years later, his whole aspect and perform- 
ance shall be different." Grant, doubtless, 
that a certain perennial Spirit, true for all 
times and all countries, can and must look 
through the thinking of certain men, be it in 
•what dialect soever: understand, meanwhile, 
that strictly this holds only of the highest 
order of men, and cannot be exacted of infe- 
rior orders ; among whom, if the most sedu- 
lous, loving )nspecti(m disclose any even 
secondary symptoms of such a Spirit, it ought 
to seem enough. Let us remember well that 
the high-gifted, high-striving Diderot was born 
in the point of Time and of Space, when of 
all uses he could turn himself to, of all dia- 
lects speak in, this of Polemical Philosophism, 
and no other, seemed the most promising and 
fittest. Let us remember too that no earnest 
Man, in any Time, ever spoke what was 
wholly meaning'ess ; that, in all human con- 
victions, much more in all human practices, 
there was a true side, a fraction of truth; 
which fraction is precisely the thing we want 
to extract from them, if we want any thing at 
all 10 do with them. 

Such palliative considerations (which, for 



the rest, concern not Diderot, now departed, 
and indifferent to them, but only ourselves 
who could wish to see him, and not to mis-see 
him) are essential, we say, through our whole 
survev of his Opinions and Proceedings, ge- 
nerally so alien to our own ; but most nf all 
in reference to his head Opinion, properly, the 
source of all the rest, and the more shocking, 
even horrible, to us than all the rest: we 
mean his Atheism. David Hume, dining once 
in company where Diderot was, remarked 
that he did not think there were any Atheists. 

"Count us," said a certain Monsieur : 

they were eighteen. "Well," said the Mon- 
sieur , " it is prett}^ fair if you have 

fished out fi.f'teen at the first cast; and three 
others who know not what to think of it." In 
fact, the case was common : your Philosophe 
of the first water had grown to reckon Athe- 
ism a necessary accomplishment. Gowkthrap- 
ple Naigeon, as we saw, had made himself 
very perfect therein. 

Diderot was an Atheist, then ; stranger still, 
a proselytizing Atheist, who esteemed the 
creed worth earnest reiterated preaching, and 
enforcement with all vigour ! The unhappy 
man had "sailed through the Universe of 
Worlds and found no Maker thereof; had de- 
scended to the abysses where Being no longer 
casts its shadow, and felt only the rain-drops 
trickle down ; and seen only the glimmering 
rainbow of Creation, which originated from 
no Sun ; and heard only the everlasting storm 
which no one governs ; and looked upwards 
for the Divine Eye, and beheld only the black, 
bottomless, glaring Death's Eye-socket:" 
such, with all his wide voyages, was the phi- 
losophic fortune he had realized. 

Sad enough, horrible enough : yet instead 
of shrieking over it, or howling and Ernul- 
phus'-cursing over it, let us, as the more pro- 
fitable method, keep our composure, and in- 
quire a little. What possibly it may mean! 
The whole phenomenon, as seems to us, will 
explain itself from the fact above insisted on, 
that Diderot was a Polemic of decided cha- 
racter, in the Mechanical Age. With great ex- 
penditure of words and froth, in arguments as 
waste, wild-welierins, delirious-dismal as the 
chaos they would demonstrate — which argu- 
ments one now knows not whether to laugh at 
or to weep at, and almost does both, — have Di- 
derot and his sect perhaps made this apparent 
to all who examine it : That in the French Sys- 
tem of Thought, (called also the Scotch, and 
still familiar enough everywhere, which for 
want of a belter title we have named ihe Me- 
chanical.) there is no room for a Divinity; 
that to him for whom "intelkr', or the power 
of knowing and believing is still synonymous 
with to3;ir, or the mere power of arranging 
and communicating," there is absolutely no 
proof discoverable of a Divinity ; and such a 
m^n has nothing for it but either (if he be of 
half spirit, as is the fequent case) to trim 
despicably all his days between two opin- 
ions; or else (if he be of whole spirit) to an- 
chor on the rock or quagmire of Atheism, — 
and further, should he see fit, proclaim to 
others that there is good riding there. So 
much may Diderot have demunstraied : a 



DIDEROT. 



417 



conclusion at which we nowise turn pale. 
Was it much to know that Metaphysical Spe- 
culation, by nature, whirls round in endless 
Mahlstroms, both "creating and swallowing — 
itself!" For so wonderful a self-swallowing 
product of the Spirit of Time, could any re- 
sult to arrive at be fitter than this of the Eteh- 
NAi. Nol We thank Heaven that the result 
is finally arrived at; and so now we can look 
out for something other and further. But, 
above all things, proof of a God] A probuUc 
God! The smallest' of Finites struggling to 
prove to itself (that is to say, if we consider it, 
to picture out and arrange as diagram, and 
inc/iw/c within itself ) the Highest Infinite; in 
which, by hypothesis, it lives, and moves, and 
has its being! This, we conjecture, will one 
day seem a much more miraculous miracle 
than that negative result it has arrived at, — or 
any other result a still absurder chance might 
have led it to. He who, in some singular 
Time of the World's History, were reduced 
to wander about, in stooping posture, with 
painfully constructed sulphur-match and far- 
thing rushlight, (as Gowkthrapple Naigeon,) 
or smoky tar-link, (as Denis Diderot,) search- 
ing for the Sun, and did not find it; were he 
wonderful and his failure; or the singular 
Time, and its having put him on that search 1 

Two small consequences, then, we fancy, 
may have followed, or be following, from poor 
Diderot's Atheism. First, that all speculations 
of the sort we call Natural-theology, endeavour- 
ing to prove the beginning of all Belief by 
some Belief earlier than the beginning, are 
barren, inefl^ectual, impossible; and may, so 
soon as otherwise it is profitable, be abandoned. 
Of final causes, man, by the nature of the case, 
can prm>e nothing; knows them (if he know 
any thing of them) not by glimmering flint- 
sparks of Logic, but by an infinitely higher 
light of intuition ; never long, by Heaven's 
mercy, wholly eclipsed in the human soul ; and 
(under the name of Faith, as regards this mat- 
ter) familiar to us now, historically or in con- 
scious possession, for upwards of four thousand 
years. To all open men it will indeed always 
he a favourite contemplation, that of watching 
the ways of Being, how animate adjusts itself 
to inanimate, rational to irrational ; and this, 
that we name Nature, is not a desolate phan- 
tasm of a chaos, but a wondrous existence and 
reality. If, moreover, in those same "marks 
of design," as he has called them, the contem- 
plative man find new evidence of a designing 
Maker, be it well for him : meanwhile, surely, 
the still clearer evidence lay nearer home, in 
the contemplative man's own head that seeks 
after such ! In which point of view our ex- 
tant Natural-theologies, as our innumerable 
Evidences of the Christian Religion, and such 
like, may, in reference to the strange season 
they appear in, have an indubitable value and 
be worth printing and reprinting; only let us 
understand for whom, and how, they are va- 
luable; and be nowise wroth with the poor 
Atheist, whom they have not convinced, and 
could not, and should not convince. 

The second consequence seems to be that 
this whole current hypothesis of the Universe 
being "a Machine," and then of an Architect, 
53 



who constructed it, sitting as it were apart, and 
guiding It, and seeing it go, — may turn out an in- 
anity and nonentity ; not much longer tenable : 
with which result likewise we shall, in the quiet- 
est manner, reconcile ourselves. "Think ye," 
says Goethe, " that God made the Universe, 
and then let it run round his finger (am Finger 
laufen Hesse /)" On the whole, that Metaphysi- 
cal hurly-burly (of our poor, jarring, self-lis- 
tening Time) ought at length to compose itself: 
that seeking for a God there, and not here ; every- 
where outwardly in physical Nature, and not 
inwardly in our own Soul, where alone He is 
to be found by us, — begins to get wearisome. 
Above all, that " faint possible Theism," which 
now forms our common English creed, cannot 
be too soon swept out of the world. What is 
the nature of that individual, who with hysteri- 
cal violence theoretically asserts a God, per- 
haps a revealed Symbol and Worship of God; 
and for the rest, in thought, word, and conduct, 
meet with him where you will, is found living 
as if his theory were some polite figure of 
speech, and his theoretical God a mere distant 
Simulacrum, with whom he, for his part, had 
nothing further to do 1 Fool ! The Eternal 
is no Simulacrum ; God is not only There, but 
Here, or nowhere, in that life-breath of thine, 
in that act and thought of thine, — and thou 
wert wise to look to it. If there is no God, as 
the fool hath said in his heart, then live on 
with thy decencies, and lip-homages, and in- 
ward Greed, and falsehood, and all the hollow 
cunningly-devised halfness that recommends 
ihee to the Mammon of this world: if there is 
a God, we say, look to it ! But in either case, 
what art thou 1 The Atheist is false; yet is 
there, as we see, a fraction of truth in him : he is 
true compared with thee; thou unhappy mortal, 
livest wholly in a lie, art wholly a lie. 

So that Diderot's Atheism comes, if not to 
much, yet to something: we learn this from it 
(and from what it stands connected with, and 
may represent for us,) that the Mechanical Sys- 
tem of Thought is, in its essence. Atheistic; that 
whosoever will admit no organ of truth but 
logic, and nothing to exist but what can be 
argued of, must even content himself with his 
sad result, as the only solid one he can arrive 
at; and so with the best grace he can " of the 
DEther make a gas, of God a force, of the second 
world a coffin ;" of man an aimless nondescript, 
" little better than akind of vermin." If Diderot, 
by bringing matters to this parting of the roads, 
have enabled or helped us to strike into the 
truer and better road, let him have our thanks 
for it. As to what remains, be pity our only 
feeling ; was not his creed miserable enough ; 
nay, moreover, did not he bear its miserable- 
ness, so to speak, in our stead, so that it need 
now be no longer borne by any one. 

In this same, for him unavoidable circum- 
stance, of the age he lived in, and the system 
of thought universal then, will be found the 
key to Diderot's whole spiritual character and 
procedure; the excuse for much in him that 
to us is false and perverted. Beyond the 
meagre " rush-light of closet-logic," Diderot 
recognised no guidance. That " the Highest 
cannot be spoken of in words," was a truth he 
had not dreamt of. Whatsoever thing he can- 



418 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



not debate of, we might almost say measure 
and weigh, and carry off with him to be eaten 
and enjoyed, is simply not there for him. He 
dwelt all his days in the " thin rind of the 
Conscious ;" the deep fathomless domain of the 
Unconscious, whereon the other rests, and has 
its meaning, was not, under any shape, sur- 
mised by him. Thus must the Sanctuary of 
Man's Soul stand perennially shut against this 
man ; where his hand ceased to grope, the 
World ended : within such strait conditions 
had he to live and labour. And naturally to dis- 
tort and dislocate, more or less, all things he 
laboured on : for whosoever, in one way or 
another, recognises not that " Divine Idea of 
the World, which lies at the bottom of Appear- 
ances," can rightly interpret no Appearance ; 
and whatsoever spiritual thing he does, must 
do it partially, do it falsely. 

Mournful enough, accordingly, is the ac- 
count which Diderot has given himself of 
Man's existence ; on the duties, relations, pos- 
sessions whereof he had been a sedulous think- 
er. In every conclusion we have this fact of 
his Mechanical culture. Coupled too with 
another fact honourable to him: that he stuck 
not at half measures; but resolutely drove 
on to the result, and held by it. So that 
we cannot call him a skeptic ; he has merited 
the more decisive name of Denier. He may be 
said to have denied that there was any the 
smallest Sacredness in Man, or in the Uni- 
verse ; and to have both speculated and lived on 
this singular footing. We behold in him the nota- 
ble extreme of a man guiding himself with the 
least spiritual Belief that thinking man perhaps 
ever had. Religion, in all recognisable shapes 
and senses, he has done what man can do to clear 
out of him. He believes that pleasure is plea- 
sant ; that a lie is unbelievable ; and there, his 
credo terminates; nay there, what perhaps 
makes his case almost unique, his very fancy 
seems to fall silent. 

For a consequent man, all possible spiritual 
perversions are included under that grossest 
one of "proselytizing Atheism;" the rest, of 
what kind and degree soever, cannot any 
longer astonish us. Diderot has them of all 
kinds and degrees ; indeed, we might say, the 
French Philosophe (take him at his wo^rl, for 
inwardly much that was foreign adhered to 
him, do what he could) has emitted a Scheme 
of the World, to which all that Oriental Mul- 
lah, Bonze, or Talapoin have done in that 
kind is poor and feeble. Omitting his whole 
unparalleled Cosmoganies and Physiologies; 
coming to his much milder Tables of the 
Moral Law, we shall glance here but at one 
minor external item, the relation between man 
and man ; and at only one branch of this, 
and with all slightness, the relation of cove- 
nants ; for example, the most important of 
these. Marriage. 

Diderot has convinced himself, and, indeed, 
as above became plain enough, acts on the 
conviction, that Marriage, contract it, solemnize 
it in what way you will, involves a solecism 
which reduces the amount of it to simple 
zero. It is a suicidal covenant; annuls itself 
in the very forming. " Thou makest a vow," 
says he, twice or thrice, as if the argument 



were a clencher, "thou makest a vow of 
eternal constancy under a rock, which is evea 
then crumbling away." True, O Denis! the 
rock crumbles away : all things are changing; 
man changes faster than most of them. That, 
in the meanwhile, an Unchangeable lies under 
all this, and looks forth, solemn and benign, 
through the whole destiny and workings of 
man, is another truth ; which no Mechanical 
Philosophe, in the dust of his logic-mill, can 
be expected to grind out for himself. Man 
changes, and will change : the question then 
arises, Is it wise in him to tumble forth, in 
headlong obedience to this love of change; is 
it so much as possible for him ] Among the 
dualisms of man's wholly dualistic nature, this 
we might fancy was an observable one : that 
along with his unceasing tendency to change, 
there is a no less ineradicable tendency to per- 
severe. Were man only here to change, let 
him, far from marrying, cease even to hedge 
in fields, and plough them ; before the autumn 
season, he may have lost the whim of reaping 
them. Let him return to the nomadic state, 
and set his house on wheels ; nay there too a 
certain restraint must curb his love of change, 
or his cattle will perish by incessant driving, 
without grazing in the intervals. O Denis, 
what things thou babblest in thy sleep! How, 
in this world of perpetual flux, shall man 
secure himself the smallest foundation, except 
hereby alone : that he take pre-assurance of 
his Fate ; that in this and the other high act 
of life, his Will, with all soler..ity, a Wica/c its 
right to change; voluntarily become involun- 
tary, and say once for all. Be there then no 
further dubitation on it ! Nay, the poor un- 
heroic craftsman ; that very stocking-weaver, 
on whose loom thou now as amateur weavest: 
must not even he do as much, — when he 
signed his apprentice-indentures'? The fool! 
who had such a relish in himself for all things, 
for kingship and emperorship; yet made a 
vow (under penalty of death by hunger) of 
eternal constancy to stocking-weaving. Yet 
otherwise, were no thriving craftsmen possible ; 
only botchers, bunglers, transitory nonde- 
scripts; unfed, mostly gallows-feeding. But, 
on the whole, what feeling it was in the 
ancient devout deep soul, which of Marriage 
made a SacniDient : this, of all things in the 
world, is what Denis will think of for seons, 
without discovering. Unless, perhaps, it were 
to increase the vestry-fees! 

Indeed, it must be granted, nothing yet seen 
or dreamt of can surpass the liberalitj' of 
friend Denis as magister morum ; nay, often 
our poor Philosophe feels called on, in an age 
of such Spartan rigor, to step forth into the 
public Stews, and emit his inspiring Made 
virlute! there. Whither let the curious in 
such matters follow him : we, having work else- 
where, wish him "good journey," — or rather 
" safe return." Of Diderot's indelicacy and 
indecency there is for us but little to say. 
Diderot is not what we call indelicate and in- 
decent; he is utterly unclean, scandalous, 
shameless, sansculottic-samoedic. To declare 
with lyric fury that this is wrong; or with 
historic calmness, that a pig of sensibility 
would go distracted did you accuse him of it,. 



DIDEROT. 



419^ 



may (especially in countries where "indecent 
exposure" is cognised at police-offices) be 
considered superfluous. The only question 
is one in Natural History : Whence comes it? 
What may a man, not otherwise without ele- 
vation of mind, of kindly character, of immense 
professed philanthropy ; and doubtless of ex- 
traordinary insight, mean thereby 1 To us it 
is but another illustration of the fearless, all- 
for-logic, thoroughly consistent. Mechanical 
Thinker. It coheres well enough with Diderot's 
theory of man ; that there is nothing of sacred 
either in man or around man ; and that chime- 
ras are chimerical. How shall he for whom 
nothing, that cannot be jargoned of in debating- 
clubs, exists, have any faintest forecast of the 
depth, significance, divineness of Silence; of 
the sacredness of "Secrets known to alH" 

Nevertheless, Nature is great; and Denis 
was among her nobler productions. To a 
soul of his sort something like what we call 
Conscience could nowise be wantmg: the 
feeling of Moral Relation, of the Infinite charac- 
ter thereof, (as the essence and soul of all else 
that can be felt or known,) must assert itself 
in him. Yet how assert itselfl An Infini- 
tude to one, in whose whole Synopsis of the 
Universe no Infinite stands marked? Won- 
derful enough is Diderot's method ; and yet 
not wonderful, for we see it, and have always 
seen it, daily. Since there is nothing sacred 
in the Universe, whence this sacredness of 
what you call Virtue ? Whence or how comes 
it that you, Denis Diderot, must not do a wrong 
thing ; could not, without some qualm, speak, 
for example, one Lie, to gain Mohammed's 
Paradise with all its houris? There is no re- 
source for it, but to gel into that interminable 
ravelment of Reward and Approval, virtue 
being its own reward; and assert louder and 
louder, — contrary to the stern experience of all 
men, from the Divine Man, expiring with 
agony of bloody sweat on the accursed tree, 
down to us two, O reader (if we have ever 
done one Duty) — that Virtue is synonymous 
with Pleasure. Alas ! was Paul, an apostle 
of the Gentiles, virtuous ; and was virtue its 
own reward, when his approving conscience 
told him that he was "the chief of sinners," 
and (bounded to this life alone) " of all men 
the most miserable?" Or has that same so 
sublime Virtue, at bottom, little to do witii 
Pleasure, if with far other things ? Are 
Eudoxia, and Eusebeia, and Euthanasia, and 
all the rest of them, of small account to Eubo- 
sia and Eupepsia; and the pains of any 
moderately-paced Career of Vice (Denis him- 
self being judge) as a drop in the bucket to 
the " Career of Indigestions ?" This is what 
Denis never in this world will grant. 

But what then will he do? One of two 
things : admit, with Grimm, that there are 
" two justices," — which may be called by many 
handsome names, but properly are nothing 
but the pleasant justice, and the unpleasant; 
whereof only the former is binding. Herein, 
however. Nature has been unkind to Denis ; 
he is not a literary court-toad-eater ; but a free, 
genial, even poetic creature. There remains, 
therefore, nothing but the second expedient ; 
to " assert louder and louder;" in other words, 



to become a Philosophe-Sentimentalist. Most 
wearisome, accordingly, is the perpetual clat- 
ter kept up here about vcrtu, honnetde, grandeur, 
sensibilite, arnes-nobks; how unspeakably good it 
is to be virtuous, how pleasant, how sublime: 
"In the Devil and his grandmother's name, be 
virtuous ; and let us have an end of it!" In 
such sort (we will nevertheless joyfully recog- 
nise) does great Nature in spite of all contra- 
dictions, declare her royalty, her divineness ; 
and, for the poor Mechanical Philosophe, has 
prepared since the substance is hidden from 
him, a shadow wherewith he can be cheered. 

In fine, to our ill-starred Mechanical Phi- 
losophe-Sentimentalist, with his loud preaching 
and rather poor performing, shall we not, in 
various respects, " thankfully stretch out the 
hand?" In all ways, "it was necessary that 
the logical side of things should likewise be 
made available." On the whole, wondrous 
higher developments of much, of Morality 
among the rest, are visible in the course of the 
world's doings, at this day. A plausible pre- 
diction were that the Ascetic System is not to 
regain its exclusive dominancy. Ever, indeed, 
must Self-denial, " Annihilation of Self, be the 
beginning of all moral action:" meanwhile, he 
that looks well, may discern filaments of a 
nobler System, wherein this lies included as 
one harmonious element. Who knows what 
new unfoldings and complex adjustments await 
us, before, (for example,) the true relation of 
moral Greatness to moral Correctness, and 
their proportional value, can be established ? 
How, again, is perfect tolerance for the Wrong 
to co-exist with ever-present conviction that 
Right stands related to it, as a God does to a 
Devil, — an Infinite to an opposite Infinite? 
How, in a word, through what tumultuous vi- 
cissitudes, after how many false partial efforts, 
deepening the confusion, shall it, at length, be 
made manifest, and kept continually manifest 
to the hearts of men, that the Good is not pro- 
perly the highest, but the Beautiful ; that the 
true Beautiful (difl^ering from the false, as 
Heaven does from Vauxhall,) comprehends in 
it the Good ? — In some future century, it may 
be found that Denis Diderot, acting and pro- 
fessing, in wholeness and with full conviction, 
what the immense multitude act in halfness 
and without conviction, — has, though by strange- 
inverse methods, forwarded the result. It was 
long ago written, the Omnipotent" maketh the 
wrath of the wicked" (the folly of the foolish)^ 
" to praise Him." In any case, Diderot acted 
it, and not we ; Diderot bears it, and not we : 
peace be with Diderot ! 

The other branch of his renown is excel- 
lence as a Talker. Or in wider view, (think 
his admirers,) his philosophy was not more ' 
surpassing than his delivery thereof. What 
his philosophy amounts to we have been ex- 
amining : but now, that in this other conversa- 
tional province he was eminent, is easily be- 
lieved. A frank, ever-hoping, social character; ■ 
a mind full of knowledge, full of fervour; of 
great compass, of great depth, ever on the 
alert: such a man could not have other thar. 
a "mouth of gold." It is still plain, .what- 
soever thing imaged itself before him; waj 



420 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



imaged in the most lucent clearness ; was 
rendered back, with light labour, in corre- 
sponding clearness. Whether, at the same 
time, Diderot's conversation, relatively so su- 
perior, deserved the intrinsic character of su- 
preme, may admit of question. The worth 
of words spoken depends, after all, on the 
wisdom that resides in them ; and in Diderot's 
words there was often too little of this. Vi- 
vacity, far-darting brilliancy, keenness of theo- 
retic vision, paradoxical ingenuity, gayety, 
even touches of humour; all this must have 
been here; whosoever had preferred sincerity, 
earnestness, depth of practical rather than 
theoretic insight, with not less of impetuosity, 
of clearness and sureness, with humour, em- 
phasis, or such other melody or rhythm as that 
utterance demanded, — must have come over 
to London; and (with forbearant submissive- 
ness) listened to our Johnson. Had we the 
Stronger man, then 1 Be it rather, as in that 
Duel of Coeur-de-Leon witli (he light, nimble, 
yet also invincible Saladin, that each nation 
had the strength which most befitted it. 

Closely connected with this power of con- 
versation is Diderot's facility of composition. 
A talent much celebrated; numerous really 
surprising proofs whereof are on record ; how 
he wrote long works within the week; some- 
times within almost the four-and-twenty hours. 
Unhappily, enough still remains to make such 
feats credible. Most of Diderot's Works bear 
the clearest traces of extemporaneousness; 
stans pcdc inuno! They are much liker printed 
talk, than the concentrated well-considered 
utterance, which, from a man of that weight, 
we expect to see set in types. It is said, "he 
wrote good pages, but could not write a good 
book." Substitute dtd not for could not : and 
there is some truth in the saying. Clearness, 
as has been observed, comprehensibility at a 
glance, is the character of whatever Diderot 
wrote : a clearness which, in visual objects, 
rises into the region of the Artistic, and re- 
sembles that of Richardson or Defoe. Yet, 
grant that he makes his meaning clear, what 
is the nature of that meaning itself ! Alas, for 
most part, only a hasty, flimsy, superficial 
meaning, with gleams of a deeper vision peer- 
ing through. More or less of Disorder reigns 
iQ all Works that Diderot wrote; not order, but 
the plausible appearance of such: the true 
heart of the matter is not found ; " he skips 
deftly along the radii, and skips over the centre, 
and misses it." 

Thus may Diderot's admired Universality 
and admired facility have both turned to dis- 
advantage for him. We speak not of his 
reception by the world : this indeed is the " age 
of specialities ;" yet, owing to other causes, 
Diderot the Encyclopedist had success enough. 
But, what is of far more importance, his in- 
ward growth was marred: the strong tree shot 
not up in any one noble stem, (bearing boughs, 
and fruit, and shade all round;) but spread 
out horizontally, after a very moderate height, 
into innumerable branches, not useless, yet of 
quite secondary use. Diderot could have been 
an Artist; and he was little better than an En- 
cyclopedic Artisan. No smatterer indeed; a 
Ikithful artisan ; of really universal equip- 



ment, in his sort: he did the work of many 
men, yet nothing, or little, which many could 
not have done. 

Accordingly, his Literary Works, now lying 
finished some fifty years, have already, to the 
most surprising degree, sunk in importance. 
Perhaps no man so much talked of is so little 
known ; to the great majority he is no longer a 
Reality, but a Hearsay. Such, indeed, partly, 
is the natural fate of Works Polemical, which 
almost all Diderot's are. The Polemic anni- 
hilates his opponent; but in so doing annihi- 
lates himself too, and both are swept away to 
make room for something other and farther. 
Add to this, the slight-textured transitory cha- 
racter of Diderot's style, and the fact is well 
enough explained. Meanwhile, let him, to 
whom it applies, consider it; him among 
whose gifts it was to rise into the Perennial, 
and who dwelt rather low down in the Ephe- 
meral, and ephemerally fought and scrambled 
there ! Diderot the great has contracted into 
Diderot the easily-measurable : so must it be 
with others of the like. 

In how many sentences can the net-product 
of all that tumultuous Atheism, printed over 
many volumes, be comprised! Nay, the 
whole Enryclopedie, that world's wonder of the 
eighteenth century, the Belus' Tower of an age 
of refined Illumination, what has it become! 
Alas ! no stone-tower, that will stand there as 
our strength and defence through all times : 
but, at best, a wooden Hclepohs, (City-taker,) 
wherein stationed, the Philosophus Policaster 
has burnt and battered down many an old 
ruinous Sorbonne; and which now, when that 
work is pretty well over, may, in turn, be taken 
asunder, and used as firewood. The famed En- 
cyclopedical Tree itself has proved an artificial 
one, and borne no fruit. We mean that, in its 
nature, it is mechanical only; one of those 
attempts to parcel out the invisible mystical 
Soul of Man, with its infiydtude of phases and 
character, into shop-lists of what are called 
"faculties," "motives," and such like; which 
attempts may indeed be made with all degrees 
of insight, from that of a Doctor Spurzheim 
to that of Denis Diderot, or Jeremy Bentham; 
and prove useful for a day, but for a day only. 

Nevertheless it were false to regard Diderot 
as a Mechanist and nothing more; as one 
working and grinding blindly in the mill of 
mechanical Logic, joyful with his lot there, 
and unconscious of any other. Call him one 
rather who contributed to deliverus therefrom : 
both by his manful whole spirit as a Mechan- 
ist, which drove all things to their ultimatum, 
and crisis ; and even by a dim-struggling fa- 
culty, which virtually aimed beyond this. Di- 
derot, we said, was gifted by Nature for an 
Artist : strangely flashing through his mechani- 
cal encumbrances, are rays of thought, which 
belong to the Poet, to the Prophet; which, in 
other environment, could have revealed the 
deepest to us. Not to seek far, consider this 
one little sentence, which he makes the last of 
the dying Sanderson : Le temps, la mature, ct 
I'espace tic sont peut-etre qu'un point (Time, Mat- 
ter, and Space are perhaps but a poitU .') 

So too, in Art, both as a speaker and a doer, 
he is to be reckoned as one of those who 



DIDEROT. 



42 i 



pressed forward irresistibly out of the artifi- 
cial barren sphere of that time, into a truer 
genial one. His Dramas, the Fils Naturel, the 
Pere de Fumille, have indeed ceased to live ; 
yet is the attempt towards great things visible 
in them ; the attempt remains to us, and seeks 
otherwise, and has found, and is finding, fulfil- 
ment. Not less in his Salons, (Judgments of 
Art-Exhibitions,) written hastily for Grimm, 
and by ill chance, on artists of quite seconda- 
ry character, do we find the freest recognition 
of whatever excellence there is; nay, an im- 
petuous endeavour, not critically but even crea- 
tively, towards something more excellent. In- 
deed, what with their unrivalled clearness, 
painting the picture over again for us, so that 
we too see it, and can judge it; what with their 
sunny fervour, inventiveness, real artistic ge- 
nius, (which only cannot manipulate,) they are, 
with some few exceptions in the German 
tongue, the only Pictorial Criticisms we know 
of worth reading. Here too, as by his own 
practice in the Dramatic branch of art, Dide- 
rot stands forth as the main originator (almost 
the sole one in his own country) of that many- 
sided struggle towards what is called Nature, and 
copying of Nature, and faithfulness to Nature ; 
a deep indispensable truth, subversive of the 
old error; yet under that figure, only a half- 
truth, for Art too is Art, as surely as Nature is 
Nature ; which struggle, meanwhile, either as 
half-truth or working itself into a whole truth, 
may be seen (in countries that have any Art) 
still forming the tendency of all artistic en- 
deavour. In which sense, Diderot's Essay on 
Painting has been judged worth translation by 
the greatest modern Judge of Art, and greatest 
modern Artist, in the highest kind of Art ; and 
may be read anew, with argumentative com- 
mentary and exposition, in Goelhe's Works. 

Nay, let us grant, with pleasure, that for Di- 
derot himself the realms of Art were not 
wholly un visited; that he too, so heavily im- 
prisoned, stole Promethean fire. Among these 
multitudinous, most miscellaneous Writings 
of his, in great part a manufactured farrago 
of Philosophism no longer saleable, and now 
looking melancholy enough, — are two that we 
can almost call Poems; that have something 
perennially poetic in them : Jacques le Fala- 
liste ; in a still higher degree, the Neveu de Ra- 
meau. The occasional blveness of both ; even 
that darkest indigo in some parts of the former, 
shall not altogether affright us. As it were, a 
loose straggling sunbeam flies here over Man's 
Existence in France, now nigh a century be- 
hind us: "from the height of luxurious ele- 
gance to the depths of shamelessness;" all is 
here. Slack, careless seems the combination 
of the picture; wriggling, disjointed, like a 
bundle of flails'; yet strangely united in the 
painter's inward unconscious feeling. Weari- 
somely crackling wit gets silent; a grim, taci- 
turn, dare-devil, almost Hogarthian humour, 
rises in the background. Like this there is 
nothing that we know of in the whole range 
of French Literature: La Fontaine is shallow 
in compansion ; the La Bruyere wit-species 
not to be named. It resembles Don Quixote, 
rather; of somewhat similar stature; yet of 
complexion altogether different; through the 



one looks a sunny Elysium, through the other 
a sulphurous Erebus : both hold of the Infi- 
nite. This Jacques, perhaps, was not quite so 
hastily put together: yet there too haste is 
manifest: the Author finishes it off, not by 
working out the figures and movements, but 
by dashing his brush against the canvas ; a 
manosuvre which in this case has not suc- 
ceeded. The Jlameau's Nepheiv, which is the 
shorter, is also the better ; may pass for deci- 
dedly the best of all Diderot's Compositions- 
It looks like a Sibylline utterance from a heart 
all in fusion : no ephemeral thing (for it was 
written as a Satire on Palissot) was ever more 
perennially treated. Strangely enough, too, it 
lay some fifty years, in German and Russian 
Libraries ; came out first in the masterly ver- 
sion of Goethe, in 1805 ; and only (after a de- 
ceptive ?-e-translation by a M. Saur, a courage- 
ous mystifier otherwise,) reached the Paris 
public, in 1821, — when perhaps all, for whom, 
and against whom it was written, were no 
more ! — It is a farce-tragedy ; and its fate has 
corresponded to its purport. One day it must 
also be translated into English ; but will re- 
quire to be done by head; the common steam- 
machinery will not meet it. 

We here {con la hocca dolce') take leav^e of Di- 
derot in his intellectual aspect, as Artist and 
Thinker: a richly endowed, unfavourably situ- 
ated nature ; whose efibrt, much marred, yet 
not without fidelity of aim, can triumph, on 
rare occasions ; is perhaps nowhere utterly 
fruitless. In the moral aspect, as Man, he! 
makes a somewhat similar figure ; as indeed, 
in all men, in him especially, the Opinion and 
the Practice stand closely united ; and as a wise 
man has remarked, " the speculative principles 
are often but a supplement (or excuse) to the 
practical manner of life." In conduct, Dide- 
rot can nowise seem admirable to us; yet 
neither inexcusable ; on the whole, not at all 
quite worthless. Lavater traced in his physi- 
ognomy " something timorous ;" which reading 
his friends admitted to be a correct one. Di- 
derot, in truth, is no hero: the earnest soul, 
wayfaring and warfaring in the complexities 
of a World like to overwhelm him, yet where- 
in he by Heaven's grace will keep faithfully 
warfaring, prevailing or not, can derive small 
solacement from this light, fluctuating, not to 
say flimsy existence of Diderot: no Gospel in 
that kind has he left us. The man, in fact, 
with all his high gifts, had rather a female 
character. Susceptible, sensitive, living by 
impulses, Avhich at best he had fashioned into 
some show of principles ; with vehemence 
enough, with even a female uncontrollableness; 
with little of manful steadfastness, considerate- 
ness, invincibility. Thus, too, we find him 
living mostly in the society of women, or of 
men who, like women, flattered him, and made 
life easy for him ; recoiling with horror from 
an earnest Jean Jacques, who understood not 
the science of walking in a vain show; but 
imagined (poor man) that truth was there as 
a thing to be told, as a thing to be acted. 

We call Diderot, then, not a coward; yet 
not in any sense a brave man. Neither to" 
wards himself, nor towards others, was he 
2N 



4S2 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



tirave. All the virtues, says M. de Meister, 
which require not "a great suite (sequency) 
of ideas," were his: all that do require such a 
suite were not his. In other words, what du- 
ties were easy for him, he did: happily Na- 
ture had rendered several easj'. His spiritual 
aim, moreover, seemed not so much to be en- 
forcement, exposition of Duty, as discovery 
-of a Dnty-made-easy. Natural enough that 
he should strike into that province of sentiment, 
casiir-noble, and so forth. Alas, to declare that 
the beauty of virtue is beautiful, costs compa- 
ratively little; to win it, and wear it, is quite 
another enterprise, — wherein the loud brag- 
gart, we know, is not the likeliest to succeed. 
On the whole, peace be with sentiment, for that 
also lies behind us I — For the rest, as hinted, 
what duties were difhcult our Diderot left un- 
done. How should he, the easur sensible, front 
such a monster as Painl And now, since 
misgivings cannot fail in that course, what is 
to be done but fill up all asperities with tloods 
of Sensibilite, and so voyage more or less 
smoothly along 1 Est-il bon ? Est-il mechant / 
is his own account of himself At all events, 
he was no voluntary hypocrite ; that great 
praise can be given him. And thus with Me- 
chanical Philosophism, and passion vivc ; work- 
ing, flirting; "with more of softness than of 
true affection, sometimes with the malice and 
rage of a child, but on the whole an inex- 
haustible fund of goodnatured simplicity," has 
he come down to us for better for worse : and 
what can we do but receive him 1 

If now we and our reader, reinterpreting 
for our present want that Life and Perform- 
ance of Diderot, have brought it clearer be- 
fore us, be the hour spent thereon, were it 
even more wearisome, no profitless one ! 
Have we not striven to unite our own brief 
present moment more and more compactly 
with the Past and with the Future ; have we 



not done what lay at our hand towards reducing 
that same Memoirism of ihe Eighteenth Cen- 
tury into History, and "weaving" a thread or 
two thereof nearer to the condition of a " webl" 
But finally, if we rise with this matter (as 
we should try to do with all) into the proper 
region of Universal History, and look on it 
with the eye not of this time, or of that time, 
but of Time at large, perhaps the prediction 
might stand here, that intrinsically, essentially 
little lies in it; that one day when the net- 
result of our European way of life comes to 
be summed up, this whole as yet so boundless 
concern of French Philosophism will dwindle 
into the thinnest of fractions, or vanish into 
nonentity! Alas, while the rude History and 
Thoughts of those same " Juifs miserables," the 
barbaric War-song of a Deborah and Barak, 
the rapt prophetic Utterance of an unkempt 
Isaiah, last now (with deepest significance) say 
only these three thousand years, — what has the 
thrice resplendent Encydopcdie shrivelled into 
within these three-score ! This is a fact 
which, explain it, express it, in which way he 
will, your Encyclopedist should actually con- 
sider. Those M'ere tones caught from the sa- 
cred Melody of the All, and having harmony 
and meaning for ever; these of his are but 
outer discords, and their jangling dies away 
without result. "The special, sole, and deep- 
est theme of the World's and Man's History," 
says the Thinker of our time, " whereto all 
other themes are subordinated, remains the 
Conflict of Unbelief and Belief. All epochs 
wherein Belief prevails, under what form it 
may, are splendid, heart-elevatin;::, fruitful for 
contemporaries and posterity. All epochs, on 
the contrary, wherein Unbelief, under what 
form soever, maintains its sorry victory, should 
they even for a moment glitter with a sham 
splendour, vanish from the eyes of posterity ; 
because no one chooses to burden himself 
with study of the unfruitful. 



ON HISTORY AGAIN. 



[Fraser's Magazine, 1833.] 



£The following singular fragment on History 
forms part, as may be recognised, of the 
Inaugural Discourse delivered by our assi- 
duous "D. T." at the opening of the Society 
for the Diffusion of Common Honesty. The 
Discourse, if one may credit the Morning 
Papers, "touched in the most wonderful 
manner, didactically, poetically, almost pro- 
phetically, on all things in this world and 
the next, in a strain of sustained or rather 
of suppressed passionate eloquence rarely 
witnessed in Parliament or out of it : the 
chief bursts were received with profound 
■isilence," — interrupted, we fear, by snufif- 



taking. As will be seen, it is one of the 
didactic passages that we introduce here. 
The Editor of this Magazine is responsible 
for its accuracy, and publishes, if not with 
leave given, then with leave taken. — O. Y.] 



* * * History recommends itself as the most 
profitable of all studies : and truly, for such a 
being as Man, who is born, and has to learn and 
work, and then after a measured term of years 
to depart, leaving descendants and perform- 
ances, and so, in all ways, to vindicate him- 
self as vital portion of a Mankind, no study 
could be fitter. History is the Letter of In- 
structions, which the old generations write 
and posthumously transmit to the new; nay 



ON HISTORY AGAIN. 



423 



it may be called, more generally still, the Mes- 
sage, verbal or written, which all Mankind 
delivers to every man ; it is the only articulate 
communication (when the inarticulate and 
mute, intelligible or not, lie round us and in 
us, so strangely through every fibre of our 
being, every step of our activity) which the 
Past can have with the Present, the Distant 
with what is Here. All Books, therefore, 
were they but Song-books or treatises on Ma- 
thematics, are in the long run historical doc- 
uments, — as indeed all Speech itself is : thus 
might we say, History is not only the fittest 
study, but the only study, and includes all 
others whatsoever. The Perfect in History, 
he who understood, and saw and knew within 
himself, all that the whole Family of Adam 
had hitherto been and hitherto ilone, were per- 
fect in all learning extant or possible ; needed 
not henceforth to study any more ; and hence- 
forth nothing left but to be and to do something 
himself, and others might make History of it,- 
and learn of him. 

Perfection in any kind is well known not to 
be the lot of man : but of all supernatural per- 
fect-characters, this of the Perfect in History 
(so easily conceivable too) were perhaps the 
most miraculous. Clearly a faultless monster 
which the world is not to see, not even on 
paper. Had the Wandering Jew, indeed, begun 
to wander at Eden, and with a Fortunatus' Hat 
on his head ! Nanac Shah too, we remember, 
steeped himself three days in some sacred 
Well ; and there learnt enough : Nanac's was 
a far easier method; but unhappily not prac- 
ticable, — in this climate. Consider, however, 
at what immeasurable distance from this 
Perfect Nanac your highest Imperfect Gibbons 
play their parti Were there no brave men, 
thinkest thou, before Agamemnon 1 Beyond 
the Thracian Bosphorus, was all dead and 
void ; from Cape Horn to Nova Zembla, round 
the whole habitable Globe, not a mouse stirring ] 
Or, again, in reference to Time : — the Creation 
of the World is indeed old, compare it to the 
Year One; yet young, of yesterday. cf)mpare 
it to Eternity ! Alas, all Universal History is 
but a sort of Parish History ; which the " P. P. 
Clerk of this Parish," member of "our Ale- 
house Club" (instituted for what "Psalmody" 
is in request there) puts together, — in such sort 
as his fellow-members will praise. Of the thing 
now gone silent, named Past, which was once 
Present, and loud enough, how much do we 
know 1 Our "Letter of Instructions" comes 
to us in the saddest stale ; falsified, blotted out, 
torn, lost, and but a shred of it in existence ; 
this too so difiicult to read or spell. 

Unspeakably precious meanwhile is ou r shred 
of a "Letter," is our " written or spoken Mes- 
sage," such as we have it. Only he who un- 
derstands what hasbeen, can know what should 
be and will be. It is of the last importance 
that the individual have ascertained his re- 
lation to the whole ; " an individual helps not," 
it has been written ; " only he who unites with 
many at the proper hour." How easy, in a sense 
for your all-instructed Nanac to work without 
waste of force, (or what we call fault ;) and, in 
practice, act new History, as perfectly as, in 
theory, he knew the old ! Comprehending 



what the given world was, what it had and what 
it wanted, how might his clear effort strike in 
at the right time and the right point; wholly 
increasing the true current and tendency, no- 
where cancelling itself in opposition thereto ! 
Unhappily, such smooth-running, ever-accele- 
rated course is nowise the one appointed us; 
cross currents we have, perplexed backfloods; 
innumerable efforts (every new man is a new 
effort) consume themselves in aimless eddies : 
thus is the River of Existence so wild-flowing, 
wasteful ; and whole multitudes, and whole 
generations, in painful unreason, spend and 
are spent on what can never profit. Of all 
which, does not one half originate in this which 
we have named want of Perfection in History; 
— the other half, indeed, in another want still 
deeper, still more irremediable 1 

Here, however, let us grant that Nature, in 
regard to such historic want, is nowise blama- 
ble : taking up the other face of the matter, let 
us rather admire the pains she has been at, the 
truly magnificent provision she has made, 
that this same Message of Instructions might 
reach us in boundless plenitude. Endowments, 
faculties enough we have : it is her wise will 
too that no faculty imparted to us shall rust 
from disuse; the miraculous faculty of Speech, 
once given, becomes not more a gift than a ne- 
cessity ; the Tongue, with or without much 
meaning, will keep in motion ; and only in 
some La Trappe, by unspeakable self-restraint, 
forbear wagging. As little can the fingers that 
have learned the miracle of Writing lie idle ; 
if there is a rage of speaking, we know also 
there is a rage of writing, perhaps the more 
furious of the two. It is said, "so eager are 
men to speak, they will not let one another get 
to speech ;" but, on the other hand, writing is 
usually transacted in private, and every man 
has his own desk and inkstand, and sits inde- 
pendent and unrestrainable there. Lastly, 
multiply this power of the Pen some ten thou- 
sand fold : that is to say, invent the Printing- 
Press, with its Printer's Devils, with its Editors, 
Contributors, Booksellers, Billsiickers, and see 
what it will do ! Such are the means where- 
with Nature, and Art the daughter of Nature, 
have equipped their favourite, man, for publish- 
ing himself to man. 

Consider now two things : first, that one 
Tongue, of average velocity, will publish at 
the rate of a thick octavo volume per day ; and 
then how many nimble enough Tongues may 
be supposed to be at work on this Planet 
Earth, in this City London, at this hour ! Se- 
condl3% that a literary Contributor, if in good 
heart and urged by hunger, will many times 
(as we are credibly informed) accomplish his 
two magazine sheets within the f'our-and- 
tvventy hours ; such Contributors being now 
numerable not by the thousand, but by the 
million. Nay, taking History in its narrower, 
vulgar sense, as the mere chronicle of "occur- 
rences" (of things that can be, as we say, 
"narrated,") our calculation is still but a little 
altered. Simple Narrative, it M'ill be observed, 
is the grand staple of Speech : " the common 
man," says Jean Paul, " is copious in Narra- 
tive, exiguous in Reflection ; only with the 
cultivated man is it otherwise, reverse-wise." 



424 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Allow even the thousandth part of human pub- 
lishing for the emission of Thought, though 
perhaps the millionth were enough, we have 
still the nine hundred and ninety-nine employ- 
ed in History proper, in relating occurrences, 
or conjecturing probabilities of such ; that is 
to say, either in History or Prophecy, which 
is a new form of History ; — and so the reader 
can judge with what abundance this life- 
breath of the human intellect is furnished in 
our world ; whether Nature has been stingy 
to him or munificent. Courage, reader ! Never 
can the historical inquirer want pabulum, 
better or worse ; are there not forty-eight lon- 
gitudinal feet of small-printed History in thy 
Daily Newspaper? 

The truth is, if Universal History is such a 
miserable defective " shred" as we have named 
it, the fault lies not in our historic organs, but 
wholly in our misuse of these; say rather, in 
so many wants and obstructions, varying with 
the various age, that pervert our right use of 
them ; especially two wants that press heavily 
in all ages : want of Honesty, want of Under- 
standing. If the thing published is not true, 
is only a supposition, or even a wilful inven- 
tion, what can be done with it, except abolish 
it and annihilate if? But again, Truth, says 
Home Tooke, means simply the thing trowed, 
the thing believed ; and now, from this to the 
thing extant, what a new fatal deduction have 
we to suffer ! Without Understanding, Belief 
itself will profit little: and how can your pub- 
lishing avail, when there was no vision in it, 
but mere blindness '! For us in political ap- 
pointments, the man you appoint is not he who 
was ablest to discharge the duty, but only he 
who was ablest to be appointed ; so too, in all 
historic elections and selections, the maddest 
work goes on. The even worthiest to be known 
is perhaps of all others the least spoken of; 
nay some say, it lies in the very nature of such 
events to be so. Thus, in those same forty- 
eight longitudinal feet of History, or even when 
they have stretched out into forty-eight longi- 
tudinal miles, of the like quality, there may not 
be the forty-eighth part of a hair's-breadth that 
will turn to any thing. Truly, in these times, 
the quantity oif printed Publication that will 
need to be consumed with fire, before the 
smallest permanent advantage can be drawn 
from it, might fill us with astonishment, almost 
with apprehension. Where, alas, is the in- 
trepid Herculean Dr. Wagtail, that will reduce 
all these paper-mountains into tinder, and ex- 
tract therefrom the three drops of Tinder-water 
Ehxir? 

For, indeed, looking at the activity of the 
historic Pen and Press through this last half- 
century, and what bulk of History it yields for 
that period alone, and how it is henceforth 
like to increase in decimal or vigesimal geo- 
metric progression, — one might leel as if a 
day Avere not distant, when perceiving that the 
whole Earth would not now contain those 
writings of what was done in the Earth, the 
human memory must needs sink confounded, 
and cease remembering! — To some the reflec- 
tion may be new and consolatory, that this 
state of ours is not so unexampled as it seems ; 
that with memory and things memorable the 



case was always intrinsically similar. The 
Life of Nero occupies some diamond pages of 
our Tacitus: but in the parchment and pa- 
pyrus archives of Nero's generation how many 
did it fill 1 The Author of the Vie de Seneque,. 
at this distance, picking up a few residuary 
snips, has with ease made two octavos of it. 
On the other hand, were the contents of the 
then extant Roman memories, or, going to the 
utmost length, were all that was then spoken 
on it, put in types, how many " longitudinal 
feet" of small-pica had we, — in belts that would 
go round the Globe 1 

History, then, before it can become Univer- 
sal History, needs of all things to be com- 
pressed. Were there no epitomizing of His- 
tory, one could not remember beyond a week. 
Nay, go to that with it, and exclude compres- 
sion altogether, we could not remember an 
hour, or at all : for Time, like Space, is in- 
finildy divisible; and an hour with its events, 
with its sensations and emotions, might be 
diff'used to such expansion as should cover 
the whole field of memory, and push all else 
over the limits. Habit, however, and the natural 
constitution of man, do themselves prescribe 
serviceable rules for remembering; and keep 
at a safe distance from us all such fantastic 
possibilities; — into which only some foolish 
Mohammedan Caliph, ducking his head in a 
bucket of enchanted water, and so beating out 
one wet minute into seven long years of servi- 
tude and hardship, could fall. The rudest 
peasant has his complete set of Annual Regis- 
ters legibly printed m his brain; and, without 
the smallest training in Mnemonics, the pro- 
per pauses, sub-divisions, and subordinations 
of the little to the great, all introduced there. 
Memory and Oblivion, like Day and Night, 
and indeed like all other Contradictions in this 
strange dualistic Life of ours, are necessary 
for each other's existence : Oblivion is the 
dark page, whereon Memory writes her light- 
beam characters, and makes them legible ; 
were it all light, nothing could be read there, 
any more than if it were all darkness. 

As with man and these autobiographic An- 
nual-Registers of his, so goes it with Man- 
kind and its Universal History, (which also is 
its Autobiography :) a like unconscious talent 
of remembering and of forgetting again does 
the work here. The transactions of the day, 
were they never so noisy, cannot remain loud 
for ever; the morrow comes with its new 
noises, claiming also to be registered : in the 
immeasurable conflict and concert of this chaos 
of existence, figure after figure sinks, as all 
that has emerged must one day sink: what 
cannot be kept in mind will even go out of 
mind; History contracts itself into readable 
extent; and at last, in the hands of some Bos- 
suet or Miiller, the whole printed History of' 
the World, from the Creation downwards, has 
grown shorter than that of the Ward of Port- 
soken for one solar day. 

Whether such contraction and epitome is 
always wisely formed, might admit of question ; 
or rather, as we say, admits of no question. 
Scandalous Cleopatras and Messalinas, Cali- 
gulas and Commoduses,in unprofitable propor- 
tion, survive for memory ; while a scientific 



ON HISTORY AGAIN. 



425 



Pancirollus must write his Book of Arts Lost ; 
and a moral Pancirollus (were the vision lent 
him) might write a still more mournful Book 
of Virtues Lost; of noble men, doing, and 
daring, and enduring, whose heroic life, as a 
new revelation and development of Life itself, 
were a possession for all, but is now lost and 
forgotten, History having otherwise filled her 
page. In fact, here as elsewhere what we call 
Accident governs much ; in any case, History 
must come together not as it should, but as it 
can and will. 

Remark nevertheless how, by natural ten- 
dency alone, and as it were without man's 
forethought, a certain fitness of selection, and 
this even to a high degree, becomes inevitable. 
Wholly worthless the selection could not be, 
were there no better rule than this to guide it: 
that men permanently speak only of what is 
extant and actively alive beside them. Thus 
do the things that have produced fruit, nay 
whose fruit still grows, turn out to be the 
things chosen for record and writing of; which 
things alone were great, and worth recording. 
The Battle of Chalons, where Hunland met 
Rome, and the Earth was played for, at sword- 
fence, by two earth bestriding giants, the sweep 
of whose swords cut kingdoms in pieces, 
hovers dim in the languid remembrance of a 
few; while the poor police-court Treachery of 
a wretched Iscariot, transacted in the v/ret-ched 
land of Palestine, centuries earlier, for " thirty 
pieces of silver," lives clear in the heads, in 
the hearts of all men. Nay moreover, as only 
that which bore fruit was great ; so of all 
things, that whose fruit is still here and grow- 
ing must be the greatest, the best worth re- 
membering; which again, as we see, by the 
very nature of the case, is mainly the thing 
remembered. Observe loo how this " mainly" 
tends always to become a " solely," and the 
approximate continually approaches nearer: 
for triviality after triviality, as it perishes 
from the living activity of men, drops away 
from their speech and memory, and the great 
and vital more and more exclusively survive 
there. Thus does Accident correct Accident; 
and in the wondrous boundless jostle of things, 
(an aimful Power presiding over it, say rather, 
dwelling in it,) a result comes out that may 
be put up with. 

Curious, at all events, and worth looking at 
once in our life, is this same compressure of 
History, be the process thereof what it may. 
How the " forty-eight longitudinal feet" have 
shrunk together after a century, after ten 
centuries ! Look back from end to beginning, 
over any History ; over our own England : 
how, in rapidest lawof perspective, it dwindles 
from the canvas! An unhappy Sybarite, if we 
stand within two centuries of him and name 
him Charles Second, shall have twelve times 
the space of a heroic Alfred ; two or three thou- 



sand times, if we name him George Fourth. 
The whole Saxon Heptarchy, though events, 
to which Magna Charta, and the world-famous 
Third Reading, are as dust in the balance, 
took place then (for did not England, to men- 
tion nothing else, get itself, if not represented 
in Parliament, yet converted to Christianity?) 
is summed up practically in that one sentence 
of Milton's (the only one succeeding writers 
have copied, or readers remembered) of the 
"fighting and flocking of kites and crows." 
Neither was that an unimportant wassail-night, 
when the two black-browed Brothers, strong- 
headed, headstrong, Hengist and Horsa, {Stal- 
lion and Horse,) determined on a man-hunt in 
Britain, the boar-hunt at home having got 
over-crowded ; and so, of a few hungry Angles, 
made an English Nation, and planted it here, 
and — produced thee, Reader ! Of Hengist's 
whole campaignings scarcely half a page of 
good Narrative can now be written ; the Lord~ 
Mayor's T^isit to Oxford standing, meanwhile, 
revealed to mankind in a respectable volume. 
Nay what of this ? Does not the Destruction 
of a Brunswick Theatre take above a million 
times as much telling as the Creation of a 
World ] 

To use a ready-made similitude, we might 
liken Universal History to a magic web; and 
consider with astonishment how, by philoso- 
phic insight and indolent neglect, the ever- 
growing fabric wove itself forward, out of that 
ravelled immeasurable mass of threads and 
thrums, (which we name Memoirs:) nay, at 
each new lengthening, (al each new epoch,) 
changed its whole proportions, its hue and 
structure to the very origin. Thus, do not the 
records of a Tacitus acquire new meaning, 
after seventeen hundred years, in the hands of 
a Montesquieu 1 Niebuhr must reinterpret for 
us, at a still greater distance, the writings of a 
Titus Livius : nay, the religious archaic chroni- 
cles of a Hebrew Prophet and Lawgiver escape 
not the like fortune; and many a ponderous 
Eichhorn scans, with new-ground philosophic 
spectacles, the revelation of a Moses, and 
strives to re-produce for this century what, 
thirty centuries ago, was of plainly infinite 
significance to all. Consider History with the 
beginnings of it stretching dimly into the 
remote Time ; emerging darkly out of the 
mysterious Eternity : the ends of it enveloping 
us at this hour, whereof we, at this hour, both 
as actors and relators, form part ! In shape 
we might mathematically name it Hyperbolic- 
Asyiiiptntic : ever of infiniie breadth around us ; 
soon shrinking within narrow limits: ever 
narrowing more and more into the infinite 
depth behind us. In essence and significance 
it has been called " the true Epic Poem, and 
universal Divine Scripture, wliose 'plenary in- 
spiration' no man (out of Bedlam or in it) 
shall bring in question." * * * 



£4 



2ir2 



4S6 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 

IN TWO FLIGHTS. 

[Fraser's Magazine, 1833.] 



Flight First. 

"Thk life of every man," says our friend 
Herr Sauerteig, " the life even of the meanest 
man, it were good to remember, is a Poem ; 
perfect in all manner of Aristotelean requi- 
sites ; with beginning, middle, and end; with 
perplexities, and solutions ; with its Will- 
strength, ( Willenkrafl,) and warfare against 
Fate, its elegy and battle-singing, courage 
marred by crime, everywhere the two tragic 
elements of Pity and Fear; above all, with 
supernatural machinery enough, — for was not 
the man born out of Nonentity ; did he not 
die, and miraculously vanishing return thither? 
The most indubitable Poem ! Nay, whoso will, 
may he not name it a Prophecy, or whatever 
else is highest in his vocabulary ; since only 
in Reality lies the essence and foundation of 
all that was ever fabled, visioned, sung, 
spoken, or babbled by the human species; 
and the actual Life of Man includes in it all 
Revelations, true and false, that have been, 
are, or are to be. Man ! I say therefore, reve- 
rence thy fellou--mun. He too issued from Above ; 
is mystical and supernatural, (as thou namest 
it:) .this know thou of a truth. Seeing also 
that we ourselves are of so high Authorship, 
is not that, in very deed, ' the highest Reve- 
rence,' and most needful for us : ' Reverence 
for oneself!' 

"Thus, to my view, is every Life, more pro- 
perly is every Man that has life to lead, a 
small strophe, or occasional verse, composed 
by the Supernal Powers; and published, in 
such type and shape, with such embellish- 
ments, emblematic head-piece and tail-piece 
as thou seest, to the thinking or unthinking 
universe. Heroic strophes some few are; 
full of force and a sacred fire, so that to latest 
ages the hearts of those that read therein are 
made to tingle. Jeremiads others seem : mere 
weeping laments, harmonious or disharmo- 
nious Remonstrances against Destiny ; whereat 
we too may sometimes profitably weep. Again 
have we not (flesh-and-blood) strophes of the 
idyllic sort, — though in these days rarely, 
owing to Poor Laws, Game Laws, Population 
Theories, and the like ! Farther, of the comic 
laughter-loving sort; yet ever with an un- 
fathomable earnestness, as is fit, lying under- 
neath : for, bethink thee, what is the mirth- 
fullest, grinning face of any Grimaldi, but a 
transitory tnusJc, behind which quite otherwise 
grins — the most indubitable Death^s-hcad.' How- 
•ever, I say farther, there are strophes of the 
pastoral sort, (as in Ettrick, Afl^ghaunistan, 
and elsewhere ;) of the farcic-tragic, melo- 
dramatic, of all named and a thousand un- 
nameable sorts there are poetic strophes, writ- 
ten, as was said, in Heaven, printed on Earth, 
and published, (bound in woollen cloth, or 
clothes,) for the use of the studious. Finally, a 



small number seem utter Pasquils, mere ribald 
libels on Humanity: these too, however, are at 
times worth reading. 

" In this wise," continues our too obscure 
friend, " out of all imaginable elements, awak- 
ening all imaginable moods of heart and soul, 
' barbarous enough to excite, tender enough 
to assuage,' ever contradictory yet ever co- 
alescing, is that mighty world-old Rhapsodia 
of Existence, page after page, (generation after 
generation,) and chapter, (or epoch,) after 
chapter, poetically put together ! This is what 
some one names ' the grand sacred Epos, or 
Bible of World-History; infinite in meaning 
as the Divine Mind it emblems ; wherein he 
is wise that can read here a line and there a 
line. 

" Remark, too, under another aspect, whether 
it is not in this same Bible of World-History 
that all men, in all times, with or without clear 
consciousness, have been unwearied to read, 
(what we may call read ;) and again to write, 
or rather to be it7-i»c/i .' What is all History, 
and all Poesy, but a deciphering somewhat 
thereof, (out of that mystic heaven-written 
Sanscrit,) and rendering it into the speech of 
men 1 Know thyself, value thyself, is a moral- 
ist's commandment, (which I only half approve 
of;) but Know others, value others, is the best 
of Nature herself. Or again. Work ivhile it is 
called To-day: is not that also the irreversible 
law of being for mortal man 1 And now, what 
is all working, what is all knowing, but a faint 
interpreting and a faint showing forth of that 
same MjjKiery of Life, which ever remains in- 
finite, — heaven-written mystic Sanscrit ? View 
it as we will, to him that lives Life is a divine 
matter; felt to be of quite sacred significance. 
Consider the wretchedest 'straddling biped 
that wears breeches' of thy acquaintance; 
into whose wool-head. Thought, as thou rashly 
supposest, never entered; who, in froth-element 
of business, pleasure, or what else he names 
it, walks forever in a vain show ; asking not 
Whence, or Why, or Whither; looking up to 
the Heaven above as if some upholsterer had 
made it, and down to the Hell beneath as if he 
had neither part nor lot there : yet tell me, 
does not he too, over and above his five finite 
senses, acknowledge some sixth infinite sense, 
were it only that of Vanity 1 For, sate him in 
the other five as you may, will this sixth sense 
leave him rest ? Does he not rise early and 
sit late, and study impromptus, and, (in con- 
stitutional countries,) parliamentar)^ motions, 
and bursts of eloquence, and gird himself in 
whalebone, and pad himself and perk himself, 
and in all ways painfull}' take heed of his 
goings; feeling (if we must admit it) that an 
altogether infinite endowment has been in- 
trusted him also, namely, a Life to lead 1 Thus 
does he too, with his whole force, in his own 
way, proclaim that the world-old Rhapsodia of 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



427 



Existence is divine, and an inspired Bible ; 
and, himself a wondrous verse therein, (be it 
heroic, be it pasquillic,) study with his whole 
50ul, as we said, both to read and to be written! 

"■ Here also I will observe, that the manner 
in which men read this same Bible is, like all 
else, proportionate to their stage of culture, to 
the circumstances of iheir environment. First, 
and among the earliest Oriental nations, it 
•was read wholly like a Sacred Book; most 
clearly by the most earnest, those wondrous 
Hebrew Readers ; whose reading accordingly 
was itself sacred, has meaning for all tribes 
of mortal men ; since ever, to the latest genera- 
tion of the world, a true utterance from the 
innermost of man's being will speak signifi- 
cantly to man. But, again, in how different a 
style was that other Oriental reading of the 
Magi ; of Zerdusht, or whoever it was that first 
so opened the matter 1 Gorgeous semi-sensual 
Grandeurs and Splendours ; on infinite dark- 
ness brightest-glowing light and fire; — of 
which, all defaced by Time, and turned mostly 
into lies, a quite late reflex, in those Arabian 
Tales and the like, still leads captive every 
heart. Look thirdly at the earnest West, and 
that Consecration of the Flesh, which slept 
forth life-lusty, radiant, smiling-earnest, in 
iminortal grace, from under the chisel and the 
stylus of old Greece. Here too was the Infinite 
intelligibly proclaimed as infinite : and the 
antique man walked between a Tartarus and 
an Elysium, his brilliant Paphos-islet of exist- 
ence embraced by boundless oceans of sadness 
and fatal gloom. — Of which three antique man- 
ners of reading, our modern manner, you will 
remark, has been little more than the imita- 
tion ; for always, indeed, the West has been 
rifer of doers than of speakers. The Hebrew 
manner has had its echo in our Pulpits and 
choral aisles; the Ethnic Greek and Arabian 
in numberless mountains of Fiction, rhymed, 
rhymeless, published by subscription, by puf- 
fery, in periodicals, or bj' money of your own, 
(durrli eig7)es Geld.) Till now at last (by dint 
of iteration and reiteration through some ten 
centuries) all these manners have grown ob- 
solete, wearisome, meaningless ; listened to 
only as the monotonous moaning wind, while 
there is nothing else to listen to ; — and so now, 
■well nigh in total oblivion of the Infinitude of 
Life, (except what small unconscious recognition 
the ' straddling biped' above argued of may 
have,) we wait, in hope and patience, for some 
fourth manner of anew convincingly announc- 
ing it." 

These singular sentences from the JEsthc- 
tische Spring-wiirzel we have thought right to 
translate and quote, by way of proem and 
apology. We are here about to give some 
critical account of what Herr Sauerteig would 
call a " flesh-and-blood Poem of the purest 
Pasquil sort;" in plain words, to examine the 
biography of the most perfect scoundrel that 
in these latter ages has marked the world's 
history. Pasquils too, says Sauerteig, "are ai 
times worth reading." Or quitting that mys- 
tic dialect of his, may we not assert in our 
own way, that the history of an Original Man 
is always worth knowing 1 So magnificent a 
thing is Will, (incarnated in a creature of like 



fashion with ourselves,) we run to witness all 
manifestations thereof: what man soever has 
marked out a peculiar path of life for himself, 
(let it lead this way or that way,) and success- • 
fully travelled the same, of him we specially 
inquire. How he travelled ;. What bef^ell him 
on the journey 1 Though the man were a 
knave of the first water, this hinders not the 
question, How he managed his knavery 1 Nay, 
it rather encourag^es such question ; for no- 
thing properly is wholly despicable, at once 
detestable and forgettable, but your half-knave, 
he who is neither true nor false ; who never in 
his existence once spoke or did any true thing, 
(for indeed his mind lives in twilight with cat- 
vision, incapable of discnrnhig truth;) and yet 
had not the manfulness to speak or act any 
decided lie; but spent his whole life in plas- 
tering together the True and the False, and 
therefrom manufacturing the Plausible. Such 
a one our Transcendentals have defined as a 
moral Hybrid and chimera; therefore, under 
the moral point of view, as an Impossibility, and 
mere deceptive Nonentity, — put together for 
commercial purposes. Of which sort, neverthe- 
less, how many millions, through all manner of 
gradations, from the wielder of king's sceptres 
to the vender of brimstone matches, at tea- 
tables, council-tables, behind shop-counters, in 
priests' pulpits, incessantly and everywhere, do 
now, in this world of ours, in this isle of ours, 
offer themselves to view ! From such, at 
least from this intolerable over-proportion of 
such, might the merciful Heavens one day 
deliver us. Glorious, heroic, fruitful for his 
own Time, and for all Time, (and all Eternity) 
is the constant Speaker and Doer of Truth ! 
If no such again, in the present generation, is 
to be vouchsafed us, let us have at least the 
melancholy pleasure of beholding a decided 
Liar. Wretched mortal, that with a single 
eye to be " respectable," for ever sittest cob- 
bling together Inconsistencies, which stick not 
for an hour, but require ever new gluten and 
labour, — will it, by no length of experience, no 
bounty of Time or Chance, be revealed to thee 
that Truth is of Heaven and Falsehood is of 
Hell ; that if thou cast not from thee the one 
or the other, thy existence is wholly an illu- 
sion and optical and tactual Phantasm; that 
properly thou existest not at all ? Respectable ! 
What in the Devil's name, is the use of Respect- 
ability, (with never so many gigs and silver 
spoons,) if thou inwardly art the pitifullest of 
all men 1 I would thou wert either cold or hot. 
One such desirable second-best, perhaps the 
chief of all such, we have here found in the 
Count Alessandro di Cagliostro, Pupil of the 
Sage Althotas, Foster-child of the Scherif of 
Mecca, probable Son of the last King of Trebi- 
sond ; named also Acharat, and unfortunate 
child of Nature ; by profession healer of dis- 
eases, abolisher of wrinkles, friend of the poor 
and impotent, grandmaster of the Egyptian 
Mason-lodge of High Science, Spirit-sum- 
moner, Gold-cook, Grand Cophta, Prophet, 
Priest, and thaumaturgic morallist and Swin- 
dler; really a Liar of the first magnitude, 
thoroughpaced in all provinces of lying, what 
one may call the King of Liars. Mendez 
Pinto, Baron Miinchilusen, and others, are 



428 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



celebrated in this art, and not without some 
coloar of justice; yet must it in candour re- 
main doubtful whether any of these compara- 
tively were much more than liars from the 
teeth onwards: a perfect character of the 
species in question, who lied not in word only, 
nor in act and word only, but continually, in 
thought, word, and act; and, so to speak, lived 
wholly in an element of lying, and from birth 
to death did nothing but lie, — was still a de- 
sideratum. Of which desideratum Count 
Alessandro offers, we say, if not the fulfilment, 
perhaps as near an approach to such as the 
limited human faculties permit. Not in the 
modern ages, probably not in the ancient, 
(though these had their Autolycus, their Apol- 
lonius, and enough else,) did any completer 
figure of this sort issue out of Chaos and Old 
Night: a sublime kind of figure, presenting 
himself with "the air of calm strength," of sure 
perfection in his art; whom the heart opens 
itself to with wonder and a sort of welcome. 
"The onl}'^ vice, I know," says one, " is Incon- 
sistency." At lowest, answered we, he that 
does his work shall have his work judged of. 
Indeed, if Satan himself has in these days be- 
come a poetic hero, why should not Cagliostro, 
for some short hour, be a prose one 1 "One 
first question," says a great Philosopher, " I 
ask of every man : Has he an aim, which with 
undivided soul he follows, and advances to- 
wards? Whether his aim is a right one or a 
wrong one, forms but my second question." 
Here then is a small " human Pasquil," not 
without poetic interest. 

However, be this as it may, we apprehend 
the eye of science at least cannot view him 
with indifference. Doubtful, false as much is 
in Cagliostro's manner of being, of this there 
is no doubt, that starting from the lowest point 
of Fortune's wheel, he rose to a height univer- 
sally noiable ; that, without external further- 
ance, money, beauty, bravery, almost without 
common sense, or any discernible worth what- 
ever, he sumptuously supported, for a long 
course of years, the wants and digestion of 
one of the greediest bodies, and one of the 
greediest minds; outwardly in his five senses, 
inwardly in his "sixth sense, that of vanity," 
nothing straitened. Clear enough it is, how- 
ever much may be supposititious, that this ja- 
panned Chariot, rushing through the world, 
with dust-clouds and loud noise, at the speed 
of four swift horses, and topheavy with lug- 
gage, has an existence. The six Beef-eaters 
too, that ride prosperously heralding his ad- 
vent, honourably escorting, menially waiting 
on him, are they not realities'? Ever must 
the purse open, paying turnpikes, tavern-bills, 
drink-moneys, and the thousandfold tear and 
wear of such a team; yet ever, like a horn-of- 
plenty, does it pour; and after brief rest, the 
chariot ceases not to roll. Whereupon rather 
pressingly rises the scientific question : How ? 
WitMn that wonderful machinery, of horses, 
wheels, top-luggage, beef-eaters, sits only a 
gross, thickset individual, evincing dulness 
enough ; and b}' his side a Seraphina, with a 
look of doubtful reputation : how comes it 
that means still meet ends, that the whole En- 
gine (like a steam-coach wanting fuel) does 



not stagnate, go silent, and fall to pieces in 
the ditch? Such question did the scientific 
curiosity of the present writer often put: and 
for many a day in vain. 

Neither, indeed, as Book-readers know, was 
he peculiar herein. The great Schiller, for 
example, struck both with the poetic and the 
scientific phases of the matter, admitted the 
influences of the former to shape themselves 
anew within him ; and strove with his usual 
impetuosity to burst (since unlocking was 
impossible) the secrets of the latter: and so 
his unfinished Novel, the Geislerseher,' saw the 
light. Still more renowned is Goethe's Drama 
of the Gross-Kophta ; which, as himself in- 
forms us, delivered him from a state of mind 
that had become alarming to certain friends ; so 
deep was the hold this business, at one of its 
epochs, had taken of him. A dramatic Fic- 
tion, that of his, based on the strictest possible 
historical study and inquiry; wherein perhaps 
the faithfullest image of the historical Fact, as 
yet extant in any shape, lies in artistic minia- 
ture curiously unfolded. Nay mere Newspa- 
per-readers, of a certain age, can bethink 
them of our London Egyptian Lodges of High 
Science; of the Countess Seraphina's daz- 
zling jewelleries, nocturnal brilliancies, sibyl- 
lic ministrations and revelations ; of Miss Fry 
and Milord Scott, and Messrs. Priddle and 
Shark Bailiff; and Lord Mansfield's judgment- 
seat ; the Comte d'Adhemar, the Diamond 
Necklace, and Lord George Gordon. For 
Cagliostro, hovering through unknown space, 
twice (perhaps thrice) lighted on our London, 
and did business in the great chaos there. 

Unparalleled Cagliostro ! Looking at thy 
so attractively decorated private theatre, where- 
in thou actedst and livedst, what hand but 
itches to draw aside thy curtain ; overhaul 
thy paste-boards, paintpols, paper-mantles, 
stage-lamps, and turning the whole inside out, 
find thee in the middle thereof! For there of 
a truth wert thou : though the rest was all 
foam and sham, there sattest ihou, as large as 
life, and as esurient; warring against the 
world, and indeed conquering the world, for it 
remained thy tributary, and yielded daily ra- 
tions. Iimumerable Sheriff's-officers, Exempts, 
Sbirri, Alguazils, of every European climate, 
were prowling on thy traces, their intents hos- 
tile enough ; thyself wast single against them 
all; in the whole earth thou hadst no friend. 
What, say we in the whole earth ? In the 
whole universe thou hadst no friend ! Heaven 
knew nothing of thee (could in charity know 
nothing of thee ;) and as for Beelzebub, his 
friendship, as is ascertained, cannot count for 
much. 

But to proceed with business. The present 
inquirer, in obstinate investigation of a phe- 
nomenon so noteworthy, has searched through 
the whole not inconsiderable circle which his 
tether (of circumstances, geographical posi- 
tion, trade, health, extent of money capital) 
enables him to describe : and, sad to say, 
with the most imperfect results. He has read 
Books in various languages and jargons ; 
feared not to soil his fingers, hunting through 
ancient dusty Magazines, to sicken his heart 
in any labyrinth of iniquity and imbecility ; 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



429 



nay he had not grudged to dive even into the 
infectious Memoirs de Casanova, for a hint or 
two, — could he have found that work, which, 
however, most British Librarians make a 
point of denying that they possess. A pain- 
ful search, as through some spiritual pest- 
house ; and then with such issue! The quan- 
tity of discoverable Printing about Cagliostro 
(so much being burnt) is now not great; 
nevertheless in frightful proportion to the 
qtiantity of information given. Except vague 
Newspaper rumours and surmises, the things 
found written of this Quack are little more than 
temporary Manifestoes, by himself, by gulled 
or gulling disciples of his : not true there- 
fore ; at best only certain fractions of what he 
■wished or expected the blinder Public to reckon 
true; misty, embroiled, for most part highly 
stupid; perplexing, even provoking; which 
can only be believed — to be (under such and 
such conditions) Lies. Of this sort emphati- 
cally is the English "Life of the Count Caglios- 
tro, price three shillings and sixpence :" a 
Book indeed which one might hold (so fatu- 
ous, inane is it) to be some mere dream-vision 
and unreal eidolon, did it not now stand pal- 
pably there, as " Sold by T. Honkham, Bond 
Street, 1787 ;" and bear to be handled, spurned 
at, and torn into pipe-matches. Some human 
creature doubtless was at the writing of it; 
but of what kind, country, trade, character, or 
gender, you will in vain strive to fancy. Of 
like fabulous stamp are the Memoires j/our le 
Comte de Cao;lioslro, emitted with Rcquetc a join- 
dre, from the Bastille (during that sorrowful 
business of the Diamond Necklace) in 1780 ; 
no less the Lcltre du Comte de Cagliostro au Peu- 
ple Jlnglais, which followed shortly after, at 
London; from which two indeed, that fatuous 
inexplicable English Life has perhaps been 
mainly manufactured. Next come the Me- 
moires aulhcniiqvcs pour servir d I'Histoire du 
Comte de Cagliostro, (twice printed in the same 
year 1786, at Strasburg and at Paris ;) a swag- 
gering, lascivious Novellette, without talent, 
without truth or worth, happily of small size. 
So fares it with us: alas, all this is but the 
outside decorations of the private theatre, or 
the sounding of catcalls and applauses from 
the stupid audience ; nowise the interior bare 
walls and dress-room which we wanted to see! 
Almost our sole even half-genuine documents 
are a small barren Pamphlet, Cagliostro dc- 
mtisqve d Varsovie, en 1780; and a small barren 
Volume purporting to be his Life, written at 
Rome, of which latter we have a French ver- 
sion, dated 1791. It is on this Vie de Joseph 
Balsamo, ronnu sous le Nom de Comte Cagliostro, 
that our main dependence must be placed ; of 
which Work, meanwhile, whether it is wholly 
or only half-genuine, the reader may judge by 
one fact : that it comes to us through the me- 
dium of the Roman Inquisition, and the proofs 
to substantiate it lie in the Holy Office there. 
Alas, this reporting Familiar of the Inquisition 
was too probably something of a Liar; and 
he reports lying Confessions of one who was 
not so much a Liar as a Lie ! In such enig- 
matic duskiness, and thrice-folded involution, 
after all inquiries, does the matter yet hang. 
Nevertheless, by dint of meditation and 



comparison, light-points that stand fixed, and 
abide scrutiny, do here and there disclose 
themselves ; diffusing a fainter light over what 
otherwise were dark, so that it is no longer 
invisible, but only dim. Nay, after all, is thero 
not in this same uncertainty a kind of fitness, 
of poetic congruity 1 Much that would ofif'end 
the eye stands discreetly lapped in shade. 
Here too Destiny has cared tor her favourite : 
that a powder-nimbus of astonishment, mysti- 
fication, and uncertainty, should still encircle 
the Quack of Quacks, is light and suitable ; 
such was by Nature and Art his chosen uni- 
form and environment. Thus, as formerly in 
Life, so now in History, it is in huge fluctuat- 
ing smoke-whirlwinds, partially illumed (into 
a most brazen glory,) yet united, coalescing 
with the region of everlasting Darkness, in 
miraculous clear-obscure, that he works and 
rides. 

"Stern Accuracy in inquiring, bold Imagi- 
nation in expounding and filling up; these," 
says friend Sauerteig, " are the two pinions on 
which History soars," — or flutters and wabbles. 
To which two pinions let us and the readers 
of this Magazine now daringly commit our- 
selves. Or chiefly indeed to the latter pinion 
(of Imagination ;) which, if it be the larger, 
will make an unequal flight. Meanwhile, the 
style at least shall if possible be equal to the 
subject. 

Know, then, that in the year 1743, in the 
city of Palermo, in Sicily, the family of Signer 
Pietro Balsamo, a shopkeeper, were exhile- 
rated by the birth of a Boy. Such occurrences 
have now become so frequent that, miraculous 
as they are, they occasion little astonishment: 
old Balsamo for a space, indeed, laid down his 
ell-wands and unjust balances; but for the 
rest, met the event with equanimit}'. Of the 
possettings, junkettings, gossippings, and other 
ceremonial rejoicings, transacted according to 
the custom of the country, for welcome to a 
New-comer, not the faintest tradition has sur- 
vived ; enough, that the small New-comer, 
hitherto a mere ethnic or heathen, is in a few 
days made a Christian of, or as we vulgarly 
say, christened ; by the name of Giuseppe. A 
fat, red, globular kind of fellow, not under nine 
pounds avoirdupois, the bold Imagination can 
figure him to be: if not proofs, there are indi- 
cations that sufficiently betoken as much. 

Of his teething and swaddling adventures, 
of his scaldings, squallings, pukings, purgings, 
the strictest search into History can discover 
nothing; not so much as the epoch when he 
passed out of long-clothes stands noted in the 
fasti of Sicily. That same "larger pinion," 
(of Imagination,) nevertheless, conducts him 
from his native blind-alley, into the adjacent 
street faso?o ; descries him, with certain con- 
temporaries now unknown, essaying himself 
in small games of skill; watching what phe- 
nomena, of carriage-transits, dog-battles, street- 
music, or such like, the neighbourhood might 
ofl^er (intent above all on any windfall of 
chance provender :) now, with incipient scienti- 
fic spirit, paddling in the gutters; now, as 
small poet, or maker, baking mud-pies. Thus 
does he tentatively coast along the outskirts of 



430 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Existence, till once he shall be strong enough 
to land and make a footing there. Neither 
does it seem doubtful that with the earliest ex- 
ercise of speech, the gifts of simulation and 
dissimulation began to manifest themselves : 
Giuseppe (or Beppo, as he was now called) 
could indeed speak the truth, — but only when 
he saw his advantage in it. Hungry also, as 
above hinted, he too probably often was : a 
keen faculty of digestion, a meager larder 
within doors ; these two circumstances, so 
frequently conjoined in this world, reduced 
him to his inventions. As to the thing called 
Morals, and knowledge of Right and Wrong, 
it seems pretty certain that such knowledge 
(the sad fruit of Man's Fall) had in great part 
been spared him ; if he ever heard the com- 
mandment, ThoK, shah not steal, he most proba- 
bly could not believe in it, therefore could not 
obey it. For the rest, though of quick temper, 
and a ready striker, (where clear prospect of 
victory showed itself,) we fancy him vocife- 
rous rather than bellicose, not prone to vio- 
lence where stratagem will serve ; almost pa- 
cific, indeed, had not his many wants necessi- 
tated him to many conquests. Above all 
things, a brazen impudence developes itself; 
the crowning gift of one born to scouhdrelism. 
In a word, the fat, thickset Beppo, as he skulks 
about there, plundering, playing dog's-tricks, 
with his finger in every mischief, already 
gains character; shrill housewives of the 
neighbourhood, whose sausages he has filched, 
whose weaker sons maltreated, name him 
Beppo Maldetto, and indignantly prophesy that 
he will be hanged. A prediction which, as 
will be seen, the issue has signally falsified. 

We hinted that the household larder was in 
a leanish state : in fact, the outlook of the 
Balsamo family was getting troubled ; old 
Balsamo had, during these things, been called 
away on his long journey. Poor man ! The 
future eminence and pre-eminence of his Bep- 
po he foresaw not, or what a world's-wonder 
he had thoughtlessly generated ; as indeed, 
which of us, by much calculating, can sum up 
the net-total (Utility, or Inutility) of any his 
most indifferent act, — a seed cast into the seed- 
field of Time, to grow there, producing fruits 
or poisons, for ever! Meanwhile Beppo him- 
self gazed heavily into the matter : hung his 
thick lips, while he saw his mother weeping ; 
and, for the rest, eating what fat or sweet thing 
he could come at, let Destiny take its course. 

The poor widow, (ill-named Felicita,) spin- 
ning out a painful livelihood by such means 
as only the poor and forsaken know, could not 
but many times cast an impadent eye on her 
brass-faced, voracious Beppo ; and ask him. 
If he never meant to turn himself to any 
thing! A maternal uncle, of the moneyed 
sort, (for he has uncles not without influence,) 
has already placed him in the Seminary of 
Saint Roch, to gain some tincture of school- 
ing there : but Beppo feels himself misplaced 
in that sphere ; " more than once runs away ;" 
is flogged, snubbed, tyrannically checked on 
all sides ; and finally, with such slender stock 
of schooling as had pleased to offer itself, re- 
turns to the street. The widow, as we said, 
urges him, the uncles urge : Beppo, wilt thou 



never turn thyself to any thing 1 Beppo, with 
such speculative faculty, from such low watch- 
tower, as he commands, is in truth, (being 
forced to it,) from time to time, looking abroad 
into the world; surveying the conditions of 
mankind, therewith contrasting his own wishes 
and capabilities. Alas, his wishes are mani- 
fold; a most hot Hunger, (in all kinds,) as 
above hinted ; but on the other hand, his lead- 
ing capability seemed only the Power to Eat. 
What profession, or condition, then 1 Choose ; 
for it is time. Of all the terrestrial professions, 
that of Gentleman, it seemed to Beppo, had, 
under these circumstances, been most suited- 
to his feelings: but then theoutfitl the appren- 
tice-feel Failing which, he, with perhaps as 
much sagacity as one could expect, decides for 
the Ecclesiastical. 

Behold him then, once more by the uncle's 
management, journeying (a chubby, brass- 
faced boy of thirteen) beside the Reverend 
Father General of the Benfratelli, to their 
neighbouring Convent of Cartegirone, with 
intent to enter himself novice there. He has 
donned the novice-habit; is "intrusted to the 
keeping of the Convent Apothecary," on whose 
gallipots and crucibles he looks round with 
wonder. Were it by accident that he found 
himself Apothecary's Famulus, were it by 
choice of his own — nay was it not, in either 
case, by design, of Destiny intent on perfecting 
her work ! — enough, in this Cartegirone La- 
boratory there awaited him, (though as yet he 
knew it n i,) life-guidance and determination; 
the great want of every genius, even of the 
scoundrel-genius. He himself confesses that 
he here learned some (or, as he calls it, the) 
"principles of chemistry and medicine." 
Natural enough : new books of the Chemists 
lay here, old books of the Alchymists; distil- 
lations, sublimations visibly went on ; discus- 
sions there were, oral and written, of gold- 
making, salve-making, treasure-digging, divin- 
ing-rods, projection, and thealcahest: besides, 
had he not, among his fingers, calxes, acids, 
Leyden-jars 1 Some first elements of medico- 
chemical conjurorship, so far as phosphores- 
cent mixtures, aqua-toflTana, ipecacuanha, can- 
tharides tincture, and such like would go, 
were now attainable; sufficient (when the 
hour came) to set up any average Quack, 
much more the Quack of Quacks. It is here, 
in this unpromising environment, that the 
seeds, therapeutic, thaumaturgic, of the Grand 
Cophta's stupendous workings and renown 
were sown. 

Meanwhile, as observed, the environment 
looked unpromising enough. Beppo with his 
two endowments, of Hunger and of Power to 
Eat, had made the best choice he could; yet, 
as it soon proved, a rash and disappointing 
one. To his astonishment, he finds that even 
here he "is in a conditional world;" and, if he 
will employ his capability of eating, (or enjoy- 
ing,) must first, in some measure, work and 
suffer. Contention enough hereupon: but 
now dimly arises, or reproduces itself, the 
question. Whether there were not a shorter 
road, that of stealing! Stealing — under which, 
generically taken, you may include the whole 
art of scoundrelism; for what is Lying itself 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



431 



but a theft of my belief? — stealing, we say, is 
properly the North-West Passage to Enjoy- 
ment: while common Navigators sail pain- 
fully along torrid shores, laboriously doubling 
this or the other Cape of Hope, your adroit 
Thief-Parry, drawn on smooth dog-sledges, is 
already there and back again. The misfortune 
is that stealing requires a talent; and failure 
in that North-West voyage is more fatal than 
in any other. We hear that Beppo was " often 
punished:" painful experiences of the fate of 
genius; for all genius, by its nature, comes to 
disturb somebody in his ease, and your thief- 
genius more so than most ! 

Readers can now fancy the sensitive skin 
of Beppo- mortified with prickly cilices, wealed 
by knotted thongs; his soul afflicted by vigils 
and forced fasts ; no eye turned kindly on 
him ; everywhere the bent of his genius rudely 
contravened. However^ it is the first property 
of genius to grow in spite of contradiction, and 
even by means thereof; — as the vital germ 
pushes itself through the dull soil, and lives 
by what strove to bury it! Beppo, waxing 
into strength of bone and character, sets his 
face stiflly against persecution, and is not a 
whit disheartened. On such chastisements and 
chastisers he can look with a certain genial 
disdain. Beyond convent walls, with their 
sour stupid shavelings, lies Palermo, lies the 
world; here too is he, still alive, — though 
worse ofl^ than he wished; and feels that the 
world is his oyster, which he (by chemical or 
other means) will one day open. Nay, we 
find there is a touch of grim Humour unfolds 
itself in the youth ; the surest sign (as is often 
said) of a character naturally great. Witness, 
for example, how he acts on this to his ardent 
temperament so trying occasion. While the 
monks sit at meat, the impetuous voracious 
Beppo (that stupid Inquisition Biographer 
records it as a thing of course) is set not to 
eat with them, not to pick up the crumbs that 
fall from them, but to stand " reading the Mar- 
tyrology" for their pastime ! The brave ad- 
justs himself to the inevitable. Beppo reads 
that dullest Martyrology of theirs ; but reads 
out of it not what is printed there, but what 
his own vivid brain on the spur of the moment 
devises: instead of the names of Saints, all 
heartily iudiflTerent to him, he reads out the 
names of the most notable Palermo "unfortu- 
nate-females," now beginning to interest him 
a little. What a "deep world-irony" (as the 
Germans call it) lies here ! The Monks, of 
course, felled him to the earth, and flayed him 
with scourges; but what did it avaij 1 This 
only became apparent, to himself and them, 
that he had now outgrown their monk disci- 
pline ; as the psyche does its chrysalis-shell, 
and bursts it. Giuseppe Balsamo bids farewell 
to Cartegirone for ever and a day. 

So now, by consent or not of the ghostly 
Benfratelli (Friars of Mercy, as they were 
named !) our Beppo has again returned to the 
maternal uncle at Palermo. The uncle natu- 
rally asked him, What he next meant to do 1 
Beppo, after stammering and hesitating for 
some length of weeks, makes answer: Try 
Painting. Well and good ! So Beppo gets 
hini colours, brushes, fit tackle, and addicts 



himself for some space of time to the study of 
what is innocently called Design. Alas, if we 
consider Beppo's great Hunger, now that new 
senses were unfolding in him, how inadequate 
are the exiguous resources of Design ; how 
necessary to attempt quite another deeper spe- 
cies of Design, of Designs ! It is true, he 
lives with his uncle, has culinary meat ; but 
where is the pocket-money for other costlier 
sorts of meats to come from ? As the Kaiser 
Joseph was wont to say : From my head alone 
{Dc ma tete scideJ) 

The Roman Biographer (though a most 
wooden man) has incidentally thrown some 
light on Beppo's position at this juncture: 
both on his wants and his resources. As to 
the first, it appears (using the wooden man's 
phraseology) that he kept the "worst com- 
pany," led the "loosest life;" was hand in 
glove with all the swindlers, gamblers, idle 
apprentices, unfortunate-females, of Palermo r 
in the study and practice of Scoundrelism 
diligent beyond most. The genius which has 
burst asunder convent-walls, and other rub- 
bish of impediments, now flames upward 
towards its mature splendour. Wheresoever 
a stroke of mischief is to be done, a slush of 
so-called vicious enjoyment to be swallowed, 
there with hand and throat is Beppo Balsamo 
seen. He will be a Master, one day, in his 
profession. Not indeed that he has yet quitted 
Painting, or even purposes so much : for the 
present, it is useful, indispensable, as a stalk- 
ing-horse to the maternal uncle and neigh- 
bours ; nay to himself, for with all the ebul- 
lient impulses of scoundrel-genius restlessly 
seething in him, irrepressibly bursting through, 
he has the noble unconsciousness of genius ; 
guesses not, dares not guess, that he is a born 
scoundrel, much less a born world-sconndrel. 

But as for the other question, of his re- 
sources, these we perceive were several-fold, 
and continually extending. Not to mention 
any pictorial exiguities, (existing mostly in 
Expectance,) there had almost accidentally 
arisen for him, in the first place, the resource 
of Pandering. He has a fair cousin living in 
the house with him, and she again has a lover; 
Beppo stations himself as go-between ; de- 
livers letters; fails not to drop hints that a 
lady, to be won or kept, must be generously 
treated; that such and such a pair of ear-rings, 
watch, necklace, or even sum of money, would 
work wonders; which valuables (adds the 
wooden Roman Biographer) " he then appro- 
priated furtively." Like enough ! Next, how- 
ever, as another more lasting resource, he 
forges; at first in a small way, and trying his 
apprentice-hand: tickets for the theatre, and 
such trifles. Ere long, however, we see him 
fly at higher quarry; by practice he has ac- 
quired perfection in the great art of counter- 
feiting hands ; and will exercise it on the large 
or on the narrow scale, for a consideration. 
Among his relatives is a Notary, with whom 
he can insinuate himself; for purpose of study, 
or even of practice. In the presses of this 
Notary lies a Will,. which Beppo contrives to 
come at, and falsify " for the benefit of a cer 
tain Religious House." Much good may it do 
them I Many years afterwards, the fraud was 



432 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



detected ; but Beppo's benefit in it was spent 
and safe long before. Thus again the stolid 
Biographer expresses horror or wonder that 
he should have forged leave-of-absence for a 
monk, "counterfeiting the signature of the 
Superior." Why not? A forger must forge 
what is wanted of him ; the Lion truly preys 
not on mice; yet shall he refuse such if they 
jump into his mouthi Enough, the indefati- 
gable Beppo has here opened a quite boundless 
mine; wherein through his whole life he will, 
as occasion calls, dig, at his convenience. 
Finally, he can predict fortunes and show 
visions ; by phosphorus and legerdemain. This 
however, only as a dilettantism; to take up 
the earnest profession of Magician does not 
yet enter into his views. Thus perfecting him- 
self in all branches of his art, does our Bal- 
samo live and grow. Stupid, pudding-faced 
as he looks and is, there is a vulpine asiucity 
in him; and then a wholeness, a heartiness, a 
kind of blubbery impetuosity, an oiliness so 
plausible-looking : give him only length of 
life, he will rise to the top of his profes- 
sion. 

Consistent enough with such blubbery im- 
petuosity in Beppo is another fact we find re- 
corded of him, that at this time he was found 
" in most brawls," whether in street or tavern. 
The way of his business led him into liability 
to such; neither as yet had he learned pru- 
dence by age. Of choleric temper, with all his 
obesity; a square-built, burly, vociferous fel- 
low; ever ready with his stroke, (if victory 
seemed sure;) nay, at bottom, not without a 
certain pig-like defensive-ferocity, perhaps 
even something more. Thus, when you find 
him making a point to attack, if possible, " o// 
officers of justice," and deforce them; deliver- 
ing the wretched from their talons: was not 
this, we say, a kind of dog-fa. ihfulness, and 
public spirit, either of the mastiff or of the cur 
species? Perhaps, too, there was a touch of 
that old Humour and "world-irony" in it. One 
still more unquestionable feat he is recorded 
(we fear, on imperfect evidence) to have done: 
"assassinated a canon." 

Remonstrances from growling maternal 
uncles could not fail ; threats, disdains from 
ill-afl^ected neighbours ; tears from an expostu- 
lating widowed mother; these he shakes from 
him like dewdrops from the lion's mane. Still 
less could the Police neglect him ; him the 
visibly rising Professor of Swindlery ; the 
swashbuckler, to boot, and deforcer of bailiffs : 
he has often been captured, haled to their bar; 
yet hitherto, by defect of evidence, by good 
luck, intercession of friends, been dismissed 
with admonition. Two things, nevertheless, 
might now be growing clear: first, that the die 
was cast with Beppo, and he a scoundrel for life, 
second, that such a mixed, composite, crypto- 
scoundrel life could not endure, but must un- 
fold itself into a pure, declared one. The Tree 
that is planted stands not still; must pass 
through all its stages and phases, from the 
state of acorn to that of green leafy oak, of 
withered leafless oak; to the state of felled 
timber, finally to that of firewood and ashes. 



Not less (though less visibly to dull eyes) the 
Act that is done, the Condition that has realized 
itself; above all things, the Man (with his 
Fortunes) that has been born. Beppo, every 
way in vigorous vitality, cannot continue half 
painting half swindling in Palermo; must 
develop himself into whole swindler; and, un- 
less hanged there, seek his bread elsewhere. 
What the proximate cause, or signal, of such 
crisis and development might be, no man 
could say ; yet most men would have con- 
fidently guessed. The Police. Nevertheless it 
proved otherwise ; not by the flaming sword 
of Justice, but by the rusty dirk of a foolish 
private individual, is Beppo driven forth. 

Walking one day in the fields (as the bold 
historic Imagination will figure) with a cer- 
tain ninny of a "Goldsmith named Marano," 
as they pass one of those rock-chasms frequent 
in the fair Island of Sicily, Beppo begins, in 
his oily, voluble way, to hint that Treasures 
often lay hid; that a Treasure lay hid there (as 
he knew by some pricking of his thumbs, 
divining rod, or other lalismanic monition ;) 
which Treasure might, by aid of science, 
courage, secrecy, and a small judicious ad- 
vance of money, be fortunately lifted. The 
gudgeon takes : advances (by degrees) to the 
length of "sixty gold Ounces;" sees magic 
circles drawn in the wane or in the full of the 
moon, blue (phosphorus) flames arise, split 
twigs auspiciously quiver ; and at length — 
demands peremptorily that the Treasure be 
dug. A night is fixed on : the ninny Gold- 
smith, trembling with rapture and terror, breaks 
ground; digs, with thick breath and cold sweat, 
fiercely down, down, Beppo relieving him : 
the work advances ; when, ah ! at a certain 
stage of it {before fruition) hideous yells arise, 
a jingle like the emptying of Birmingham; 
six Devils pounce upon the poor sheep Gold- 
smith, and beat him almost to mutton; merci- 
fully sparing Balsamo, — who indeed has him- 
self summoned them thither, and as it were 
created them (with goatskins and burnt cork.) 
Marano, though a ninny, now knew how it lay ; 
and furthermore that he had a stiletto. One 
of the grand drawbacks of swindler-genius ! 
You accoinplisli the Problem ; and then — the 
Elementary Quantities (Algebraic Symbols) 
you worked on will fly in your face ! 

Hearing of stilettos, our Algebraist begins 
to look around him, and view his empire of 
Palermo in the concrete. An empire now 
much exhausted; much infested, loo, with sor- 
rows of all kinds, and everyday the more; 
nigh ruinous, in short ; not worth being stab- 
bed for. There is a world elsewhere. In any 
case, the young Raven has now shed his pens, 
and got fledged for flying. Shall he not spurn 
the whole from him, and soar ofl"? Resolved, 
performed! Our Beppo quits Palermo; and, 
as it proved, on a long voyage : or as the In- 
quisition Biographer has it, " he fled from 
Palermo, and overran the whole Earth." 

Here then ends the First Act of Count Ales- 
sandro Cagliostro's Life-drama. Let the cur- 
tain drop; and hang un rent, before an audi- 
ence of mixed feeling, till the First of August 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



433 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 

IN TWO FLIGHTS. 
[Fraser's Magazine, 1833.] 



Flight Last. 

Before entering on the second Section of 
Count Beppo's History, the Editor will indulge 
in a philosophical reflection. 

This Beppic Hegira (Flight from Palermo) 
we have now arrived at brings us down, in 
European History, to somewhere about the 
epoch of the Peace of Paris. Old Feudal Eu- 
rope (while he flies forth into the whole Earth) 
has just finished the last of her" tavern brawls," 
(or wars;) and lain down to doze, and yawn, 
and disconsolately wear off" the headaches, 
bruises, nervous prostration, and flaccidily 
consequent thereon : for the brawl had been a 
long one, (Seven Years long;) and there had 
been many such, begotten, as is usual, of In- 
toxication, (from Pride,or other Devil's-drink,) 
and foul humours in the constitution. Alas, it 
was not so much a disconsolate doze, after 
ebriety and quarrel, that poor old Feudal Eu- 
rope had now to undergo, and then on awaken- 
ing to drink anew (wine of Abomination,) 
and quarrel anew : old Feudal Europe has 
fallen a-dozing to die! Her next awakening 
will be with no tavern-brawl (at the Kuiga 
Head or Prime Minister j) but with the stern 
Avatar of Democracy, hymning its world- 
thrilling birth and battle song in the distant 
West; — therefrom to go out conquering and to 
conquer, till it have made the circuit of all the 
Earth, and old dead Feudal Europe is born 
again (after infinite pangs !) into a new Indus- 
trial one. At Beppo's Hegira, as we said, Eu- 
rope was in the last languor and stertorous 
fever-sleep of Dissolution : alas, with us and 
with our sons, (for a generation or two,) it is 
almost still worse, — were it not that in Birth- 
throes there is ever Hope, in Death-throes the 
final departure of Hope. 

Now the philosophic reflection we were to 
indulge in, was no other than this, most ger- 
mane to our subject : the portentous extent 
of Quackery, the multitudinous variety of 
Quacks that along with our Beppo, and under 
him each in his degree, overran all Europe 
during that same period, the latter half of last 
century. It was the very age of impostors, 
cut-purses, swindlers, double-gangers, enthu- 
siasts, ambiguous persons; quacks simple, 
quacks compound; crack-brained, or vviih de- 
ceit prepense; quacks and quackeries of all 
colours and kinds. I?ow many Mesmerists, 
Magicians, Cabalists, Swedenborgians, Illumi- 
nati. Crucified Nuns, and Devils of Loudun ! 
To which the Inquisition Biographer odds Vam- 
pires, Sylphs, Rosicrucians, Free-masons, and 
an Et cetera. Consider yourSchropfers.Caglios- 
tros, Casanovas,Saint-Germains, Dr. Grahams ; 
the Chevalier d'Eon, Psalmanazar, Abbe Paris, 
and the Ghost of Cock-lane! As if Bedlam 
had broken loose; as if rather (in that "spiri- 
55 



tual Twelfih-hour of the Night") the everlast- 
ing Pit had opened itself, and from its still 
blacker bosom had issued Madness and all 
manner of shapeless Misbirths, to masquerade 
and chatter there. 

But, indeed, if we consider, how could it be 
otherwise ? In that stertorous last fever-sleep 
of our European world, must not Phantasms 
enough (born of the Pit, as all such are) flit 
past, in ghastly masquerading and chattering 1 
A low scarce-audible moan (in Parliamentary 
Petitions, Meal-mobs, Popish Riots, Treatises 
on Atheism) struggles from the moribund 
sleeper; frees him not from his hellish guests 
and saturnalia: Phantasms these "of a dying 
brain." So too, when the old Roman world, 
the measure of its iniquities being full, was to 
expire, and (in still bitter agonies) be born 
again, had they not Veneficae, Mathematici, 
Apolloniuses with ihc Golden Thigh, Apollo- 
nius' Asses, and False Christs enough, — be- 
fore a Redeemer arose ! 

For, in truth, and altogether apart from such 
half-figurative language. Putrescence is not 
more naturally the scene of unclean creatures 
in the World physical, than Social Decay is of 
quacks in the world moral. Nay, look at it 
with the eye of the mere Logician, of the Po- 
litical Economist. In such periods of Social 
Decay, what is called an overflowing Popula- 
tion, that is a Population which, under the old 
Captains of Indusiry, (named Higher Classes, 
Ricos Hovtbrcs, Aristocracies, and the like,) caa 
no longer find work and wages, increases the 
number of Unprofessionals, Lack-alls, Social 
Nondescripts ; with appetite of utmost keen- 
ness, which there is no known method of satis- 
fying. Nay more, and perversely enough, ever 
as Population augments, your Captains of In- 
dustry can and do dwindle more and more into 
Captains of Idleness; whereby the more and 
more overflowing Population is worse and 
worse governed (shown icliat lo do, for that is 
the only government :) thus is the candle light- 
ed at both ends; and the number of social 
Nondescripts increases in (/o«6/c-quick ratio. 
Whoso is alive, it is said, "must live ;" at all 
events, will live; a task which daily gets 
harder, reduces to stranger shifts. And now 
furthermore, with general economic distress, in 
such a Period, there is usually conjoined the 
utmost decay of moral principle: indeed, so 
universal is this conjunction, many men have 
seen it to be a concatenation and causation ; 
justly enough, except that such have (ever 
since a certain religious-repentant feeling went 
out of date) committed one sore mistake: what 
is vulgarly called putting the cart before the 
horse. Political-Economical Benefactor of the 
Species ! deceive not thyself with barren so- 
phisms: National suflering is (if thou wilt 
understand the words) verily a "judgment of 
8 O 



434 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



God;" has ever been preceded by national 
crime. " Be it here once more maintained be- 
fore tiie world," cries Sauerteig, in one of his 
Springivurzcl, " that temporal Distress, that 
Misery of any kind, is not the cunseoi' Immor- 
tality, but the effect thereof! Among individu- 
als, it is true, so wide is the empire of Chance, 
poverty and wealth go all at hap-hazard ; a 
Saint Paul is making tents at Corinth, while a 
Kaiser Nero fiddles, in ivory palaces over a 
burning Rome. Nevertheless here too, if no- 
wise wealth and poverty, yet well-being and 
ill-being, even in the temporal economic sense, 
go commonly in respective partnership with 
Wisdom and with Folly : no man can, for a 
length of time, be wholly wretched, if there 
is not a disharmony (a folly and v/ickedness) 
within himself; neither can the richest Croesus, 
and never so eupeptic, (for he too has indiges- 
tions and dies at last from surfeit,) be other 
than discontented, perplexed, unhappy, if he 
be a Fool." — This we apprehend is true, O 
Sauerteig, yet not the whole truth : for there is 
more than days' work and days' wages in this 
world of ours; which, as thou knowest, is it- 
self quite other than a " Workshop and Fancy- 
Bazaar," is also a " mystic Temple and Hall of 
Doom." Thus we have heard of such things 
as good men struggling with adversity, and of- 
fering a spectacle for the very gods. — " But 
with a nation," continues he, " where the mul- 
titude of the chances covers, in great mea- 
sure, the uncertainty of Chance, it may be 
said to hold always that general Suffering is 
the fruit of general Misbehaviour, general 
Dishonesty. Consider it well ; had all men 
stood faithfully to their posts, the Evil, when 
it first rose, had been manfully fronted, and 
abolished, not lazily blinked, and left to grow, 
with the foul sluggard's comfort: ' It will last my 
time.' Thou foul sluggard, and even thief 
{Faulerizc7;ja Dieb!) For art thou not a thief, 
to pocket thy day's wages (be they counted in 
groschen or in gold thousands) for this, if it be 
for any thing, for watching on thy special 
watch-tower that God's City (which this His 
World is, where His children dwell) suffer no 
damage ; and, all the while, to watch only that 
thy own ease be not invaded, — let otherwise 
hard come to hard as it will and can ? Un- 
happy ! It will last thy time : thy worthless 
sham of an existence, wherein nothing but the 
Digestion was real, will have evaporated in the 
interim ; it will last thy time : but will it last 
thy Eternity? Or what if it should 7iot last thy 
time, (mark that also, for that also will be the 
fate of some such lying sluggard;) but take 
fire, and explode, and consume thee like the 
moth !" 

The sum of the matter, in any case, is, that 
national Poverty and national Dishonesty go 
together; that continually increasing social 
Nondescripts get ever the hungrier, ever the 
falser. Now say, have we not here the very 
making of Quackery; raw-material, plastic- 
energy, both in full action 1 Dishonesty the 
raw-material, Hunger the plastic-energy: what 
will not the two reahze 1 Nay observe farther 
how Dishonesty is the raw-material not of 
Quacks only, but also, in great part, of Dupes. 
In Goodness, were it never so simple, there is 



the surest instinct for the Good; the uneasiest 
unconquerable repulsion for the False ai/:. 
Bad. The very Devil Mephistopheles cannot 
deceive poor guileless Margaret: "it stands 
written on his lYont that he never loved a liv- 
ing soul." The like too has mau}^ a human 
inferior Quack painfully experienced; the like 
lies in store for our hero Beppo. But now 
with such abundant raw-material not only to 
make Quacks of, but to feed and occupy them 
on, if the plastic-energy (of Hunger) fail not, 
what a world shall we have! The wonder is 
not that the eighteenth century had very nu- 
merous Qa acks, but rather that they were not 
innumerable. 

In that same French Revolution alone, which 
burnt up so much, what unmeasured masses 
of Quackism were set fire to ; nay, as foul me- 
phitic fire-damp in that case, were made to 
flame in a fierce, sublime splendour: coruscat- 
ing, even illuminating! The Count Saint 
Germain, some twenty years later, had found 
a quite new element, of Fraternization, Sacred 
right of Insurrection, Oratorship of the Human 
Species, wherefrom to body himself forth quite 
otherwise : Schropfer needed not now, as 
Blackguard undeterred, have solemnly shot 
himself in the Boicnihul; might have solemnly 
sacrificed himself, as Jacobin half-heroic, in 
the Place dc la Rcvolulinn. For your quack- 
genius is indeed born, but also made; circum- 
stances shape him or stunt him. Beppo Bal- 
samo, born British in these new days, could 
have conjured fewer Spirits ; yet had found a 
living and glory, as Castlereagh Spy, Irish 
Associationist, Blacking-Manufacturer, Book- 
Publisher, Able Editor. Withal too the reader 
will observe that Quacks, in every time, are 
of two sorts: the Declared Quack; and the 
Undeclared, who, if you question him, will 
deny stormfully, both to others and to himself; 
of which two quack-species the proportions 
vary with the varying capacity of the age. If 
Beppo's was the age of the Declared, therein, 
after all French Rev^olutions, we will grant, lay 
one of its main distinctions from ours ; which 
is it not yet (and for a generation or two) the 
age of the Undeclared 1 Alas, almost a still 
more detestable age; — yet now (by God's 
grace) with Prophecy, with irreversible Enact- 
ment (registered in Heaven's chancery, — 
where llwu too, if thou wilt look, mayst read 
and know) that its death-doom shall not linger. 
Be it speedy, be it sure ! — And so herewith 
were our philosophical reflection, on the na- 
ture, causes, prevalence, decline, and expected 
(temporary) destruction of Quackery, con- 
cluded; and now the Beppic poetic Narrative 
can once more take its course. 

Beppo then, like a Noah's Raven, is out 
upon that watery waste, (of dissolute, beduped, 
distracted European Life,) to see if there is 
any carrion there. On^ unguided little Raven, 
in the wide-weltering " Mother of dead Dogs:" 
will he not come to harm ; will he not be snapt 
up, drowned, starved, and washed to the Devil 
there 1 No fear of him, — for a time. His eye, 
(or scientific judgment,) it is true, as yet takes 
in only a small section of it; but then his 
scent (instinct of genius) is prodigious: seve- 
ral endowments (forgery and others) he has 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



436 



unfolded into talents ; the two sources of all 
quack-talent, Cunning and Impudence, are his 
in richest measure. 

As to his immediate course of action and 
adventure, the foolish Inquisition Biographer, 
it must be owned, shows himself a fool, and 
can give us next to no insight. Like enough, 
Beppo "fled to. Messina;" simply as to the 
nearest city, and to get across to the mainland: 
but as to this " certain Althotas" whom' he met 
there, and voyaged with to Alexandria in Egypt, 
and how they made hemp into silk, and realized 
much money, and came to Malta, and studied 
in the Laboratory there, and then the certain 
Althotas died, — of all this what shall be said? 
The foolish Inquisition Biographer is uncer- 
tain whether the certain Althotas was a Greek 
or a Spaniard: but unhappily the prior ques- 
tion is not settled, whether he was at all. Su- 
perfluous it seems to put down Beppo's own 
account of his procedure; he gave multifarious 
accounts, as tiie exigencies of the case de- 
manded: this of the "certain Althotas," and 
hemp made into false silk, is as verisimilar as 
that other of the " sage Althotas," the heirship- 
apparent of Trebisond, and the Scherif of 
Mecca's " Adieu, unfortunate Child of Nature." 
Nay the guesses of the ignorant world; how 
Count Cagliostro had been travelling tutor to a 
Prince, (name not given,) whom he murdered 
and took the money from ; with others of the 
like, — were perhaps still more absurd. Beppo, 
we can see, was out and away, — the Devil 
knew whither. Far, variegated, painful, might 
his roamings be. A plausible-looking shadow 
of him shows itself hovering over Naples and 
Calabria; thither, as to a famed high-school 
of Laziness and Scoundrelism, he may likely 
enough have gone to graduate. Of the Malta 
Laboratory, and Alexandrian hemp-silk, the 
less we say the better. This only is clear: 
That Beppo dived deep down into the lugu- 
brious-obscure regions of Rascaldom ; like a 
Knight to the palace of his Fairy; remained 
unseen there, and returned thence armed at all 
points. 

If we fancy, meanwhile, that Beppo already 
meditated becoming grand Cophta, and riding 
at Strasburg in the Cardinal's carnage, we 
mistake much. Gift of Prophecy has been 
wisely denied to man. Did a man foresee his 
life, and not merely hope it, and grope it, and 
so, by Necessity and Free-will, make and 
fabricate it into a reality, he were no »ta)i, but 
some other kind of creature, superhuman or 
subterhuman. No man sees far : the most 
see no farther than their noses. From the 
quite dim uncertain mass of the future, ("lying 
there," says a Scotch Humourist, "uncombed, 
uncarded, like a mass of tarry wool proverbially 
ill to spin") they spin out, better or worse, 
their rumply, infirm thread of Existence, (and 
wind it up, up — till the spool is full:) seeing 
but some little half-yai'd of it at once ; exclaim- 
ing, as they look into the betarred, entangled 
mass of Futurity, We sliall see ! 

The first authentic fact with regard to 
Beppo is, that his swart squat figure becomes 
visible in the Corso and Campo Vaccino of 
Rome; that he "lodges at the Sign of the Sun 
in the Rotunda," and sells pen-drawings there. 



Properly they are not pen-drawings ; but printed 
engravings or etchings, to which Beppo, with 
a pen and a little Indian ink, has added the 
degree of scratching to give them the air of 
such. Thereby mainly does he realize a thin 
livelihood. From which we infer that his 
transactions in Naples and Calabria, with 
Althotas and hemp-silk, or whatever else, had 
not turned to much. 

Forged pen-drawings are no mine of wealth: 
neither was Beppo Balsamo any thing of an 
Adonis ; on the contrary, a most dusky, bull- 
necked, mastiff-faced, sinister-looking indi- 
vidual: nevertheless, on applying for the 
favour or the hand of Lorenza Felician^ a 
beautiful Roman donzella, "dwelling near the 
Trinity of the Pilgrims," the unfortunate child 
of Nature prospers beyond our hopes. Authori- 
ties difl^er as to the rank and status of fair 
Lorenza : one account says, she was the, 
daughter of a Girdle-maker; but adds errone- 
ously that it was in Calabria. The matter 
must remain suspended. Certain enough, she 
was a handsome buxom creature, " both pretty 
and lady-like," (it is presumable;) but having 
no offer, in a country too prone to celibacy, 
took up with the bull-necked forger of pen- 
drawings, whose suit too was doubtless pressed 
with the most llowing rhetoric. She gave her- 
self in marriage to him; and the parents ad- 
mitted him to quarter in their house, till it 
should appear what was next to be done. 

Two kitchen-fires, says the Proverb, burn 
not on ore hearth : here, moreover, might be 
quite special causes of discord. Pen-drawing, 
at best a hungry concern, has now exhausted 
itself, and must be given up : but Beppo's house- 
hold prospects brighten, on the other side ; in 
the charms of his Lorenza he sees before him 
what the French call " a Future confused and 
immense." The hint was given ; and with re- 
luctance, or without reluctance, (for the evi- 
dence leans boih ways,) was taken and reduced 
to practice: Signor and Signora Balsamo are 
forth from the old Girdler's house, into the 
wide world, seeking and finding adventures. 

The foolish Inquisition Biographer, with 
painful scientific accuracy, furnishes a de- 
scriptive catalogue of all the successive Cul-' 
lies (Italian Counts, French Envoys, Spanish- 
Marquises, Dukes, and Drakes) in various 
quarters of the known world, whom this ac- 
complished pair took in ; M'lth the sums each 
yielded, and the methods employed to bewitch 
him. Into which descriptive catalogue, why 
should we here so much as cast a glance T 
Cullies, (the easy cushions on which knaves 
and knavesses repose and fatten,) have at all 
times existed in considerable profusion : neither 
can the fact of a " clothed animal," (Marquis- 
or other,) having acted in that capacity to 
never such lengths, entitle him to mention in 
History. We pass over these. Beppo (or, as 
we must now learn to call him, the Count) ap- 
pears at Venice, at Marseilles, at Madrid, Cadiz, 
Lisbon, Brussels; makes scientific pilgrimage 
to Saint-Germain, (in Westphalia,) religious-" 
commercial to Saint James in Compostella, \6- 
Our Lady in Loretta : south, north, east, west, 
he shows himself; finds everywhere Lubricity 
and Stupidity, (better or worse provided with- 



436 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cash,) the two elements on which he thauma- 
turgically can work and live. Practice makes 
perfection ; Beppo too was an apt scholar. 
By all methods he can awaken the stagnant 
imagination ; cast maddening powder in the 
eyes. Already in Rome he has cultivated 
whiskers, and put on the uniform of a Prus- 
sian Colonel : dame Lorenza is fair to look 
upon; but how much fairer, if by the air of 
distance and dignity you lend enchantment to 
her! In other places, the Count appears as 
real Count; as Marquis Pelligrini, (lately from 
foreign parts;) as Count this and Count that, 
Count Proteus-Incognito; finally as Count 
Atessandro Cagliostro.* Figure him shooting 
through the world with utmost rapidity ; duck- 
ing under here, when the sword-fishes (of 
justice) make a dart at him ; ducking up 
yonder, in new shape, at the distance of a 
thousand miles ; not unprovided with forged 
vouchers of Respectability ; above all, with that 
best voucher of Respectability, a four-horse car- 
riage, beef-eaters, and open purse, for Count 
Cagliostro has ready money and pays his way. 
At some Hotel of the Sun, Hotel of the Angel, 
Gold Lion, or Green Goose, or whatever Hotel 
it is, in whatever world famous City, his 
chariot-wheels have rested; sleep and food 
Jiave refreshed his live-stock, chiefly the pearl 
and soul thereof, his indispensable Lorenza, 
now no longer Dame Lorenza, but Countess 
Seraphina, looking seraphic enough! Moneyed 
Donothings, whereof in this vexed Earth there 
are many, ever lounging about such places, 
scan and comment on the foreign coat-of-arms ; 
pgle the fair foreign woman ; who timidly 
recoils from their gaze, timidly responds to 
their reverences, as in halls and passages, 
they obsequiously throw themselves in her 
way: ere long one moneyed Donothing (from 
?imid his tags, tassels, sword-belts, fop-tackle, 
frizzled hair without brains beneath it) is 
heard speaking to another: "Seen the Count- 
ess 1 — Divine creature that !" and so the game 
is begun. 

Let not the too sanguine reader, meanwhile, 
fancy that it is all holyday and heyday with his 
lordship. The course of Scoundrelism, any more 
than that of true love, never did run smooth. 
Seasons there may be when Count Proteus-In- 
cognito has his epaulettes torn from his shoul- 
ders ; his garment-skirts dipt close by the but- 
tocks ; and is bid sternly tarry at Jericho till his 
beard be grown. Harpies of Law defile his so- 
lemn feasts ; his light burns languid ; for a space 
seems utterly snutfed out, and dead in mal- 
odorous vapour. Dead only to blaze up the 
brighter! There is scoundrel-life in Beppo 
Cagliostro ; cast him among the mud, tread 
him out of sight there, the miasmata do but 
stimulate and refresh him, he rises sneezing, 
is strong and young again. 

Behold him, for example, again in Palermo, 
(after having seen many men and many 
lands ;) and how he again escapes thence. 
Why did he return to Palermo? Perhaps to 
astonish old friends by new grandeur; or for 
temporary shelter, if the Continent were get- 



* Not altogether an inDETJtioTi this last; for his grand- 
uncle (a bell-founder at Messina 1) was actually sur- 
igamed Cagliostro, as wtll as named Oiuseppe. — O. Y. 



ting hot for him ; or perhaps in the mere way of 
general trade. He is seized there, and clapt in 
prison, for those foolish old businesses of the 
treasure-digging Goldsmith, of the forged Will. 

"The manner of his escape," says one, 
whose few words on this obscure matter are 
so many light-points for us, "deserves to be 
described. The son of one of the first Sicilian 
Princes, and great landed Proprietors, (who 
moreover had filled important stations at the 
Neapolitan Court,) was a person that united 
with a strong body and ungovernable temper 
all the tyrannical caprice, which the rich and 
great, without cultivation, think themselves 
entitled to exhibit. 

" Donna Lorenza had contrived to gain this 
man ; and on him the fictitious Marchese 
Pellegrini founded his security. The Prince 
testified openly that he was the protector of 
this stranger pair : but what was his fury when 
Joseph Balsamo, at the instance of those whom 
he had cheated, was cast into prison ! He 
tried various means to deliver him ; and as 
these would not prosper, he publicly, in the 
President's antechamber, threatened the plain- 
tiffs' Advocate with the frightfullest misusage 
if the suit were not dropt, and Balsamo forth- 
with set at liberty. As the Advocate declined 
such proposal, he clutched him, beat him, 
threw him on the floor, trampled him with his 
feet, and could hardly be restrained from still 
farther outrages, when the President himself 
came running out, at the tumult, and com- 
manded peace. 

"This latter, a weak, dependent man, made 
no attempt to punish the injurer ; the plainliflTs 
and their Advocate grew fainthearted ; and 
Balsamo was let go; not so much as a regis- 
tration in the Court-Books specifying his dis- 
missal, who occasioned it, or how it took 
place."* 

Thus sometimes, " a friend iti the court is 
better than a penny in the purse!" Marchese 
Pellegrini "quickly thereafter left Palermo, 
and performed various travels, thereof my 
author could impart no clear information." 
Whither, or how far, the Game-chicken Prince 
went with him is not hinted. 

So it might, at times, be quite otherwise than 
in coach-and-fourthat our Cagliostro journeyed. 
Occasionally we find him as outrider journey- 
ing on horseback; only Seraphina and her sop 
(whom she is to suck and eat) lolling on car- 
riage-cushions ; the hardy Count glad that 
hereby he can have the shot paid. Nay some- 
times he looks utterly poverty-struck, and 
must journey one knows not how. Thus one 
briefest but authentic-looking glimpse of him 
presents itself in England, in the year 1772: 
no Count is he here, but mere Signor Balsamo 
again; engaged in house-painting, for which 
he has a most peculiar talent. Was it true 
that he painted the country house of" a Doctor 
Benemore ;" and having not painted, but only 
smeared it, was refused payment, and got a 
lawsuit with expenses instead? If Dr. Bene- 
more have left any representatives in this 
Earth, they are desired to speak out. We add 
only, that if young Beppo had one of the pret- 



* Goethe's Werhe, b. xxviii 132. 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



437 



tiest wives, old Benemore had one of the ugliest 
daughters ; and so, putting one thing to another, 
matters might not be so bad. 

For it is to be observed, that the Count, on 
his own side, even in his days of highest 
splendour, is not idle. Faded dames of quality 
have many wants: the Count has not studied 
in the convent Laboratory, or pilgrimed to the 
Count Saint-Germain, in Westphalia, to no 
purpose. With loftiest condescension he stoops 
to impart somewhat of his supernatural secrets, 
— for a consideration. Rowland's Kalydor is 
valuable ; but what to the Beautifying-water 
of Count Alessandro ! He that will undertake 
to smooth wrinkles, and make withered green 
parchment into a fair carnation skin, is he not 
one whom faded dames of quality will delight 
to honour? Or again, let the Beautifying- 
water succeed or not, have not such dames 
(if calumny may be in aught believed) another 
want? This want too the indefatigable Cag- 
liostro M'ill supply, — for a consideration. For 
faded gentlemen of quality the Count likewise 
has help. Not a charming Countess alone; 
but a " Wine of Egypt," (cantharides not being 
unknown to him,) sold in drops, more precious 
than nectar; which what faded gentleman of 
quality would not purchase with any thing 
short of life 1 Consider now what may be 
done with potions, washes, charms, love-phil- 
tres, among a class of mortals, idle from the 
mother's womb ; rejoicing to be taught the 
Ionic dances, and meditating of love from their 
tender nails ! 

Thus waxing, waning, broad-shining, or ex- 
tinct, an inconstant but unwearied Moon, rides 
on its course the Cagliostric star. Thus are 
Count and Countess busy in their vocation; 
thus do they spend the golden season of their 
youth, — "for the Greatest Happiness of the 
greatest number?" Happy enough, had there 
been no sumptuary or adultery, or swindlery 
Law-acts ; no Heaven above, no Hell beneath ; 
no flight of Time, and gloomy land of Eld and 
Destitution and Desperation, towards which, 
by law of Fate, they see themselves at all 
moments, with frightful regularity, unaidably 
drifting. 

The prudent man provides against the ine- 
vitable. Already Count Cagliostro, with his 
love-philtres, his cantharidic Wine of Egypt; 
nay far earlier, by his blue-flames and divining- 
rods, (as with the poor sheep Goldsmith of 
Palermo;) and ever since, by many a signifi- 
cant hint thrown out where the scene suited, — 
has dabbled in the Supernatural. As his 
seraphic Countess gives signs of withering, 
and one luxuriant branch of industry will die 
and drop off, others must be pushed into bud- 
ding. Whether it was in England duiing what 
he called his " first visit," in the year 1776, 
(for the before-first, house-smearing visit was, 
reason or none, to go for nothing,) that he first 
thought of Prophecy as a trade, is unknown : 
certain enough he had begun to practise it 
then; and this indeed not without a glimpse 
of insight into the national character. Various, 
truly, are the pursuits of mankind; whereon 
they would fain, unfolding the future, take 
Destiny by surprise ; with us however, as a 
nation of shopkeepers, they may be all said to 



centre in this one, Put money in thy purse! 
for a Fortunatus'-Pocket, with its ever-new 
coined gold; — if, indeed, the true prayer were 
not rather: O for a Crassus'-Drink, (of lirjuid 
gold,) that so the accursed throat of Avaricd 
might for once have enough and to spare ! 
Meanwhile whoso should engage, keeping 
clear of the gallows, to teach men the secret 
of making money, were not he a Professor sure 
of audience ? Strong were the general Skep- 
ticism ; still stronger the general Need and 
Greed. Count Cagliostro, fiom his residence in 
Whitcombe street, it is clear, had looked into 
the mysteries of the Little-go ; by occult science 
knew the lucky number. Bish as yet was not } 
but Lotteries were ; gulls also were. The 
Count has his Language-master, his Portuguese 
Jew, his nondescript Ex-Jesuits, whom he 
puts forth, as antennae, into coffee-houses, to 
stir up the minds of men. "Lord" Scott, 
(a swindler swindled,) and Miss Fry, and 
many others were they here could tell what it 
cost them : nay the very Lawbooks, and Lord 
Mansfield and Mr. Howarth speak of hundreds, 
and jewel-boxes, and quite handsome booties. 
Thus can the bustard pluck geese, and (if Law 
get the carcass) live upon their giblets ; — now 
and then, however, finds a vulture, too tough 
to pluck. 

The attentive reader is no doubt curious to 
understand all the What and the How of Cag- 
liostro's procedure while England was the 
scene. As we too are, and have been; bul 
unhappily all in vain. To that English Life, 
(of uncertain gender,) none, as was said, need 
in their utmost extremity repair. Scarcely 
the very lodging of Cagliostro can be ascer-' 
tained; except incidentally that it was once in 
Whitcombe street; for a few days, in War- 
wick Court, Holborn: finally, for some space, 
in the King's Bench Jail. Vain were it mean- 
while, for any reverencer of genius to pilgrim 
thither, seeking memorials of a great man. 
Cagliostro is clean gone: on the strictest 
search, no token never so faint discloses itself- 
He went, and left nothing behind him ; — ex- 
cept perhaps a few cast-clothes, and other 
inevitable exuvice, long since, not indeed an- 
nihilated, (this nothing can be,) yet beaten 
into mud, and spread as new soil over the 
general surface of Middlesex and Surrey; 
floated by the Thames into old Ocean; or flit- 
ting (the gaseous parts of them) in the univer- 
sal Atmosphere, borne thereby to remotest 
corners of the Earth, or beyond the limits of 
the Solar System! So fleeting is the track and 
habitation of man ; so wondrous the stuff he 
builds of; his house, his very house of housesy 
(what we call his Body,) were he the first of 
geniuses, will evaporate in the strangest inan-' 
ner, and vanish even whither we have said. 

To us on our side, however, it is cheering 
to discover, for one thing, that Cagliostro 
found antagonists worthy of him: the bustard 
plucking geese, and living on their giblets, 
found not our whole Island peopled with geese, 
but here and there (as above hinted) with vul- 
tures, with hawks of still sharper quality than 
his. Priddle, Aylett, Saunders, O'Reilly: let 
these stand forth as the vindicators of English 
national character. By whom Count Ales* 
3 o2 



438 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



eandro Cagliostro, as in dim fluctuating out- 
line indubitably appears, was bewritted, ar- 
rested, fleeced, hatchelled, bewildered, and be- 
devilled, till the very Jail of King's Bench 
seemed a refuge from them. A wholly obscure 
contest, as was natural; Avherein, however, to 
all candid eyes the vulturous and falconish 
character of our Isle fully asserts itself; and 
the foreign Quack of Quacks, with all his 
thaumaturgic Hemp-silks, Lotterj'-numbers, 
Beauty-waters, Seductions, Phosphorus boxes, 
and Wines of Egypt, is seen matched, and nigh 
throttled, by the natural unassisted cunning of 
English Attorneys. Whereupon the bustard, 
Reeling himself so pecked and plucked, takes 
wing, and flies to foreign parts. 

One good thing he has carried with him, 
notwithstanding: initiation into some primary 
arcana of Free-masonry. The Quack of 
Quacks, with his primitive bias towards the 
supernatural-mystificatory, must long have had 
Jiis eye on Masonry; which, with its blazcmry 
and mummery, sashes, drawn sabres, brothers 
Terrible, brothers Venerable, (the whole so im- 
posing by candle-light,) oftered the choicest 
element for him. All men profit by Union 
•with men ; the quack as much as another; nay 
in these two words Sworn Secrecy alone has he 
not found a very talisman ! Cagliostro then 
determines on Mason ship. It was afterwards 
urged that the lodge he and his Seraphina got 
admission to (for she also was made a Mason, 
or Masoness : and had a riband-garter solemnly 
bound on, with order to sleep in it for a night) 
was of low rank in the social scale; number- 
ing not a few of the pastrycook and hairdresser 
species. To which it could only be replied, 
that these alone spoke French; that a man 
a.nd mason, though he cooked pastry, was still 
a man and mason. Be this as it might, the 
apt Recipiendary is rapidly promoted through 
the three grades of Apprentice, Companion, 
Master; at the cost of five guineas. That of 
his being first raised into the air, by means of 
a rope and pulley fixed in the ceiling, " during 
which the heavy mass of his body must as- 
suredly have caused him a dolorous sensa- 
tion ;" and then being forced blindfold to shoot 
himself (though with privily (/isloaded pistol) 
in sign of courage and obedience: all this we 
can esteem an apocrypha, — palmed on the 
Roman Inquisition, otherwise prone to delu- 
sion. Five guineas, and some foolish froth- 
speeches (delivered over liquor, and otherwise) 
was the cost. If you ask now, In «•/(«/ London 
Lodge was itl Alas, we know not, and shall 
never know. Certain only that Count Ales- 
sandro is a master-mason; that having once 
.crossed the threshold, his plastic genius will not 
stop there. Behold, accordingly, he has bought 
from a " Bookseller" certain manuscripts be- 
longing to "one George Cofton, a man abso- 
lutely unknown to him" (and to us,) which 
treat of the "Egyptian Masonry!" In other 
words, Count Alessandro will blow with his 
new five-guinea bellows; having always occa- 
sion to raise the wind. 

With regard specially to that huge soap- 
bubble of an Egyptian Masonry which he 
falew, and as conjuror caught many flies with, 
Jt is our painful duty to say a little ; not much. 



The Inquisition Biographer, with deadly fear 
of heretical and aemocratical and black-magi- 
cal Freemasons before his eyes, has gone into 
the matter to boundless depths: commenting, 
elucidating, even confu-ting : a certain expo- 
sitory masonic Order-Book of Cagliostro's, 
which he has laid hand on, opens the whole 
mystery to him. The ideas he declares to be 
Cagliostro's; the composition all a Disciple's,' 
for the Count had no gift that way. What 
then does the Disciple set forth 1 or, at lowest, 
the Inquisition Biographer say that he sets 
forth 1 Much, much that is not to the point. 

Understand, however, tdat once inspired, by* 
the absolutely unknown George Cofton, with 
the notion of Egyptian Masonry, wherein as 
yet lay much "mjtgic and superstition," Count 
Alessandro resolves to free it of these impious 
ingredients, and make it a kind of Last Evan- 
gile, or Renovator of the Universe, — which so 
needed renovation. " As he did not believe 
any thing in matter of Faith," says our wooden 
Familiar, " nothing could arrest him." True 
enough: how did he move along then"! to 
what length did he go"? 

" In his system he promises his followers 
to conduct them to perfection, by means of a 
physical and moral regcmration ; to enable them 
by the former (or physical) to find the prime 
matter, or Philosopher's Stone, and the acacia 
which consolidates in man the forces of the 
most vigorous youth and renders him immor- 
tal ; and by the latter (or moral) to procure 
them a Pentagon, which shall restore man to 
his primitive state of innocence, lost by original 
sin. The Founder supposes that this Egyp- 
tian Masonry was instituted by Enoch and 
Elias, who propagated it in different parts of 
the world: however, in time, it lost much of 
its purity and splendour. And so, by degrees, 
the Masonry of men had been reduced to pure 
buff(>onery; and that of women been almost 
entirely destroyed, having now for most part 
no place in common Masonry. Till at last, the 
zeal of the Grand Cophia (so are the High- 
priests of Egypt named) had signalized itself 
by restoring the Masonry of both sexes to its 
pristine lustre." 

With regard to the great question of con- 
structing this invaluable Pentagon, which is 
to abolish Original Sin : how you have to 
choose a solitary mountain, and call it Sinai ; 
and build a Pavilion on it to be named Sion, 
with twelve sides, in every side a window, and 
three stories, one of which is named Ararat ; 
and with Twelve Masters, each at a window, 
yourself in the middle of them, go through un- 
speakable formalities, vigils, removals, fasts, 
toils, distresses, and hardly get your Pentagon 
after all, — we shall say nothing. As little 
concerning the still grander and painfuUer 
process of Physical Regeneration, or growing 
young again ; a thing not to be accomplished 
without a forty-days' course of medicine, pur- 
gations, sweating-baths, fainting-fits, root-diet, 
phlebotomy, starvation, and desperation, more 
perhaps than it is all worth. Leaving these 
interior solemnities, and many high moral pre- 
cepts of union, virtue, wisdom, and doctrines 
of Immortality and what not, will the reader 
care to cast an indifl!erent glance on certain 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



439 



esoteric ceremonial parts of this Egyptian 
Masonry, — as the Inquisition Biographer, if 
we miscellaneously cull from him, may en- 
able us 1 

"In all these ceremonial parts," huskily 
avers the wooden Biographer, "you find as 
much sacrilege, profanation, superstition, and 
idolatry, as in common Masonry : invocations 
of the holy Name, prosternations, adorations 
lavished on the Venerable, or head of the Lodge ; 
aspirations, insufflations, incense-burnings, fu- 
migations, exorcisms of the Candidates and the 
garments they are to take ; emblems of the 
sacro-sanct Triad, of the Moon, of the Sun, of 
the Compass, Square, and a thousand thousand 
other iniquities and ineptitudes, which are now 
well known in the world." , 

" We above made mention of the Grand 
Cophta. By this title has been designated the 
founder or restorer of Egyptian Masonry. 
Cagliostro made no difficulty in admitting" (to 
me the Inquisitor) "that under such name he 
was himself meant : now in this system the 
Grand Cophta is compared to the Highest : the 
most solemn acts of worship are paid him ; 
he has authority over the Angels ; he is in- 
voked on all occasions ; every thing is done 
in virtue of his power: which you are assured 
he derives immediately from God. Nay more: 
among the various rites observed in this exer- 
cise of Masonry, you are ordered to recite the 
Veni Creator spirilus, the Tc Dcuin, and some 
Psalms of David: to such an excess is impu- 
dence and audacity carried, that in the Psalm, 
Memento, Dondne, David ct onmis mansuelddinis 
ejus, every time the name David occurs, that of 
the Grand Cophta is to be substituted. 

"No Religion is excluded from the Egyptian 
Society: the Jew, the Calvinist, the Lutheran, 
can be admitted equally well with the Catholic, 
if so be they admit the existence of God and the 
immortality of the soul." "The men elevated 
to the rank of master take the names of the an- 
cient Prophets ; the women thoss of the Sibyls." 
* * "Then the Grand Mistress blows on the 
face of the female Recipiendary, all along from 
brow to chin, and says : " I give you this breath, 
to cause to germinate and become alive in )-our 
heart the Truth which we possess; to fortify 
in you the," &c., &c. — "Guardian of the new 
Knowledge which we prepare to make you 
partake of, by the sacred names oi Helios, Mcne, 
Tetragrammal on." 

" In the Essaisitr les IUu)ii'i)a's, printed at Paris 
in 1789, I read that these latter words were sug- 
gested to Cagliostro as Arabic or Sacred ones by 
a Sleight-of-hand Man, who said that he v/as as- 
sisted by a spirit, and added that this spirit was 
the Soul of a Cabalist Jew, who by art-magic 
had killed his pig before the Christian Advent." 

* * "They take a young lad, or a girl who 
is in the state of innocence : such they call the 
Pupil or the Coliwib ; the Venerable communi- 
cates to him the power he would have had be- 
fore the Fall of Man ; Avhich power consists 
mainly in commanding the pure Spirits ; these 
Spirits are to the number of Seven : it is said 
they surround the Throne; and that they go- 
vern the seven Planets : their names are Anael, 
Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, Uriel, Zobiachel, 
Anachiel." 



Or would the reader wish to see this Columb 
in action? She can act in two ways ; either 
behind a curtain, behind a hieroglyphically- 
painted Screen with " table and three candles ;" 
or as here "before the Caratfe," and showing 
face. If the miracle fail, it can only be be- 
cause she is not" in the state of innocence," — 
an accident much to be guarded against. This 
Scene is at Mittau ; — we find, indeed, that it is 
a Pupil affair, not a Colvmb one ; but for the 
rest that is perfectly indifferent : 

" Cagliostro accordingly (it is his own story 
still) brought a little Boy into the Lodge ; son 
of a nobleman there. He placed him on his 
knees before a table, whereon stood a Bottle of 
pure water, and behind this some lighted can- 
dles : he made an exorcism round the Boy, put 
his hand on his head ; and both, in this attitude, 
addressed their prayers to God for the happy 
accomplishment of the work. Having then 
bid the child look into the Bottle, directly the 
child cried that he saw a garden. Knowing 
hereby that Heaven assisted him, Cagliostro 
took Courage, and bade the child ask of God 
the grace to see the Angel Michael. At first the 
child said : ' I see something white ; I know not 
what it is.' Then he began jumping, stamp- 
ing like a possessed creature, and cried: 
' There now ! I see a child, like myself, that 
seems to have something angelical.' All the 
assembly, and Cagliostro himself, remained 
speechless with emotion. * * * The child being 
anew exorcised, with the hands of the Venera- 
ble on his head, and the customary prayers 
addressed to Heaven, he looked into the Bottle, 
and said, he saw his sister at that moment 
coming down stairs, and embracing one of her 
brothers. That appeared impossible, the bro- 
ther in question being then hundreds of miles 
oil': however, Cagliostro felt not disconcerted ; 
said they might send to the country-house 
(where the sister was) and see."*' 

Wonderful enough. Here, however, a fact 
rather sudden transpires, which (as the Inqui- 
sition Biographer well urges) must serve to 
undeceive all believers in Cagliostro; at least, 
call a blush into their cheeks. It seems : "The 
Grand cophta, the restorer, the propagator 
of Egyptian Masonry, Count Cagliostro him- 
self, testifies, in most part of liis System, the 
profoundest respect for the Patriarch Moses : 
an'l yet this same Cagliostro affirmed before his 
judges that he had always felt the insurmount- 
ablest antipathy to Moses; and attributes this 
hatred to his constant opinion, that Moses was 
a thief for having carried ofl" the Egyptian 
vessels; which opinion, in spite of all the lu- 
minous arguments that were opposed to him 
to show how erroneous it was, he has conti- 
nued to hold with an invincible obstinacy!" 
How reconcile these two inconsistencies 1 Aye, 
how ] 

But to finish off this Egyptian Masonic busi- 
ness, and bring it all to a tbcus, we shall now, 
for the first and for the last time, peep one 
moment through the spyglass of Monsieur ,de 
Luchet, in that Essui siir les Illumines of his. TRc 
whole matter being so much of a chimera, how 



* Vie de Joseph Balfanw ; traduile d'apris Voriginat 
Italien. (Paris, 1791.) Ch. ii. iii. 



440 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



can it be painted otherwise than chimerically? 
Of the following: passage one thing is true, that 
a creature of the seed of Adam believed it to 
be true. Iiist, list, then; O list! 

"The Recipiendary is led by a darksome 
path, into an immense hall, the ceiling, the 
•walls, the floor of which are covered by a black 
cloth, sprinkled over with red flames and me- 
nacing serpents : three sepulchral lamps emit, 
from time to time, a dying glimmer; and the 
eye half distinguishes, in this lugubrious den, 
certain wrecks of mortality suspended by 
funereal crapes : a heap of skeletons forms in 
the centre a sort of altar; on both sides of it 
are piled books ; some contain menaces against 
the perjured ; others the deadly narrative of 
the vengeances which the Invisible Spirit has 
exacted ; of the infernal evocations for a long 
time pronounced in vain. 

" Eight hours elapse. Then Phantoms, trail- 
ing mortuary veils, slowly cross the hall, and 
sink in caverns, without audible noise of trap- 
doors or of falling. You notice only that they 
are gone, by a fetid odour exhaled from them. 
"The Novice remains four-and-twenty hours 
in this gloomy abode, in the midst of a freezing 
silence. A rigorous fast has already weakened 
his thinking faculties. Liquors, prepared for 
the purpose, first weary, and at length wear 
out his senses. At his feet are placed three 
cups, filled with a drink of greenish colour. 
Necessity lifts them towards his lips ; invo- 
luntarily fear repels them. 

" At last appears two men ; looked upon as 
the ministers of death. 'J'hese gird the pale brow 
of the Recipiendary with an auroral-coloured ri- 
band, dipt in blood, and full of silvered charac- 
ters mixed with the figure ofOur Lady of Loretto. 
He receives a copper crucifix, of two inches 
length ; to his neck are hung a sort of amulets, 
wrapped in violet cloth. He is stript of his 
clothes; which two ministering brethren de- 
posit on a funeral pile, erected at the other end 
of the hall. With blood, on his naked body, are 
traced crosses. In this state of sufl^ering and 
humiliation, he sees approaching with large 
strides five Phantoms, armed with swords, and 
clad in garments dropping blood. Their faces 
are veiled: they spread a velvet carpet on the 
floor; kneel there; pray; and remain with out- 
stretched hands crossed on their breasts, and 
face fixed on the ground, in deep silence. An 
hour passes in this painful attitude. After 
which fatiguing trial, plaintive cries are heard; 
the funeral pile takes fire, yet casts only a pale 
light; the garments are thrown on it and burnt. 
A colossal and almost transparent Figure rises 
from the very bosom of the pile. At sight of 
it, the five prostrated men fall into convulsions 
insupportable to look on : the too faithful image 
of those foaming struggles wherein a mortal at 
handgrips with a sudden pain ends by sinking 
under it. 

"Then a trembling voice pierces the vault, 
and articulates the formula of those execrable 
oaths that are to be sworn : my pen falters ; I 
thmk myself almost guilty to retrace them." 

Luchet, what a taking! Is there no hope 
left, thinkest thoul Thy'brain is all gone to 
addled albumen ; help seems none, if not in 
Iha' last mother's-bosom of all the ruined: 



Brandy-and-water ! — An unfeeling world may 
laugh ; but ought to recollect that, forty years 
ago, these things were sad realities, — in the 
heads of many men. 

As to the execrable oaths, this seems the 
main one : " Honour and respect Aqua Tof- 
fana, as a sure, prompt, and necessary means 
of purging the Globe, by the death or the 
hebetation of such as endeavour to debase 
the Truth, or snatch it from our hands." And 
so the catastrophe ends by bathing our poor 
half-dead Recipiendary first in blood, then, 
after some genuflections, in water; and "serv- 
ing him a repast composed of roots, — we 
grieve to say, mere potatoes-and-point. 

Figure now all this boundless cunningly 
devised Agglomerate of royal-arches, death's- 
heads, hieroglyphically painted screens, Co- 
luvibs" in the state of innocence ;" with spa- 
cious masonic halls, dark, or in the favour- 
ablest theatrical light-and-dark ; Kircher's 
rnagic-lantern, Belshazzar hand-writings, (of 
phosphorus ;) "plaintive tones," gong-beatings ;. 
hoary beard of a supernatural Grand Cophta 
emerging from the gloom ; — and how it acts 
not only indirectly through the foolish senses 
of men, but directly on their Imagination ;. 
connecting itself with Enoch and Elias, with 
Philanthropy, Immortality, Eleutheromania, 
and Adam Weisshaupt's lUuminati, and so 
downwards to the infinite Deep : figure all 
this ; and in the centre of it, sitting eager and 
alert, the skilfullest Panourgos, working the 
mighty chaos, into a creation — of ready mo- 
ney. In such a wide plastic ocean of sham 
and foam had the Archquack now happily be- 
gun to envelope himself. 

Accordingly he goes forth prospering and 
to prosper. Arrived in any City, he has but 
by masonic grip to accredit himself with the 
Venerable of the place ; and, not by degrees 
as formerly, but in a single night, is introduced 
in Grand Lodge to all that is fattest and fool- 
ishest far or near; and in the fittest arena, a 
gilt-pasteboard Masonic hall. There between 
the two pillars of Jachin and Boaz, can the 
great Sheepstealer see his whole flock (of 
Dupeables) assembled in one penfold ; affec- 
tionately blatant, licking the hand they are to 
bleed by. Victorious Acharat-Beppo! The 
genius of Amazement, moreover, has now 
shed her glory round him; he is radiant-head- 
ed, a supernatural by his very gait. Behold 
him everywhere welcomed with vivats, or in 
awe-struck silence: gilt-pasteboard Freema- 
sons receive him under the Steel-Arch (of 
crossed sabres ;) he mounts to the Seat of the 
Venerable; holds high discourse hours long 
on Mas(jnry, Morality, Universal Science, Di- 
vinity, and Things in general, with "a sub- 
limity, an emphasis, and unction," proceeding, 
it appears, "from the special inspiration of 
the Holy Ghost." Then there are Egyptian 
Lodges to be founded, corresponded with (a 
thing involving expense;) elementary frac- 
tions of many a priceless arcanum (nay, if 
the place will stand it, of the Pentagon itself) 
can be given to the purified in life : how 
gladly would he give them, but they have to be 
brought from the uttermost ends of the worH 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



441 



and cost money. Now, too, with what, ten- 
fold impetuosity do all the old trades of Egyp- 
tian Drops, Beauty-waters, Secret-favours, ex- 
pand themselves, and rise in price ! Life- 
weary, moneyed Donothing, this seraphic 
Countess is Grand Priestess of the Egyptian 
Female Lodges ; has a touch of the supra- 
mundane Undine in her: among all thy in- 
trigues, hadst thou ever yet Endym ion-like an 
intrigue with the lunar Diana, — called also 
Hecate 1 And thou, O antique, much-loving 
faded Dowager, this Squire-of-dames can (it 
appears probable) command the Seven Angels, 
Uriel, Anachiel and Company ; at lowest, has 
the eyes of all Europe fixed on him! — The 
dog pockets money enough, and can seem to 
despise money. 

To us, much meditating on the matter, it 
sqpmed perhaps strangest of all, how Count 
Cagliostro, received under the Steel Arch, 
could hold Discourses, of from one to three 
hours long, on Universal Science, of such 
unction, we do not say as to seem inspired by 
the Holy Spirit, but as not to get him lugged 
out of doors, (after his first head of method,) 
and drowned in whole oceans of salt-and- 
water. The man could not speak ; only bab- 
ble in long-winded diffusions, chaotic circum- 
volutions tending nowhither. He had no 
thought for speaking with ; he had not even a 
languag?. His Sicilian-Italian, and Laquais- 
de-Place French, garnished with shreds from 
all European dialects, was wholly intelligible 
to no mortal ; a Tower-of-Babel jargon, which 
made many think him a kind of Jew. But 
indeed, with the language of Greeks, or of 
Angels, what better were itl The man once 
for all has no articulate utterance; that tongue 
of his emits noises enough, but no speech. 
Let him begin the plainest story, his stream 
stagnates at the first stage; chafes ("ahem! 
ahem!"); loses itself in the earth ; or, burst- 
ing over, flies abroad without bank or chan- 
nel, — into separate plashes. Not a stream, 
but a lake, a wide-spread indefinite marsh. 
His whole thought is confused, inextricable ; 
what thought, what resemblance of thought 
he has, cannot deliver itself, except in gasps, 
blustering gushes, spasmodic reliuences, which 
made bad worse. Bubble, bubble, toil and 
trouble : how thou bubblest, foolish "Bubbly- 
jock !" Hear him once, (and on a dead-lift 
occasion,) as the Inquisition Gurney reports it : 

"'I mean, and I wish to mean, that even as 
those who honour their father and mother, and 
respect the sovereign Pontift", are blessed of 
God ; even so all that I did, I did it by the or- 
der of God, with the power which he vouch- 
safed me, and to the advantage of God and of 
Holy Church ; and I mean to give the proofs 
of all that I have done and said, not only phy- 
sically but morally, by showing that as I have 
served God for God and by the power of God, 
he has given me at last the counterpoison to 
confound and combat Hell ; for I know no 
other enemies than those that are in Hell, and 
if I am wrong the Holy Father will punish 
me ; if I am right he will reward me, and if 
the Holy Father could get into his hands to- 
night these answers of mine, I predict to all 
brethren, believers and unbelievers, that I 
56 



should be at liberty to-morrow morning.' Be- 
ing desired to give these proofs then, he an- 
swered : ' To prove that I have been chosen 
of God as an Apostle to defend and propagate 
religion, I say that as the Holy Church has 
instituted pastors to demonstrate in face of 
the world that she is the true Catholic faith, 
even so, having operated with approbation and 
by the counsel of pastors of the Holy Church, 
I am, as I said, fully justified in regard to all 
my operations ; and these pastors have as- 
sored me that my Egyptian Order was divine, 
and deserved to be formed into an Order sanc- 
tioned by the Holy Father, as I said in an- 
other interrogatory.'" 

How. then, in the name of wonder, said we, 
could such a babbling, bubbling Turkey-cock 
speak " with unction 1" 

Two things here are to be taken into account. 
First, the difl^erence between speaking and 
public speaking; a difference altogether ge- 
neric. Secondly, the wonderful power of a 
certain audacity, (often named impudence.) 
Was it never thy hard fortune, good Reader, 
to attend any Meeting convened for Public 
purposes ; any Bible Society, Reform, Con- 
servative, Thatched-Tavern, Hogg-Dinner, or 
other such Meeting? Thou hast seen some 
full-fed Long-ear, by free determination, or on 
sweet constraint, start to his legs and give 
voice. Well aware wert thou that there was 
not, had not been, could not be, in that entire- 
ass-cranium of his any fraction of an idea: 
nevertheless mark him. If at first an omi- 
nous haze flit round, and nothing, not even non- 
sense, dwell in his recollection, — heed it not ; 
let him but plunge desperately on, the spell is 
broken. Common-places enough are at hand; 
"labour of love," "rights of sutTering mil- 
lions," "throne and allar," "divine gift of 
song," or what else it may be : the Meeting, by 
its very name, has environed itself in a given 
element of Common-place. But anon, behold 
how his talking-organs gets heated, and the 
friction vanishes; cheers, applauses (with the 
previous dinner and strong drink) raise him 
to the height of noblest temper. And now (as 
for your vociferous Dullard is easiest of all) 
let him keep on the soft, safe jiaraUd course, 
(parallel to the Truth, or nearly so; for Hea- 
ven's sake, not in coiitavt with it,) no obstacle 
will meet him; on the favouring " given ele- 
ment of Common-place" he triumphantly ca- 
reers. He is as the ass, whom you took and 
cast headlong into the water: the water at 
first threatens to swallow him ; but he finds, 
to his astonishment, that he can swim therein, 
that it is buoyant and bears him along. One 
sole condition is indispensable: audacity, (vul- 
garly called impudence.) Our ass must 
ivmvnl himself to his watery "element;" in 
hee daring, strike forth his four limbs from 
him: then shall he not drown and sink, but 
shoot gloriously forward, and swim, to the 
admiration of bystanders. The ass, safe 
landed on the other bank, shakes his rough 
hide, wonderstruck himself at the faculty that 
lay in him, and waves joyfully his long ears: 
so too the public speaker. Cagliostro, as we 
know him of old, is not without a certain 
blubbery oiliness, (of soul as of body,) with 



442 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



vehemence lying under it; has the volublest, 
noisiest tongue ; and in the audacity vulgarly 
called impudence is without a»fello\v. The 
Common-places of such Steel-Arch Meetings 
are soon at his finger ends: that same blub- 
bery oiliness and vehemence lying under it 
(once give them an element and stimulus) are 
the very gift of a fluent public speaker — to 
Dupeables. 

Here too let us mention a circumstanpe, not 
insignificant, if true, which it may readily 
enough be. In younger years, Beppo Balsamo 
once, it is recorded, took some pains to pro- 
cure, " from a country vicar," under quite false 
pretences, "a bit of cotton steeped in holy oils." 
What could such bit of cotton steeped in holy 
oils do for him 1 An Unbeliever from any 
basis of conviction the unbelieving Beppo 
could never be ; but solely from stupidity and 
bad morals. Might there not lie in that chaotic 
blubbery nature of his, at the bottom of all, a 
certain musk-grain of real Superstitious Be- 
lief? How wonderfully such a musk-grain of 
Belief will flavour, and impregnate with seduc- 
tive odour, a whole inward world of Quackery, 
so that every fibre thereof shall smell nni-sk, is 
well known. No Quack can persuade like 
him who has himself some persuasion. Nay, 
so wondrous is the act of Believing, Deception 
and Self-deception must, rigorously speaking, 
coexist in all Quacks ; and he perhaps were 
definable as the best Quack, in whom the 
smallest musk-grain of the latter would suf- 
ficiently flavour the largest mass of the former. 

But indeed, as we know otherwise, was 
there not in Cagliostro a certain pinchbeck 
counterfeit of all that is golden and good in 
man, of somewhat even that is best T Cheers, 
and illuminated hieroglyphs, and the ravish- 
ment of thronging audiences, can make him 
maudlin; his very wickedness of practice will 
render him louder in eloquence of theory; 
and "philanthropy," "divine science," "depth 
of unknown worlds," "finer feelings of the 
heart," and such like shall draw tears from 
most asses of sensibility. Neither, indeed, is 
it of moment how few his elementary Common- 
places are, how empty his head is, so he but 
agitate it well; thus a lead drop or two, put 
into the emptiest dry-bladder, and jingled to 
and fro, will make noise enough; and even 
(if skilfully jingled) a kind of martial music. 

Such is the Cagliostric palver, that bewitches 
all manner of believing souls. If the ancient 
Father was named Chrysostom, or Mouth-of- 
<5old, be the modern Quack named Pinch- 
becko-stom, or Mouth-of-Pinchbeck; in an 
Age of Bronze such metal finds elective aflini- 
ties. On the whole, too, it is worth consider- 
ing what element your Quack specially works 
in: the element of Wonder ! The Genuine, be 
he artist or artisan, works in the finitude of 
the Known ; the Quack in the infinitude of the 
Unknown. And then how, in rapidest pro- 
gression, he grows and advances, once start 
him ! " Your name is up," says the adage, 
"you may lie in bed." A nimbus of Renown 
and preternatural Astonishment envelopes 
Cagliostro; enchants the general eye. The 
few reasoning mortals, scattered here and there, 
that see through him, deafened in the univer- 



sal hubbub, shut their lips in sorrowful dis- 
dain ; confident in the grand remedy, Time. 
The Enchanter meanwhile rolls on his way; 
what boundless materials of Deceptibility 
(which are two mainl)' : first, Ignorance, espe- 
cially Brute-mindedness, the natural fruit of 
religious Unbelief; then Greediness) exist over 
Europe, in this the most deceivable of modern 
ages, are stirred up, fermenting in his behoof. 
He careers onward as a Comet; his nucleus 
(of paying and praising Dupes) embraces, in 
long radius, what city and province he rests 
over; his thinner tail (of wondering and 
curious Dupes) stretches into remotest lands. 
Good Lavater, from amid his Swiss Mountains, 
could say of him : " Cagliostro, a man ; and a 
man such as few are ; in whom, however, I 
am not a believer. O that he were simple of 
heart and humble, like a child; that he hd?d 
feeling for the simplicity of the Gospel, and 
the majesty of the Lord (Hoheit dcs Hcrrn!) 
Who were so great as he 1 Cagliostro often 
tells what is not true, and promises what he 
does not perform. Yet do I nowise hold his 
operations as deception, though they are not 
what he calls them."* If good Lavater could 
so say of him, what must others have been 
saying ! 

Comet-wise, progressing with loud flourish 
of kettledrums, everywhere under the Steel 
Arch, evoking spirits, transmuting metals (to 
such as could stand it,) the Archquack has 
traversed Saxony ; at Leipsic has run athwart 
the hawser of a brother quack (poor Schrupfer, 
here scarcely recognisable as " Sciejfirt,") and 
wrecked him. Through Eastern Germany, 
Prussian Poland, he progresses ; and so now 
at length (in the spring of 1780) has arrived 
at Petersburgh. His pavilion is erected here, 
his flag prosperously hoisted: Mason-lodges 
have long ears; he is distributing (as has now 
become his wont) Spagiric Food, medicine for 
the poor; a train-oil Prince Potemkin (or 
something like him, for accounts are dubious) 
feels his chops water over a seraphic Sera- 
phina : all goes merry, and promises the 
best. But in those despotic countries the Police 
is so arbitrary ! Cagliostro's thaumaturgy 
must be overhauled by the Empress's Physi- 
cian (Rogerson, a hard Annandale Scot ;) is 
found naught, the Spagiric Food unfit for a 
dog : and so, the whole particulars of his Lord- 
ship's conduct being put together, the result is 
that he must leave Petersburgh, in a given 
brief term of hours. Happy for him that it was 
so brief: scarcely is he gone, till the Prussian 
Ambassador appears with a complaint, that he 
has falsely assumed the Prussian uniform at 
Rome ; the Spanish Ambassador with a still 
graver complaint, that he has forged bills at 
Cadiz. However, he is safe over the marches : 
let them complain their fill. 

In Courland and in Poland great things 
await him ; yet not unalloyed by two small re- 
verses. The famed Countess von der Recke, 
(a born Fair .Saint, what the Germans call 
Schonc Seek,) as yet quite young in heart and 
experience, but broken down with grief for de- 



*Lettre du Comte Mirabcau sur Cagliostro et Lavater 
(Berlin, ITSo P. 42,) 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



443 



parted friends, seeks to question the world- 
famous Spirit-summoner on the secrets of 
the Invisible Kingdoms ; whither, with fond, 
strained ej'cs, she is incessantly looking. The 
galimathias of Pinchbecko-stom cannot impose 
on this pure-minded simple woman: she re- 
cognises the Quack in him, (and in a printed 
Book makes known the same :) Mephisto's 
mortifying experience with Margaret, as above 
foretold, renews itself for Cagliostro.* At 
Warsaw too, though he discourses on Egyptian 
Masonry, on Medical Philosophy, and the igno- 
rance of Doctors, and performs successfully 
with Pupil and Columb, a certain " Count M." 
cherishes more than doubt ; which ends in 
certainty, in a written Cagliostro Unmasked. 
The Archquack, triumphant, sumptuously 
feasted in the city, has retired with a chosen 
set of believers, wiih whom, however, was this 
unbelieving " M.," into the countr]', to transmute 
metals, to prepare perhaps the Pentagon itself. 
All that night, before leaving Warsaw, " our 
dear Master" had spent conversing with spirits. 
Spirits'? cries "M.:" Not he; but melting 
ducats : he has melted a mass of them in this 
crucible, which now, by sleight of hand, he 
■would fain substitute for that other, filled as 
you all saw, with red-lead, carefully luted down, 
smelted, set to cool, smuggled from among 
our hands, and now (look at it, ye asses!) 
— found broken and hidden among these 
bushes ! Neither does the Pentagon, or Elixir 
of Life, or whatever it was, prosper better. 
" Our sweet Master enters into expostulation ;" 
"swears by his great God, and his honour, 
that he will finish the work and make us happy. 
He carries his modesty so far as to propose 
that he shall work with chains on his feet; 
and consents to lose his life, by the hands of 
his disciples, if before the end of the fourth 
passage, his word be not made good. He lays 
his hand on the ground, and kisses it; holds 
it up to Heaven, and again takes God to wit- 
ness that he speaks true; calls on him to ex- 
terminate him if he lies." A vision of the 
hoary-bearded Grand Cophta himself makes 
night solemn. In vain ! The sherds of that 
broken red-lead crucible (which pretends to 
stand here unbroken half-full of silver) lie 
there, before your eyes : that " resemblance of a 
sleeping child," grown visible in the magic 
cooking of our Elixir, proves to be an inserted 
rosemary-leaf: the Grand Cophta cannot be 
gone too soon. 

Count " M." balancing towards the opposite 
extreme, even thinks him inadequate as a 
Quack. 

" Far from being modest," says this Un- 
masker, " he brags beyond expression, in any- 
body's presence, especially in women's, of the 
grand faculties he possesses. Every word is 
an exaggeration, or a statement you feel to be 
improbable. The smallest contradiction puts 
him in fury: his vanity breaks through on all 
sides ; he lets you give him a festival that sets 
the whole city a-talking. Most impostors are 
supple, and endeavour to gain friends. This 
one, you might s^y, studies to appear arrogant, 
to make all men enemies, by his rude injurious 



* Zeitgenossen, No. XV. J Frau von der Recke. 



speeches, by the squabbles and grudges he in- 
troduces among friends." " He quarrels with 
his coadjutors for trifles ; fancies that a simple 
giving of the lie will persuade the public that 
they are liars." "Schropfer at Leipsic was 
far cleverer." " He should get some ventrilo- 
quist for assistant : should read some Books 
of Chemistry; study the tricks of Philadelphia 
and Comus."* 

Fair advices, good " M. ;" but do not you 
yourself admit that he has a "natural genius 
for deception;" above all things, "a forehead 
of brass, (front d'alrain,) which nothing can dis- 
concert 1" To such a genius, and such a brow, 
Comus and Philadelphia, and all the ventrilo- 
quists in Nature, can add little. Give the 
Archquack his due. These arrogancies of 
his prove only that he is mounted on his high 
horse, and has now the world under him. 

Such reverses (occurring in the lot of every 
man) are, for our Cagliostro, but as specks in 
the blaze of the meridian Sun. With undim- 
med lustre he is, as heretofore, handed over 
from this " Prince P." to that " Prince Q." 
among which high believing potentates, what 
is an incredulous "Count M.r* His pockets 
are distended with ducats and diamonds: he 
is off to Vienna, to Frankfort, to Strnsburg, by 
extra post; and there also will work miracles. 
"The train he commonly took with him," says 
the Inquisition Biographer, " corresponded to 
the rest ; he always travelled post, with a con- 
siderable suite : couriers, lackeys, body-ser- 
vants, domestics of all sorts, sumptuously 
dressed, gave an air of reality to the high birth 
he vaunted. The very liveries he got made 
at Paris cost twenty Lotiis each. Apartments 
furnished in the height of the mode; a magni- 
ficent table, open to numerous guests; rich 
dresses for himself and his wife, corresponded 
to this luxurious way of life. His feigned 
generosity likewise made a great noise. Often 
he gratuitously doctored the poor, and even 
gave them alms."-j" 

In the inside of all this splendid travelling 
and lodging economy, are to be seen, as we 
know, two suspicious-looking rouged or un- 
rouged figures, of a Count and a Countess; 
lolling on their cushions there. Math a jaded, 
haggard kind of aspect, they eye one another 
sullenly, in silence, with a scarce-suppressed 
indignation ; for each thinks the other does 
not work enough and eats too much. Whether 
Dame Lorenza followed her peculiar side of 
the business with reluctance or with free 
alacrity, is a moot-point among Biographers: 
not so, that, with her choleric adipose Arch- 
quack, she had a sour life of it, and brawl- 
ing abounded. If we look still further in- 
wards, and try to penetrate the inmost self- 
consciousness (what in another man would be 
called the conscience) of the Archquack him- 
self, the view gets most uncertain ; little or 
nothing to be seen but a thick fallacious haze. 
Which indeed teas the main thing extant there. 
Much in the Count Front-d'airain remains 
dubious ; yet hardly this : his want of clear 
insight into any thing, most of all into his own 

* Cagliostro (Umasque H Varsovie, en 1780. (Paris, 
1786.) P. 35 et seq. 
I Vie de Joseph Balsamo, p. 41. 



444 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



inner man. Cunning in the supreme degree 
he has; intellect next to none. Nay, is not 
cunning (couple it with an esurient cliaracter) 
the natural consequence of defective intellect. 
It is properly the vehement exercise of a short, 
poor vision ; of an intellect sunk, bemired ; 
which can attain to no free vision, otherwise 
it would lead the esurient man to be honest. 

Meanwhile gleams of muddy light will occa- 
sionally visit all mortals ; every living creature 
(according to Milton, the very Devil) has some 
more or less faint resemblance of a Con- 
science; must make inwardly certain auricular 
confessions, absolutions, professions of faith, 
— were it only that he does not yet quite 
loathe, and so proceed to hang himself. What 
such a Porcus as Cagliostro might specially 
feel, and think, and be, were difficult in any 
case to say; much more when contradiction 
and mystification, designed and unavoidable, 
so involve the matter. One of the most 
authentic documents preserved of him is the 
Picture of his Visage. An Efligies once uni- 
versally diffused ; in oil-paint, aquatint, marble, 
stucco, and perhaps gingerbread, decorating 
millions of apartments : of which remarkable 
Effigies one copy, engraved in the line-manner, 
happily still lies here. Fittest of visages; 
worthy to be worn by the Quack of, Quacks ! 
A most portentous face of scoundrelism : a fat, 
snub, abominable face ; dew-lapped, flat-nosed, 
greasy, full of greediness, sensuality, oxlike 
obstinacy ; a forehead impudent, refusing to 
be ashamed ; and then two eyes turned up 
seraphically languishing, as in divine con- 
templation and adoration; a touch of quiz 
too: on the whole, perhaps the most perfect 
quack-face produced by the eighteenth cen- 
tury. There he sits, and seraphically lan- 
guishes, with this epigraph: 

De VMmi des Ilumains rccunaissei lea traits : 

Tons sesjovrs sont marquis par dc nouveavz liicnfaits, 

II prolongc la vie, il secuurt I'indifrcnce ; 

Le plaisir d'etre utile est setil sa recumpensc. 

A probable conjecture were that this same 
Theosnphy, Theophilanthropy, Solacement of 
the Poor, to which our Arcliquack now more 
and more betook himself, might serve not only 
as bird-lime for external game, but also half- 
unconsciously as salve for assuaging his own 
spiritual sores. Am not I a charitable man 1 
could the Archquack say : if I have erred 
myself, have I not, by theosophic unctuous 
discourses, removed much cause of error? 
The lying, the quackery, what are these but 
the method of accommodating yourself to the 
temper of men ; of getting their ear, their dull 
long ear, which Honesty had no chance to 
catch? Nay, at worst, is not this an unjust 
world; full of nothing but beasts of prey, four- 
footed or two-footed ? Nature has commanded, 
saying: Man, help thyself. Ought not the 
man of my genius, since he was not born a 
Prince, since in these scandalous times he has 
not been elected a Prince, to make himself 
one ? If not by open violence, (for which he 
wants military force ;) then surely by superior 
science,— exercised in a private way. Heal 
the diseases of the Poor, the far deeper dis- 
eases of the ignorant : in a word, found 
Egyptian Lodges, and get the means of found- 



ing them. — By such soliloquies can Count 
Front-of-brass Pinchbecko-stom, in rare atra- 
biliar hours of self-questioning, compose him- 
self. For the rest, such hours are rare : the 
Count is a man of action and digestion, not of 
self-questioning; usually the day brings its 
abundant task; there is no time for abstrac- 
tions, — of the metaphysical sort. 

Be this as it may, the Count has arrived at 
Strasburg; is working higher wonders than 
ever. At Strasburg, indeed, (in the year 1783,) 
occurs his apotheosis : what we can call the 
culmination and Fourth Act of his Life-drama. 
He was here for a number of months ; in full 
blossom and radiance, the envy and admira- 
tion of the world. In large hired hospitals, 
he with open drug-box, (containing "Extract 
of Saturn,") and even with open purse, re- 
lieves the suffering poor; unfolds himself 
lamblike, angelic to a believing few, of the 
rich classes ; turns a silent minatory lion-face 
to unbelievers, were they of the richest. Medi- 
cal miracles have in all times been common : 
but what miracle is this of an Oriental or Oc- 
cidental Serene-Excellence that, " regardless 
of expense," employs himself not in preserving 
game, but in curing sickness, in illuminating 
ignorance ? Behold how he dives, at noon- 
day, into the infectious hovels of the mean ; 
and on the equipages, haughtinesses, and even 
dinner-invitations, turns only his negatory 
front-of-brass ! The Prince Cardinal de Rohan, 
Archbishop of Strasburg, first-class Peer of 
France, of the Blood-royal of Brittany, inti- 
mates a wish to see him ; he answers : " If 
Monseigneur the Cardinal is sick, let him 
come, and I will cure him : if he is well, he 
has no need of me, I none of him."* Heaven, 
meanwhile, has sent him a few disciples; by a 
nice tact, he knows his man ; to one speaks 
only of Spagiric Medicine, Downfal of tyranny^ 
and the Egyptian Lodge ; to another, of quite 
high matters, beyond this diurnal sphere ; of 
visits from the Angel of Light, visits from him 
of Darkness; passing a Statue of Christ, he 
will pause with a wondrously accented plain- 
tive " Ha !" as of recognition, as of thousand- 
years remembrance ; and when questioned, 
sink into mysterious silence. Is he the Wan- 
dering .lew, then ? Heaven knows ! At Stras- 
burg, in a word. Fortune not only smiles but 
laughs upon him : as crowning favour, he 
finds here the richest, inflammablest, most 
open-handed Dupe ever yet vouchsafed him ;. 
no other than this same many-titled Louis de 
Rohan ; strong in whose favour, he can laugh 
again at Fortune. 

Let the curious reader look at him, for an 
instant or two, through the eyes of two eye- 
witnesses ; the Abbe Georgel, (Prince Louis's 
diplomatic Factotum,) and Ilerr Meiners, the 
GiJttingcn Professor: 

" Admitted at length," says our too-prosing 
Jesuit Abbe, to the sanctuary of this ^scula- 
pius, Prince Louis saw, according to his own 
account, in the incommunicative man's phy- 
siognomy, something so dignified, so imposing, 
that he felt penetrated with a religious awe, 
and reverence dictated his address. Their 



* Mimoires de VMbbi Oeorgel, ii. 48. 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



445 



interview, which was brief, excited more keenly 
than ever his desire of farther acquaintance. 
He attained it at length: and the crafty em- 
piric graduated so cunningly his words and 
procedure, that he gained, without appearing 
to court it, the Cardinal's entire confidence, 
and the greatest ascendency over his will. 
' Your soul,' said he one day to the Prince, ' is 
worthy of mine ; you deserve to be made par- 
ticipator of all my secrets.' Such an avowal 
captivated the whole faculties, intellectual and 
moral, of a man who at all times had hunted 
after secrets of alchemy and botany. From 
this moment their union became intimate and 
public : Cagliostro went and established him- 
self at Saverne, while his Eminence was re- 
siding there; their solitary interviews were 
long and frequent." * * " I remember once, 
having learni, by a sure way, that Baron de 
Planta (his Eminence's man of afl'airs) had 
frequent, most expensive orgies, in the Archi- 
episcopal Palace, where Tokay wine ran like 
water, to regale Cagliostro and his pretended 
wife, I thought it my duly to inform the Cardi- 
nal ; his answer was, 'I know it; I have even 
authorized him to commit abuses, if he judge 
fit.'" * * "He came at last to have no 
other will than Cagliostro's : and to such a 
length had it gone, that this sham Egyptian, 
finding it good to quit Strasburg for a time, and 
retire into Switzerland, the Cardinal, apprized 
thereof, despatched his Secretary as well to 
attend him, as to obtain Predictions from him; 
such were transmitted in cipher to the Cardi- 
nal on every point he needed to consult of."* — 

" Before ever I arrived in Strasburg," (hear 
now the as prosing Protestant Professor,) " I 
knew almost lo a certainty that I should not 
see Count Cagliostro: at least, not get to 
speak with him. From many persons I had 
heard that he, on no account, received visits 
from curious Travellers, in a state of health ; 
that such as, without being sick, appeared in 
his audiences were sure to be treated bv him, 
in the brutalest way, as spies." * * "Never- 
theless, though I saw not this new god of 
Physic near at hand and deliberately, but only 
for a moment as he rolled on in a rapid car- 
riage, I fancy myself to be better acquainted 
with him than many who have lived in his so- 
ciety for months." "My unavoidable convic- 
tion is, that Count Cagliostro, from of old, has 
been more of a cheat than an enthusiast; and 
also that he continues a cheat to this day. 

"As to his country, I have ascertained no- 
thing. Some make him a Spaniard, others a 
Jew, or an Italian, or a Ragusan ; or even an 
Arab, who had persuaded some Asiatic Prince 
to send his son to travel in Europe, and then 
murdered the youth, and taken possession of 
his treasures. As the self-styled Count speaks 
badly all the languages you hear from him, and 
has most likely spent the greater part of his 
life under feigned names far from home, it is 
probable enough no sure trace of his origin 
may evt-r be di>covered. 

"On his first appearance in Strasburg he 
connected himself with the Freemasons; but 



Georgel, ubi supra. 



only till he felt strong enough to stand by him- 
self: he soon gained the favour of the Preetor 
and the Cardinal ; and through these the favour 
of the Court, to such a degree that his adver- 
saries cannot so much as think of overthrow- 
ing him. With the PrsRtor and Cardinal he is 
said to demean himself as with persons who 
were under boundless obligation to him, to 
whom he was under none: the equipage of 
the Cardinal he seems to use as freely as his 
own. He pretends that he can recognise Athe- 
ists or Blasphemers by the smell ; that the va- 
pour from such throws him into epileptic fits ; 
into which sacred disorder he, like a true jug- 
gler, has the art of falling when he likes. In 
public he no longer vaunts of rule over spi- 
rits, or other magical arts; but I know, even 
as certainly, that he still pretends to evoke 
spirits, and by their help and apparition to heal 
diseases, as I know this other fact, that he un- 
derstands no more of the human system, or 
the nature of its diseases, or the use of the 
commonest therapeutic methods, than any 
other quack. 

"According to the crediblest accounts of 
persons who have long observed him, he is a 
man to an inconceivable degree choleric, {hef- 
tig,) heedless, inconstant; and therefore doubt- 
less it was the happiest idea he ever in his 
whole life came upon, this of making himself 
inaccessible; of raising the most obstinate re- 
serve as a bulwark round him ; without which 
precaution he must long ago have been caught 
at fault. 

"For his own labour he takes neither pay- 
ment nor present ; when presents are made 
him of such sort as cannot without offence be 
refused, he forthwith returns some counter- 
present, of equal or still higher value. Nay 
he not only lakes nothing from his patients, 
but frequently admits ihcin, months long, to 
his house and his table, and will not consent 
to the smallest recompense. With all this dis- 
interestedness, (conspicuous enough, as you 
may suppose,) he lives in an expensive way, 
plays deep, loses almost constantly to ladies ; 
so that, according to the very lowest estimate, 
he must require at least 20,000 livres a year. 
The darkness which (Jaligostro has, on pur- 
pose, spread over the sources of his income 
and outlay, contributes even more than his 
munificence and miraculous cures to the no- 
tion that he is a d/Vine extraordinary man, 
who has watched Nature in her deepest opera- 
lions, and among other secrets stolen that of 
Gold-making from her." * * "With a mix- 
ture of sorrow and indignation over our age, 
I have to record that this man has found ac- 
ceptance, not only among the great, who from 
of old have been the easiest bewitched by such, 
but also with many of the learned, and even 
physicians and naturalists."* 

Halcyon days; only too good to continue! 
All glory runs its course; has its culmina- 
tion, and then its often precipitous decline. 
Eminence Rohan, with fervid temper and small 
instruction, pe haps of dissolute, certainly of 
dishonest manners, in whom the faculty of 
Wonder had attained such prodigious develop- 

* Meiners : Briefe ilber die Schweiz, (as quoted in JUi^ 
rabeau.) 

2P 



446 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ment, was indeed the very stranded whale for 
jackals to feed on : unhappily, however, no 
one jackal could long be left in solitary pos- 
session of him. A sharper-toothed she-jackal 
now strikes in ; bites infinitely deeper ; strand- 
ed whale and he-jackal both are like to be- 
come her prey. A young French Mantua- 
maker, " Countess de La Motte-Valoise, de- 
scended from Henry II. by the bastard line," 
without Extract of Saturn, Egyptian Masonry, 
or any (verbal) conference with Dark Angels, 
— has genius enough to get her finger in the 
Archquack's rich Hermetic Projection, appro- 
priate the golden proceeds, and even finally 
break the crucible. Prince Cardinal Louis de 
Rohan is off to Paris, under her guidance, to 
see the long-invisible Queen, (or Queen's Ap- 
parition ;) to pick up the Rose in the Garden 
of Trianon, dropt by her fair sham-royal hand ; 
and then — descend rapidly to the Devil, and 
drag Cagliostro along with him. 

The intelligent reader observes, we have 
now arrived at that stupendous business of the 
Diamond Necklace: into the dark complexities 
of which we need not here do more than 
glance: who knows but, next month, our His- 
torical Chapter, written specially on this sub- 
ject, may itself see the light 1 Enough, for 
the present, if we fancy vividly the poor whale 
Cardinal, so deep in the adventure thatGrand- 
Cophtic "predictions transmitted in cipher" 
will no longer illuminate him; but the Grand 
Cophta must leave all masonic or other busi- 
ness, happily begun in Naples, Bourdeaux, 
Lyons, and come personally to Paris with pre- 
dictions at first hand. "The new Calchas," 
says poor Abbe Georgel, " must have read the 
entrails of his victim ill ; for, on issuing from 
these communications with the Angel of Light 
and of Darkness, he prophesied to the Cardi- 
nal that this happy correspondence" (with the 
Queen's Similitude) " would place him at the 
highest point of favour ; that his influence in 
the Government would soon become para- 
mount; that he would use it tor the propagation 
of good principles, the glory of the Supreme 
Being, and the happiness of Frenchmen." The 
new Calchas was indeed at fault: but how 
could he be otherwise? Let these high Queen's 
favours, and all terrestrial shiftings of the 
wind, turn as they will, his reign, he can well 
see, is appointed to be temporary : in the mean 
while, Tokay flows like water; prophecies of 
good, not of evil, are the method to keep it 
flowing. Thus if, for Circe de La Motte-Valoise, 
the Egyptian Masonry is but a foolish enchanted 
cup to turn her fat Cardinal into a quadruped 
withal, she herself converse-wise, for the 
Graftd Cophta, is one who must ever fodder 
said quadruped (with Court Hopes,) and stall- 
feed him falter and fatter, — it is expected for 
the knife of both parties. They are mutually 
useful ; live in peace, and Tokay festivity, 
though mutually suspicious, mutually con- 
temptuous. So stand matters, through the 
spring and summer months of the year 1785.' 

But fancy next that, — while Tokay is flow- 
ing within doors, and abroad Egyptian Lodges 
are getting founded, and gold and glory, from 
Paris as from other cities, supt rnaturally 
coming in, — the latter end of Augu.t has ar- 



rived, and with it Commissary Chesnon, to 
lodge the whole unholy Brotherhood, from Car- 
dinal down to Sham-queen, in separate cells of 
the Bastille ! There, for nine long months, 
let them howl and wail (in bass or treble ;) 
and emit the falsest of false Memoires ; among 
which that Memoirc pour Ic Comle de Cagliostro, 
en presence dcs uulrcs Co-.dccuses, with its Trebi- 
sond Acharats, Scherifs of Mecca, and Na- 
ture's unfortunate Child, all gravely printed 
with French types in the year 1786, may well 
bear the palm. Fancy that Necklace or Dia- 
monds will nowhere unearth themselves; that 
the Tuileries Palace sits struck with astonish- 
ment, and speechless chagrin; that Paris, that 
all Europe, is ringing with the wonder. Th^t 
Count Front-of-brass Pinchbecko-stom, con- 
fronted, at the judgment bar, with a shrill, glib 
Circe de La Motte, has need of all his elo- 
quence ; that nevertheless the Front-of-brass 
prevails, and exasperated Circe " throws a 
candlestick at him." Finally, that on the 31st 
of May, 1786, the assembled Parliament of 
Paris, "at nine in the evening, after a sitting 
of eighteen hours," has solemnly pronounced 
judgment: and now that Cardinal Louis is 
gone " to his estates;" Countess de La Motte 
is shaven on the head, branded with red-hot- 
iron, "V" (Vuhitsc) on both shoulders, and 
confined for life to the Salpetriere; her Count 
wandering uncertain, with diamonds for sale, 
over the British Empire; the Sieur de Villette 
(for handling a queen's pen) banished for 
ever; the too queenlike Demoiselle Gay d'Oli- 
va (with her unfathered infant) " put out of 
Court ;" — and Grand Cophta Cagliostro libera- 
ted, indeed, but pillaged, and ordered forthwith 
to take himself away. His disciples illuminate 
their windows; but what does that avail? 
Commissary Chesnon, Bastille-Governor Lau- 
nay cannot recollect the least particular of 
those priceless effects, those gold-rouleaus, re- 
peating watches of his : he must even retire 
to Passy that very night; and two days after- 
wards, sees nothing for it but Boulogne and 
England. Thus does the miserable pickle- 
herring tragedy of the Diamond Necklace wind 
itself up, and wind Cagliostro once more to in- 
hospitable shores. 

Arrived here, and lodged tolerably in " Sloane 
Street, Knightsbridge," by the aid of Mr. (Broken 
Wine-merchant Apothecary) Swinton,to whom 
he carries introductions, he can drive a small 
trade in Egyptian pills, (sold in Paris at thirty 
shillings the dram ;) in unctuously discoursing 
to Egyptian Lodges; in "giving public audi- 
ences as at Strasburg," — if so be any one will 
bite. At all events, he can, by the aid of ama- 
nuensis-disciples, compose and publish his 
Lettre au Peiiple jinglais ; setting forth his un- 
heard-of generosities, unheard-of injustices suf- 
fered (in a world not worthy of him) at the hands 
ofEnglish Lawyers, Bastille Governors, French 
Counts, and others ; his Lettre au.v Frangais, 
singing to the same tune, predicting too (what 
many inspired Editors had already boded) that 
"the Bastille would be destroyed" and "a 
King would come who should govern by 
States-General." But, alas, the shafts of Criti- 
cism are busy with him; so many hostileeyes 
look towards him: the world, in short, is gel 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



447 



ting too hot for him. Mark, nevertheless, how 
the brow of brass quails not; nay a touch of 
his old poetic Humour, even in this sad crisis, 
unexpectedly unfolds itself. One Morande, 
Editor of a Courier de V Europe published here 
at that period, has for some time made it his 
distinction to be the foremost of Cagliostro's 
enemies. Cagliostro (enduring much in si- 
lence) happens once, m some " public audi* 
ence," to mention a practice he had witnessed 
in Arabia the Stony: the people there, it seems, 
are in the habit of fattening a few pigs annual- 
ly, on provender mixed with arsenic ; where- 
by the whole pig-carcase by and by becomes, 
so to speak, arsenical; the arsenical pigs are 
then let loose into the woods ; eaten by lions, 
leopards, and other ferocious creatures ; which 
latter naturally all die in consequence, and so 
the woods are cleared of them. This adroit 
practice the Sieur Morande thought a proper 
subject for banter; and accordingly, in his 
Seventeenth and two following Numbers, made 
merry enough with it. Whereupon CountFront- 
of-brass, whose patience has limits, writes as 
Advertisement (still to be read in old files of 
the Public Advertiser, under date September 3, 
1786) a French Letter, not without causticity 
and aristocratic disdain; challenging the witty 
Sieur to breakfast with him, for the 9th of 
November next, in the face of the world, on an 
actual Sucking Pig, fattened by Cagliostro, 
but cooked, carved, and selected from by the 
Sieur Morande, — under bet of Five Thousand 
Guineas sterling that next morning thereafter, 
he the Sieur Morande shall be dead, and Count 
Cagliostro be alive ! The poor Sieur durst not 
cry, Done ; and backed out of the transaction, 
making wry faces. Thus does a khul of red 
coppery splendour encircle our Archquack's 
decline ; thus with brow of brass, grim smiling, 
does he meet his destiny. 

But suppose we should now, from these 
foreign scenes, turn homewards, for a moment, 
into the native alley in Palermo! Palermo, 
with its dinginess, its mud or dust ; the old 
black Balsamo House, the very beds and chairs, 
all are still standing there : and Beppo has 
altered so strangely, has wandered so far awa)'. 
Let us look; for happily we have the fairest 
opportunity. 

In April, 1787, Palermo contained a Travel- 
ler of a thousand; no other than the great 
Goethe from Weimar. At his Table-d'hote he 
heard much of Cagliostro ; at length also of a 
certain Palermo Lawyer, who had been engaged 
by the French Government to draw up an au- 
thentic genealogy and memoir of him. This 
Lawyer, and even the rude draught of his 
Memoir, he with little difficulty gets to see; 
inquires next whether it were not possible to 
see the actual Balsamo Family, whereof it ap- 
pears the mother and a widowed sister still 
survive. For this matter, however, the Lawyer 
can do nothing ; only refer him to his Clerk ; 
who again starts difficulties : To get at those 
genealogic Documents he has been obliged 
to invent some story of a Government Pension 
being in the wind for those poor Balsamos ; 
and now that the whole matter is finished, and 
the Paper sent off to France, has nothing so 
much at heart as to keep out of their way : 



" So said the Clerk. However, as I could 
not abandon my purpose, we after some study 
concerted that I should give myself out for an 
Englishman, and bring the family news of 
Cagliostro, who had lately got out of the Bas- 
tille, and gone to London. 

" At the appointed hour, it might be three in 
the afternoon, we set forth. The house lay in 
the corner of an Alley, not far from the main- 
street named// Camro. We ascended a mise- 
rable stair, and came straight into the kitchen. 
A woman of middle stature, broad and stout, 
yet not corpulent, stood busy washing the 
kitchen dishes. She was decently dressed; 
and, on our entrance, turned up the one end 
of her apron, to hide the soiled side from u.s. 
She joyfully recognised my conductor, and 
said : ' Siguor Giovanni, do you bring us 
good news 1 Have you made out any thing V 

" He answered: 'In our affair, nothing yet: 
but here is a Stranger that brings a salutation 
from your Brother, and can tell you how he is 
at present.' 

" The salutation I was to bring stood not in 
our agreement: meanwhile, one way or other, 
the introduction was accomplished. ' You 
know my Brother"!' inquired she. — ' All Europe 
knows him,' answered I; 'and I fancied it 
would gratify you to hear that he is now in 
safety and well ; as, of late, no doubt you have 
been anxious about him.' — ' Step in,' said she, 
'I will follow you directly;' and with the Clerk 
I entered the room. 

" It was large and high; and might, with us, 
have passed for a saloon; it seemed, indeed, 
to be almost the sole lodging of the family. A 
single window lighted the large walls, which 
had once had colour; and on which were black 
pictures of saints, in gilt frames, hanging 
round. Two large beds, without curtains, stood 
at one wall; a brown press, in the form of a 
writing-desk, at the other. Old rush-bottomed 
chairs, the backs of which had once been gilt, 
stood by; and the tiles of the floor were in 
many places worn deep into hollows. For the 
rest, all was cleanl}'; and we approached the 
family, which sat assembled at the one win- 
dow, in the other end of the apartment. 

" Whilst my guide was explaining, to the 
old Widow Balsamo, the purpose of our visit, 
and by reason of her deafness must repeat his 
words several times aloud, I had time to ob- 
serve the chamber and the other persons in it. 
A girl of about sixteen, well formed, whose 
features had become uncertain by small-pox, 
stood at the window ; beside her a young man, 
whose disagreeable look, deformed by the same 
disease, also struck me. In an easy-chair, 
right before the window, sat or rather lay a 
sick, much disshapen person, who appeared to 
labour under a sort of lethargy. 

" My guide having made himself understood, 
we were invited to take seats. The old woman 
put some questions to me; which, however, I 
had to get interpreted before I could answer 
them, the Sicilian dialect not being quite at my 
command. 

" Meanwhile I looked at the aged widow 
with satisfaction. She was of middle stature, 
but well-shaped; over her regular features, 
which age had not deformed, lay that sort of 



448 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



peace usual with people that have lost their 
hearing ; the tone of her voice was soft and 
agreeable. 

"I answered her questions; and my an- 
swers also had again to be interpreted for 
her. 

" The slowness of our conversation gave me 
leisure to measure my words. I told her that 
her son had been acquitted in France, and 
was at present in England, where he met with 
good reception. Her joy, which she testified 
at these tidings, was mixed with expressions 
of a heartfelt piety; and as she now spoke a 
little louder and slower, I could the better 
understand her. 

" In the mean time, the daughter had en- 
tered, and taken her seat beside my conductor, 
who repealed to her faithfully what I had been 
narrating. She had put on a clean apron ; had 
set her hair in order under the net-cap. The 
more I looked at her, and compared her with 
her mother, the more striking became the dif- 
ference of the two figures. A vivacious, healthy 
Sensualism (Sinnluhkeit) beamed forth from 
the whole structure of the daughter : she might 
be a woman of about forty. With brisk blue 
eyes, she looked sharply round ; yet in her 
look I could trace no suspicion. When she 
sat, her figure promised more height than it 
showed when she rose: her posture was de- 
terminate, she sat with her body leaned for- 
wards, the hands resting on the knees. For 
the rest, her physiognomy, more of the snubby 
than the sharp son, reminded me of her Bro- 
ther's Portrait, familiar to us in engravings. 
She asked me several things about my journey, 
my purpose to see Sicily ; and was convinced 
I would come back, and celebrate the Feast of 
Saint Rosalia with them. 

" As the grandmother, meanwhile, had again 
put some questions to me, and I was busy 
answering her, the daughter kept speaking to 
my companion half-aloud, yet so that I could 
take occasion to ask what it was. He an- 
swered : Signora Capitummino was telling 
him that her Brother owed her fourteen gold 
Ounces; on his sudden departure from Palermo, 
she had redeemed several things for him that 
were in pawn ; but never since that day had 
either heard from him, or got money or any 
other help, though it was said he had great 
riches, and made a princely outlay. Now 
would not I perhaps undertake, on my return, 
to remind him, in a handsome way, of the 
■debt, and procure some assistance for her; 
nay, would I not carry a Letter with me, or at 
all events get it carried ] I offered to do so. 
She asked where I lodged, whither she must 
send the Letter to me ] I avoided naming my 
abode, and offered to call next day towards 
night, and receive the letter myself. 

"She thereupon described to me her unto- 
ward situation : how she was a widow with 
three children, of whom the one girl was get- 
ting educated in a convent, the other was here 
present, and her son just gone out to his les- 
son. How, beside these three children, she 
had her mother to maintain ; and moreover 
out of Christian love had taken the unhappy 
sick person there to her house, whereby the 
burden was heavier: how all her industry 



would scarcely suffice to get necessaries for 
herself and hers. She knew indeed that God 
did not leave good works unrewarded; yet 
must sigh very sore under the load she had 
long borne. 

"The young people mixed in the dialogue, 
and our conversation grew livelier. While 
speaking with the others, I could hear the good 
old widow ask her daughter: If I belonged, 
then, to their holy Religion ? I remarked also 
that the daughter strove, in a prudent way, to 
avoid an answer; signifying to her mother, so 
far as I could take it up : that the Stranger 
seemed to have a kind feeling towards them; 
and that it was not well-bred to question any- 
one straightway on that point. 

" As they heard that I was soon to leave 
Palermo, they became more pressing, and im- 
portuned me to come back; especially vaunt- 
ing the paradisaic days of the Rosalia Festival, 
the like of which was not to be seen and tasted 
in all the world. 

" My attendant, who had long been anxious 
to get off, at last put an end to the interview 
by his gestures; and I promised to return on 
the morrow evening, and take the letter. 
My attendant expressed his joy that all had 
gone off so well, and we parted mutually con- 
tent. 

"You may fancy the impression this poor 
and pious, well-dispositioned family had made 
on me. My curiosity was satisfied ; but their 
natural and worthy bearing had raised an 
interest in me, which reflection did but in- 
crease. 

" Forthwith, how-ever, there arose from me 
anxieties about the following day. It was 
natural that this appearance of mine, which at 
the first moment had taken them by surprise, 
should, after my departure, awaken many re- 
flections. By the Genealogy I knew that 
several others of the family were in iife : it 
was natural that they should call their friends 
together, and in the presence of all, get these 
things repeated which, the day before, they 
had heard from me with admiration. My ob- 
ject was attained; there remained nothing 
more than, in some good fashion, to end the 
adventure. I accordingly repaired next day, 
directly after dinner, alone to their house. 
They expressed surprise as I entered. 'J'he 
Letter was not ready yet, they said; and some 
of their relations wished to make .my acquaint- 
ance, who towards night would be there. 

" I answered that having to set ofl^ to-morrow 
morning, and visits still to pay, and packing 
to transact, I had thought it better to come 
early than not at all. 

"Meanwhile the son entered, whom yester- 
day I had not seen. He resembled his sister 
in size and figure. He brought the Letter they 
were to give me; he had, as is common in 
those parts, got it written out of doors, by one 
of their Notaries that sit publicly to do such 
things. The young man had a still, melan- 
choly, and modest aspect; inquired after his 
Uncle, asked about his riches and outlays, and 
added sorrowfully. Why had he so forgoilen 
his kindred 1 'It were our greatest fortune,' 
continued he, 'should he once return hither, 
and take notice of us; but,' continued he, ' how 



COUNT CAGLIOSTRO. 



449 



came he to let you know that he had relatives 
in Palermo ? It is said, he everywhere denies 
us, and gives himself out for a man of great 
birth.' I answered this question, which had 
now arisen by the imprudence of my Guide at 
our first entrance, in such sort as to make it 
seem that the Uncle, though he might have 
reasons for concealing his birth from the 
public, did yet, towards his friends and ac-! 
quaintance, keep it no secret. 

" The sister, who had come up during this 
dialogue, and by the presence of her brother,' 
perhaps also by the absence of her yesterday's | 
friend, had got more courage, began also to ; 
speak with much grace and liveliness. They 
begged me earnestly to recommend them to ! 
their Uncle, if I wrote to him; and not less 
earnestly, when once I should have made this 
journey through the Island, to come back and: 
pass the Rosalia Festival with them. i 

" The mother spoke in accordance with her 
children. ' Sir,' said she, ' though it is not 
seemly, as I have a grown daughter, to see ] 
stranger gentlemen in my house, and one has 
cause to guard against both danger and evil- 
speaking, yet shall you ever be welcome to us,! 
when you return to this city.' 

"'O yes,' answered the young ones, 'we 
will lead the Gentleman all round the Festival : 
we will show him every thing, get a place on 
the scaffolds, where the grand sights are seen 
best. What will he say to the great Chariot, 
and more than all, to the glorious Illumina- j 
tion !' I 

" Meanwhile the Grandmother had read the j 
letter and again read it. Hearing that I was i 
about to take leave, she arose, and gave me | 
the folded sheet. 'Tell my son,' began she j 
with a noble vivacity, nay, with a sort of in-; 
spiration, ' Tell my son how happy the news ' 
have made me, which you brought from him ! 
Tell him that I clasp him to my heart' — here 
she stretched out her arms asunder, and press- 
ed them again together on her breast — ' that I 
daily beseech God and our Holy Virgin for him I 
in prayer; that I give him and his wife ray i 
blessing; and that I wish before my end to see j 
him again, with these eyes, which have shed 
so many tears for him.' 

" The peculiar grace of the Italian tongue | 
favoured the choice and noble arrangement of i 
these words, which moreover were accom- 
panied with lively gestures, wherewith that 
nation can add such a charm to spoken 
words. 

" I took my leave, not without emotion. 
They all gave me their hands; the children 
showed me out; and as I went down stairs, 
they jumped to the balcony of the kitchen 
window, which projected over the street; 
called after me, threw me salutes, and repeat- 
ed, that I must in no wise forget to come back. 
I saw them still on the balcony, when I turned 
the corner."* 

Poor old Felicita, and must thy pious pray- 
ers, thy motherly blessings, and so many tears 
shed by those old eyes, be all in vain! To 
thyself, in any case, they were blessed. — As 
for the Signora Capitummino, with her three 

♦ Goethe's fVerke, (,Italitenische Reise,) xxviii. 146. 
57 



fatherless children, we can believe at least, 
that the fourteen gold Ounces were paid, by a 
sure hand, and so her heav)' burden, for some 
space, lightened a little. 

Count Cagliostro, all this while, is rapidly 
proceeding with his Fifth Act; the red cop- 
pery splendour darkens more and more into 
final gloom. Some boiling muddle-heads of a 
dupeable sort there still are in England: 
Popish-Riot Lord George, for instance, will 
walk with him to Count Barthelemy's, or 
d'Adhemar's; and, in bad French and worse 
rhetoric, abuse the Queen of France : but what 
does it profit? Lord George must one day 
(after noise enough) revisit Newgate for it; 
and in the meanwhile, hard words pay no 
scores. Apothecary Swinton begins to get 
wearisome; French spies look ominously in; 
Egyptian Pills are slack of sale ; the old vul- 
turous Attorney-host anew scents carrion, is 
bestirring itself anew : Count Cagliostro, in 
the May of 1787, must once more leave Eng- 
land. But whither ! Ah, whither! At Bale, 
at Bienne, over Switzerland, the game is up. 
At Aix in Savoy, there are baths, but no gud- 
geons in them : at Turin, his Majesty of Sar- 
dinia meets you with an Order to begone on 
the instant. A like fate from the Emperor 
Joseph at Roveredo ; — before the Liber meniori- 
alis de Calcostro dum cssct Roborelti could extend 
to many pages! Count Front-of-brass begins 
confessing himself to priests: yet "at Trent 
paints a new hieroglyphic Screen," — touching 
last flicker of a light that once burnt so high ! 
He pawns diamond buckles; wanders neces- 
sitous hither and thither ; repents, unrepents ; 
knows not what to do. For Destiny has her 
nets round him ; they are straitening, straiten- 
ing; too soon he will be ginned! 

Driven out from Trent, what shall he make 
of the new hieroglyphic Screen, what of him- 
self? The way-worn Grand-Cophte,;s has begun 
to blab family secrets; she longs to be in Rome, 
by her mother's hearth, by her mother's grave ; 
in any nook, where so much as the shadow of 
refuge waits her. To the desperate Count 
Front-ot^-brass all places are nearly alike: 
urged by a female babble, he will go to Rome 
then; why not? On a Ma}'-day, of the year 
1789, (when such glorious work had just begun 
in France, to him all forbidden !) he enters the 
Eternal City: it was his doom-summons that 
called him thither. On the 29th of next De- 
cember, the Holy Inquisition, long watchful 
enough, detects him founding some feeble 
(moneyless) ghost of an Egyptian Lodge ; 
"picks him off," (as the military say,) and 
locks him hard and fast in the Castle of St. 
Angelo : 

Voi ch' intrate lasciaV ogni speranza ! 

Count Cagliostro did not lose all hope : 
nevertheless a few words will now suffice for 
him. In vain, with his mouth of pinchbeck and 
his front of brass, does he heap chimera on chi- 
mera; demand religious Books, (which are 
freely given hitn :) demand clean Linen, and an 
interview with his Wife, (which are refused 
him;) assert now that the Egyptian Masonry 
is a divine system, accommodated to erring and 
gullible men, which the Holy Father, when he 
2 p 2 



460 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



knows it, will patronize; anon that there are 
some four millions of Freemasons, spread over 
Europe, all sworn to exterminate Priest and 
King, wherever met with : in vain ! they will 
not acquit him, as misunderstood Theophilan- 
thropist ; will not emit him, in Pope's pay, as 
renegade Masonic Spy : " he can't get out." 
Donna Lorenza languishes, invisible to him, in 
a neighbouring cell; begins at length to con- 
fess! Whereupon he too, in torrents, will 
emit confessions and forestall her: these the 
Inquisition pocket and sift (whence this Life 
of Balsamo) ; but will not let him out. In fine, 
after some eighteen months of the weariest 
hounding, doubling, worrying, and standing at 
bay, His Holiness gives sentence : The Manu- 
script of Egyptian Masonry is to be burnt by 
hand of the common Hangman, and all that in- 
termeddle with such Masonry are accursed; 
Giuseppe Balsamo, justly forfeited of life, (for 
being a Freemason,) shall nevertheless in 
mercy be forgiven; instructed in the duties 
of penitence, and even kept safe thenceforth 
and till death,— in ward of Holy Church. Ill- 
starred Acharat, must it so end with thee ! 
This was in April, 1791. 

He addressed (how vainly !) an appeal to 
the French Constituent Assembly. As was 
said, in Heaven, in Earth, or in Hell there was 
no Assembly that could well take his part. 
For four years more, spent one knows not 
how, — most probably in the furor of edacity, 
with insufficient cookery, and the stupor of in- 
digestion, — the curtain lazily falls. There 
rotted and gave way the cordage of a tough 
heart. One summer morning of the year 1795, 
the Body of Cagliostro is still found in the 
prison at St. Leo ; but Cagliostro's Self has 
escaped, — whither no man yet knows. The 
brow of brass, behold how it has got all un- 
lackered; these pinchbeck lips can lie no 
more : Cagliostro's work is ended, and now 
only his account to present. As the Scherif of 
Mecca said, "Nature's unfortunate child, 
adieu !" 

Such, according to our comprehension there- 
of, is the rise, progress, grandeur, and deca- 
dence of the Quack of Quacks. Does the reader 
ask. What good was in it. Why occupy his 
time and hours with the biography of such a 
miscreant 1 We answer. It was stated on the 
very threshold of this matter, in the loftiest 
terms, by Herr Sauerteig, that the Lives of all 
Eminent Persons (miscreant or creant) ought 
to be written. Thus has not the very Devil 
his Life, deservedly written not by Daniel De- 
foe only, but by quite other hands than Da- 



niel's ? For the rest, the Thing represented 
on these pages is no sham, but a Reality ; thou 
hast it, O reader, as we have it : Nature was 
pleased to produce even such a man, even so, 
not otherwise; and the Editor of this Maga- 
zine is here mainly to record (in an adequate 
manner) what she, of her thousandfold myste- 
rious richness and greatness, produces. 

But the moral lesson? Where is the moral 
lesson T Foolish reader, in every Reality, nay 
in every genuine Shadow of a Reality, (what 
we call Poem,) there lie a hundred such, or a 
million such, according as thou hast the eye to 
read them ! Of which hundred or million 
lying l^erc (in the present Reality,) couldst not 
thou, for example, be advised to take this one, 
to thee, worth all the rest: Behold, I too have 
attained that immeasurable, mysterious glory 
of being alive; to me also a Capability has 
been intrusted: shall I strive to work it out 
(manlike) into Faithfulness, and Doing; or 
(quacklike)into Eatableness, and Similitude of 
Doing 1 Or why not rather (gigman-like, and 
following the " respectable," countless multi- 
tude) — into both'^ The decision is of quite in- 
finite moment; see thou make it aright. 

But in fine, look at this matter of Cagliostro 
(as at all matters) with thy heart, with thy 
whole mind; no longer merely squint at it with 
the poor side-glance of thy calculative faculty 
Look at it not logically only, but mystically. 
Thou shalt in sober truth see it (as Sauerteig 
asserted) to be a "Pasquillant verse," of most 
inspired writing in its kind, in that same 
" Grand Bible of Universal History ;" won- 
drouslyand even indispensably connected with 
the "Heroic" portions that stand there; even 
as the all-showing Light is with the Darkness 
wherein nothing can be seen ; as the hideous 
taloned roots are with the fair boughs, and their 
leaves and flowers and fruit; both of which, 
and not one of which, make the Tree. Think 
also whether thou hast known no Public 
Quacks, on far higher scale than this, whom a 
Castle of St. Angelo never could get hold of; 
and how, as Emperors, Chancellors, (having 
found much filter machinery,) they could run 
theirQuack-career; and make whole kingdoms, 
whole continents, into one huge Egyptian 
Lodge, and squeeze supplies, of money or 
blood, from it, at discretion 1 Also, whether 
thou even now knowest not Private Quacks, 
innumerable as the sea-sands, toiling half-Ca^;- 
liostrically, of whom Cagliostro is as the 
ideal type-specimen 1 Such is the world. Un- 
derstand it, despise it, love it; cheerfully hold 
on thy way through it, with thy eye on higher 
loadstars ! 



DEATH OF THE REV. EDWARD IRVING. 



45f 



DEATH OF THE EEV. EDWARD lEVING. 



[Fraser's Magazine, ISS.'i.] 



Ebward Irving's warfare has closed ; if not 
in victory, yet in invincibility, and faithful en- 
durance to the end. The Spirit of the Time, 
which could not enlist him as its soldier, must 
needs, in all ways, fight against him as its ene- 
my: it has done its part, and he has done his. 
One of the noblest natures — a inan of antique 
heroic nature, in questionable modern garni- 
ture, which he could not wear ! Around him 
a distracted society, vacant, prurient; heat 
and darkness, and what these two may breed : 
mad extremes of flattery, followed by madder 
contumely, by indifference and neglect! — these 
were the conflicting elements ; this is the re- 
sult they have made out among them. The 
voice of our "son of thunder," with its deep 
tone of wisdom, (that belonged to all articulate- 
speaking ages,) never inaudible amid wildest 
dissonances, (that belonged to this inarticulate 
age, which slumbers and somnambulates, 
which cannot speak, but only screech and gib- 
ber,) has gone silent so soon. Closed are 
those lips. The large heart, with its large 
bounty, where wretchedness, found solacement, 
and they that were wandering in darkness the 
light as of a home, has paused. The strong 
man can no more: beaten on from without, 
undermined from within, he must sink over- 
wearied, as at nightfall, when it was yet but 
the mid-season of day. Irving was forty-two 
years and some months old : Scotland sent him 
forth a Herculean man ; our mad Babylon 
wore him and wasted him, with all her en- 
gines; and it took her twelve years. He 
sleeps with his fathers, in that loved birth- 
land: Babylon with its deafening inanity rages 
on; but to him henceforth innocuous, unheed- 
ed — for ever. 

Reader, thou hast seen and heard the man 
(as who has notl) with wise or unwise won- 
der; thou shalt not see or hear him again. 
The work, be what it might, is done : dark cur- 
tains sink over it, enclose it ever deeper into 
the unchangeable Past. — Think (if thou be one 
of a thousand, and worthy to do it) that here 
once more was a genuine man sent into this 
our Mwgenuine phantasmagory of a world, 
which would go to ruin without such; that 
here once more, under thy own eyeS, in this 
last decade, was enacted the old Tragedy (and 
has had its fifth-act now) of The Messenger of 
Truth in the Age of Sharns, — and v/hat relation 
thou thyself mayest have to that. Whether 
any? Beyond question, thou thyself art Aerc; 
either a dreamer or awake; and one day shalt 
cease to dream. 

This man was appointed a Christian Priest ; 
and strove with the whole force that was in 
him to be it. To be it : in a time of Tithe Con- 
troversy, Encyclopedism, Catholic Rent, Phi- 



lanthropism, and the Revolution of Three 
Days ! He might have been so many things ; 
not a speaker only, but a doer; the leader of 
hosts of men. For his head (when the Fog- 
Babylon had not yet obscured it) was of 
strong far-searching insight; his very enthu- 
siasm was sanguine, not atrabiliar; he was so 
loving, full of hope, so simple-hearted, and 
made all that approached him his. A giant 
force of activity Avas in the man; speculation 
was accident, not nature. Chivalry, adven- 
turous field-life of the old Border (and a far 
nobler sort) ran in his blood. There was in 
him a courage dauntless, not pugnacious; 
hardly fierce, by no possibility ferocious : as 
of the generous war-horse, gentle in its 
strength, yet that laughs at the shaking of the 
spear. — But. above all, be what he might, to 
be a reality was indispensable for him. In his 
simple Scottish circle, the highest form of 
manhood attainable or known was that of 
Christian ; the highest Christian was the 
Teacher of such. Irving's lot was cast. For 
the foray-spears were all rusted into earth 
there ; Annan Castle had become a Town-hall ; 
and Prophetic Knox had sent tidings thither: 
Prophetic Knox — and, alas, also Skeptic 
Hume, — and (as the natural consequence) 
Diplomatic Dundas. In such mixed incon- 
grous element had the young soul to grow. 

Grow nevertheless he did (with that strong 
vitality of his) ; grow and ripen. What the- 
Scottisli uncelebrated Irving was, they that 
have only seen the London celebrated (and 
distorted) one can never know. Bodily and 
spiritually, perhaps there was not (in that No- 
vember, 1822,) a man more full of genial' 
energetic life in all these Islands. 

By a fatal chance, Fashion cast her eye on 
him, as on some impersonation of Novel- 
Cameronianism, some wild product of Nature 
from the wild mountains; Fashion ci'owded 
round him, with her meteor lights, and Bac- 
chic dances; breathed her foul incense on 
him; intoxicating, poisoning. One may say, 
it was his own nobleness that forwarded such 
ruin : the excess of his sociability and sym- 
pathy, of his value for the suffrages and sym- 
pathies of men. Syren songs, as of a new 
Moral Reformation, (sons of Mammon, and 
high sons of Belial and Beelzebub, to become- 
sons of God, and the gumflowers of Almack's 
to be made living roses in a new Eden,) souud 
in the inexperienced ear and heart. Most se- 
ductive, most delusive ! Fashion went her 
idle way, to gaze on Egyptian Crocodiles, Iro 
quois Hunters, or what else there might be . 
forgot this man, — who unhappily could not in 
his turn forget. The intoxicating poison had 
been swallowed; no force of natural health 
could cast it out. Unconsciously, for Tn'^s^ 



45S 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



part in deep unconsciousness, there was now 
the impossibility to live neglected ; to walk on 
the quiet paths, where alone it is well with us. 
Singularity must henceforth succeed Singu- 
larity. foulest Circean draught, thou poison 
of Popular Applause! madness is in thee, 
and death ; thy end is Bedlam and the Grave. 
For the last seven years, Irving, forsaken by 
the world, strove either to recall it, or to for- 
sake it; shut himself up in a lesser world of 
ideas and persons, and lived isolated there. 
Neither in this was there health : for this man 
such isolation was not fit; such ideas, such 
persons. 

One light still shone on him ; alas, through 
a medium more and more turbid: the light from 
Heaven. His Bible was there, wherein must 
lie healing for all sorrows. To the Bible he 
more and more exclusively addressed himself. 
If it is the written Word of God, shall it not 
he the acted Word tool Is it mere sound, 
then; black printer's-ink on white rag-paper 1 
A half-man could have passed on without an- 
swering ; a whole man must answer. Hence 
Prophecies of Millenniums, Gifts of Tongues, — 
whereat Orthodoxy prims herself into decent 
wonder, and waves her Avaunt ! Irving clave 
to his Belief, as to his soul's soul; followed it 
whithersoever, through earth or air, it might 
lead him ; toiling as never man toiled to spread 
it, to gain the world's ear for it, — in vain. 
Ever wilder waxed the confusion without and 



within. The misguided noble-minded had 
now nothing left to do but die. He died the 
death of the true and brave. His last words, 
they say, were : " In life and in death, I am the 
Lord's." — Amen ! Amen ! 

One who knew him well, and may with 
good cause love him, has said : " But for Irving, 
I had never known what the communion of 
man with man means. His was the freest, 
brotherliest, bravest human soul mine ever 
came in contact with : I call him, on the whole, 
the best man I have ever (after trial enough) 
found in this world, or now hope to find. 

" The first time I saw Irving was six-and- 
twenty years ago, in his native tovvn, Annan. 
He was fresh from Edinburgh, with College 
prizes, high character, and promise : he had 
come to see our Schoolmaster, who had also 
been his. We heard of famed Professors, of 
high matters classical, mathematical, a whole 
Wonderland of Knowledge: nothing but joy, 
health, hopefulness without end, looked out 
from the blooming young man. The last time 
I saw him was three months ago, in London. 
Friendliness still beamed in his eyes, but now 
from amid unquiet fire ; his face was flaccid, 
wasted, unsound ; hoary as with extreme 
age : he was trembling over the brink of the 
grave. Adieu, thou first Friend ; adieu, while 
this confused Twilight of Existence lasts ! 
Might we meet where Twilight has become 
Day !" 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



[Eraser's Magazine, 1837.] 



CHAPTER L 

ACE OF ROMANCE. 

The age of Romance has not ceased ; it 
never ceases; it does not, if we will think of 
it, so much as very sensibly decline. " The 
passions are repressed by social forms ; great 
passions no longer show themselves ?" Why, 
there are passions still great enough to re- 
plenish Bedlam, for it never wants tenants; 
to suspend men from bed-posts, from improved- 
(Irops at the west end of Newgate. A passion 
tliat explosively shivers asunder the Life it 
look rise in ought to be regarded as consider- 
able : more, no passion, in the highest hey-day 
of Romance, yet did. The passions, by grace of 
the Supernal and also of the Infernal Powers, 
(for both have a hand in it,) can never fail us. 

And then as to " social forms," be it granted 
that ihey are of the most buckram qualit}%and 
bind men up into the pilifullest, straitlaced, 
common-place Existence, — you ask, Where is 
the Romance 1 In the Scotch way one an- 
swers, Where is it noti That very spectacle 
of an Immortal Nature, with faculties and 
destiny extending through Eternity, hampered 
and bandaged up, by nurses, pedagogues, pos- 



ture-masters, and the tongues of innumerable 
old women, (named " force of public opi- 
nion ;") by prejudice, custom, want of know- 
ledge, want of money, want of strength, into, 
say, the meager Pattern-Figure that, in these 
days, meets you in all thoroughfares ; a " god- 
created Man," all but abnegating the character 
of Man ; forced to exist, automatized, mummy- 
wise, (scarcely in rare moments audible or 
visible from amid his wrappages and cere- 
ments,) as Gentleman or Gigman ;* and so 
selling his birthright of Eternity, for the three 
daily meals, poor at best, which time yields : 
— is not this spectacle itself highly romantic, 
tragical, — if we had eyes to look at it ? The 
high-born (highest-born, for he came out of 
Heaven) lies drowning in the despicablest 
puddles; the priceless gift of Life, which he 
can have but once, for he -waited a whole Eter- 
nity to be born, and now has a whole Eternity 
waiting to see what he will do when born, — 
ihis priceless gift we see strangled slowly out 
of him by innumerable packthreads ; and there 



* " 1 always considered him a respectable man. — 
What do you mean by respectable 1 He kept a Gig."— 
ThurteU's Trial. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



453 



remains of the glorious Possibility, which we 
fondly named Man, nothing but an inanimate 
mass of foul loss and disappointment, which 
we wrap in shrouds and bury underground, — 
surely with well-merited tears. To the Thinker 
here lies Tragedy enough ; the epitome and 
marrow of all Tragedy M^hatsoever. 

But so few are Thinkers 1 Aye, Reader, so 
few think ; there is the rub ! Not one in the 
thousand has the smallest turn for thinking; 
only for passive dreaming and hearsaying, 
and active babbling by rote. Of the eyes that 
men do glare withal so few can see. Thus is 
the world become such a fearful confused 
Treadmill ; and each man's task has got en- 
tangled in his neighbour's and pulls it awry; 
and the Spirit of Blindness, Falsehood, and 
Distraction (justly named the Devil) continu- 
ally maintains himself among us ; and even 
hopes (were it not for the Opposition, which 
by God's Grace will also maintain itself) to 
become supreme. Thus, too, among other 
things, has the Romance of Life gone wholly 
out of sight: and all History, degenerating 
into empty invoice-lists of Pitched Battles acd 
Changes of Ministr}' ; or, still worse, into 
" Constitutional History," or " Philosophy of 
History, or " Philosophy teaching by Experi- 
ence," is become dead, as the Almanacs of 
other years, — to which species of composition, 
indeed, it bears, in several points of view, no 
inconsiderable affinity. 

" Of all blinds that shut up men's vision," 
says one, " the worst is self." How true ! How 
doubly true, if self, assuming her cunningest, 
yet miserablest disguise, come on us in never- 
ceasing, all-obscuring reflexes from the innu- 
merable selves of others; not as Pride, not 
even as real Hunger, but onh^ as Vanity, and 
the shadow of an imaginary Hunger, (for Ap- 
plause ;) under the name of what we call " Re- 
spectability !" Alas now for our Historian: to 
his other spiritual deadness (which, however, 
so long as he physically breathes cannot be 
complete) this sad new magic influence is 
added! Henceforth his Histories must all be 
screwed up into the "dignity of History." 
Instead of looking fixedly at the Thing, and 
first of all, and beyond all, endeavouring to 
see it, and fashion a living Picture of it, (not a 
wretched politico-metaphysical Abstraction of 
it,) he has now quite other matters to look to. 
The thing lies shrouded, invisible, in thousand- 
fold hallucinations, and foreign air-images : 
what did the Whigs say of it? What did 
the Tories'! The Priests'? The Freethink- 
ers '? Above all, what will my own listening 
circle say of me for what I say of it? And 
then his Respectability in general, as a literary 
gentleman ; his not despicable talent for phi- 
losophy ! Thus is our poor Historian's faculty 
directed mainly on two objects ; the Writing 
and the Writer, both of which are quite extra- 
neous ; and the thing written of fares as we 
see. Can it be wonderful that Histories 
(wherein open lying is not permitted) are un- 
romantic'? Nay, our very Biographies, how 
stiff-starched, foisonless, hollow! They stand 
there respectable; and what morel Dumb 
idols ; with a skin of delusively painted wax- 
work; and inwardly empty, or full of rags and 



bran. In our England especially, which ia 
these days is become the chosen land of Re- 
spectabilit}', Life-writing has dwindled to the 
sorrowfullest condition ; it requires a man to 
be some disrespectable, ridiculous Boswell 
before he can write a tolerable Life. Thus, 
too, strangely enough, the only Lives worth 
reading are those of Players, emptiest and 
poorest of the sons of Adam ; who neverthe- 
less were sons of his, and brothers of ours ; 
and by the nature of the case, had already 
bidden Respectability good-day. Such boun- 
ties, in this, as in infinitely deeper matters, 
does Respectability shower down on us. Sad 
are th}' doings, Gig ; sadder than those of 
Juggernaut's Car: that, with huge wheel, sud- 
denly crushes asunder the bodies of men ; 
thou, in thy light-bobbing Long-Acre springs, 
gradually winnowest away their souls ! 

Depend upon it, for one thing, good Reader, 
no age ever seemed the Age of Romance to 
itself. Charlemagne, let the Poets talk as they 
will, had his own provocations in the world: 
what with selling of his poultiy and potherbs, 
what with wanton daughters carrying secreta- 
ries through the snow; and, for instance, that 
hanging of the Saxons over the Weser-bridge, 
(thirty thousand of them, they sa}^ at one bout,) 
it seems to me that the Great Charles had his 
temper ruffled at times. Roland of Ronces- 
valles, too, we see well in thinking of it, found 
rainy weather as well as sunny ; knew what it 
was to have hose need darning ; got tough beef 
to chew, or even went dinnerless ; was saddle- 
sick, calumniated, constipated, (as his madness, 
too clearly indicates ;) and oftenest felt, I doubt 
not, that this was a very Devil's world, and he 
(Roland) himself one of the sorriest caitiffs 
there. Only in long subsequent days, when the 
tough beef, the constipation, and the calumny, 
had clean vanished, did it all begin to seem 
Romantic, and your Turpins and Ariostos 
found music in it. So, J say, is it ever .' And 
the more, as your true hero, your true Roland, 
is ever uncouscioKs that he is a hero : this is a 
condition of all true greatness. 

In our own poor Nineteenth Century, the 
writer of these lines has been fortunate enough 
to see not a few glimpses of Romance ; he 
imagines this Nineteenth is hardly a whit less 
romantic than that Ninth, or any other, since 
centuries began. Apart from Napoleon, and 
the Dantons, and Mirabeaus, whose fire-words 
(of public speaking) and fire-whirlwinds, (of 
cannon and musquetry,) which for a season 
darkened the air, are, perhaps, at bottom but 
superficial phenomena, he has witnessed, in 
remotest places, much that could be called ro- 
mantic, even miraculous. He has witnessed 
overhead the infinite Deep, with greater and 
lesser lights, bright-rolling, silent-beaming, 
hurled forth by the Hand of God; around him, 
and under his feet, the wonderfullest Earth, 
with her winter snow-storms and her summer 
spice-airs, and (unaccountablest of all) himself 
standing there. He stood in the lapse of Time; 
he saw Eternity behind him and before him. The 
all-encircling mysterious tide of Fonci:, thou- 
sandfold, (for from force of Thought to force 
of Gravitation what an interval!) billowed 
shoreless on ; bore him too along with it. — he 



454 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



too was part of it. From its bosom rose and 
vanished, in perpetual change, the lordliest 
Real-Phantasmagory, (which was Being;) and 
ever anew rose and vanished; and ever that 
lordliest many-coloured scene was full, another 
yet the same. Oak-trees fell, young acorns 
sprang: Men too, new-sent from the Unknown, 
he met, of tiniest size, who waxed into stature, 
into strength of sinew, passionate fire and 
light: in other Men the light was growing dim, 
the sinews all feeble ; they sank, motionless, 
into ashes, into invisibility; returned back to 
the Unknown, beckoning him their mute fare- 
well. He wanders still by the parting-spot; 
• cannot \\ez.v them ; they are far, ho\^ far! — It 
was a sight for angels, and archangels ; for, 
indeed, God himself had made it wholly. One 
many-glancing asbestos-thread in the Web of 
Universal-History, spirit-woven, it rustled 
there, as with the howl of mighty winds, 
through that "wild roaring Loom of Time." 
Generation after generation, (hundreds of them, 
or thousands of them, from the unknown Be- 
ginning,) so loud, so stormful busy, rushed 
torrent-wise, thundering down, down ; and fell 
all silent (only some feeble re-echo, which 
grew ever feebler, struggling up,) and Obli- 
vion swallowed them aV. Thousands more, to 
the unknown' Ending, will follow : and thoit 
here (of this present one) hangest as a drop, 
still sungilt, on the giddy edge; one moment, 
while the Darkness has not yet engulphed 
thee. O Brother ! is that what thou callest 
prosaic ; of small interest 1 Of small interest, and 
for i/ice.'' A wake, poor troubled sleeper: shake oif 
thy torpid nightmare-dream ; look, see, behold 
it, the Flame-image ; splendours high as Hea- 
ven, terrors deep as Hell : this is God's Creation ; 
this is Man's Life ! — Such things has the wri- 
ter of these lines witnessed, in this poor Nine- 
teenth Century of ours; and what are all such 
to the things he yet hopes to witness? Hopes, 
with truest assurance. " I have painted so 
much," said the good Jean Paul, in his old 
days, " and I have never seen the Ocean ; the 
Ocean of Eternity I shall not fail to see !" 

Such being the intrinsic quality of this Time, 
and of all Time whatsoever, might not the 
Poet who chanced to walk through it find ob- 
jects enough to paint 1 What object soever 
he fixed on, were it the meanest of the mean, 
let him but paint it in its actual truth, as it 
swims there, in such environment; world-old, 
yet new, and never ending; an indestructible 
portion of the miraculous All, — his picture of 
it were a Poem. How much more if the ob- 
ject fixed on were not mean, but one already 
wonderful; the (mystic) "actual truth" of 
which, if it lay not on the surface, yet shone 
through the surface, and invited even Prosa- 
ists to search for it ! 

The present writer, who unhappily belongs 
to that class, has, nevertheless, a firmer and 
firmer persuasion of two things : first, as was 
seen, that Romance exists ; secondly, that now, 
and formerly, and ever more it exists, strictly 
speaking, in Reality alone. The thing that is, 
what can be so wonderful ; what, especially to 
us that arc, can have such significance 1 Study 
Reality, he is ever and anon saying to himself; 
search out deeper and deeper its quite endless 



mystery: see it, know it; then, whether thou 
wouldst learn from it, and again teach ; or 
weep over it, or laugh over it, or love it, or 
despise it or in any way relate thyself to it, 
thou hast the firmest enduring basis : that hie- 
roglyphic page is one thou canst read on for 
ever, find new meaning in for ever. 

Finally, and in a word, do not the critics 
teach us : "In whatsoever thing thou hast thy- 
self felt interest, in that or in nothing hope to 
inspire others with interest ?" — In partial obe- 
dience to all which, and to many other princi- 
ples, shall the following small Romance of the 
Diamond Necklace begin to come together. A 
small Romance, let the reader again and again 
assure himself, which is no brainweb of mine, 
or of any other foolish man's; but a fraction 
of that mystic " spirit-woven web," from the 
"Loom of Time," spoken of above. It is an 
actual Transaction that happened in this Earth 
of ours. Wherewith our whole business, as 
already urged, is to paint it truly. 

For the rest, an earnest inspection, faithful 
endeavour has not been wanting, on our part; 
iior (singular as it may seem) the strictest re- 
gard to chronology, geography, (or rather in 
this case, topography,) documentary evidence, 
and what else true historical research would 
yield. Were there but on the reader's part a 
kindred openness, a kindred spirit of endea- 
vour! Beshone strongly, on both sides, by 
such united twofold Philosophy, this poor 
opaque Intrigue of the Diamond Necklace be- 
came quite translucent between us; transfi- 
gured, lifted up into the serene of Universal 
History; and might hang there like a smallest 
Diamond Constellation, visible without tele- 
scope, — so long as it could. 



CHAPTER H. 

THE NECKLACE IS MADE. 

Herr, or as he is now called Monsieur, 
Boehmer, to all appearance wanted not that 
last infirmity of noble and ignoble minds — a 
love of fame ; he was destined also to be 
famous more than enough. His outlooks into 
the world were rather of a smiling character: 
he has long since exchanged his guttural 
speech, as far as possible, for a nasal one ; 
his rustic Saxon fatherland for a polished city 
of Paris, and thriven there. United in part- 
nership with worthy Monsieur Bassange, a 
sound practical man, skilled in the valuation 
of all precious stones, in the management of 
workmen, in the judgment of their work, he 
already sees himself among the highest of 
his guild: nay, rather the very highest, — for 
he has secured (by purchase and hard money 
paid) the title of King's Jeweller ; and can en- 
ter the Court itself, leaving all other Jewellers, 
and even innumerable Gentlemen, Gigmen, 
and small Nobility, to languish in the vesti- 
bule. With the cosdiest ornaments in his 
pocket, or borne after him by assiduous shop- 
boys, the happy Boehmer sees high drawing- 
rooms and sacred ruelles fly open, as with talis- 
manic Sesame; and the brightest eyes of the 
whole world grow brighter: to him alone of 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



455 



men the Unapproachable reveals herself in 
mysterious negligee; taking and giving coun- 
sel. Do not, on all gala-days and gala-nights, 
his works praise him 1 On the gorgeous 
robes of State, on Court-dresses and Lords' 
stars, on the diadem of Royalty ; better still, 
on the swan-neck of Beauty, and her queenly 
garniture from plume-bearing aigrette to shoe- 
buckle on fairy-slipper, — ihat blinding play of 
colours is Boehmer's doing : he i" Jouaillicr- 
Bijoutier de la Rcine. 

Could the man but have been content with 
it! He could not : Icarus-like, he must mount 
too high ; have his wax-wings melted, and 
descend prostrate, — amid a cloud of vain 
goose-quills. One day, a fatal day (of some 
year, probably, among the Seventies of last 
Century,)* it struck Boehmer : Why should 
not I, who, as Most Christian King's Jeweller, 
am properly first Jeweller of the Universe, — 
make a Jewel which the Universe has not 
matched 1 Nothing can prevent thee, Boeh- 
mer, if thou have the skill to do it. Skill or no 
skill, answers he, I have the ambition : m)' 
Jewel, if not the beautifullest, shall be the dear- 
est. Thus was the Diamond Necklace deter- 
mined on. 

Did worthy Bassange give a willing or a 
reluctant consent ] In any case he consents; 
and co-operates. Plans are sketched, con- 
sultations held, stucco models made; by mo- 
ney or credit the costliest diamonds come in; 
cunning craftsmen cut them, set them: proud 
Boehmer sees the work go prosperously on. 
Proud man ! Behold him on a morning after 
breakfast: he has stepped down to the inner- 
most workshop, before sallying out; stands 
there with his laced three-cornered hat, cane 
under arm ; drawing on his gloves : with nod, 
with nasal-guttural word, he gives judicious 
confirmation, judicious abnegation, censure, 
and approval. A still joy is dawning over 
that bland, blond face of his; he can think 
(while in many a sacred boudoir he visits the 
Unapproachable) that an upu.s viagiiion, of 
wnich the world wotteth not, is progressing. 
At length comes a morning when care has 
terminated, and joy cannot only dawn but 
shine ; the Necklace, that shall be famous and 
world-famous, is made. 

Made we call it, in conformity with common 
speech: but properly it was not made; only, 
with more or less spirit of method, arranged 
and agglomerated. What '• spirit of method" 
lay in it, might be made; nothing: more. But 
to tell the various Histories of those various 
Diamonds, from the first making of them; or 
even (omitting all the rest) from the first dig- 
ging of them in the far Indian mines! How 
they lay, for uncounted ages and a?ons (under 
the uproar and splashing of such Deucalion 
Deluges, and Hutton Explosions, with steam 
enough, and Werner Submersions) silently 
imbedded in the rock; nevertheless (when 
their hour came) emerged from it, and first 
beheld the glorious Sun smile on them, and 



♦ Except that Madame Canipan {Mem aires, lomeW.) 
says the Necklace "was intended for Du liarry," one 
cannot discover, within many years, the date of its 
manufacture. Du Barry went "into half-jiay " on the 
lOth of May, 1774, — the day when her king died. 



with their many-coloured glances smiled back 
on him. How they served next (let us say) 
as eyes of Heathen Idols, and received wor- 
ship. How they had then, by fortune of war 
or theft, been knocked out ; and exchanged 
among camp-suttlers for a little spirituous 
liquor, and bought by Jews, and worn as sig- 
nets on the fingers of tawny or white Majes- 
ties ; and again been lost, with the fingers 
too, and perhaps life, (as by Charles the Rash, 
among the mud-ditches of Nancy,) in old-for- 
gotten glorious victories : and so, through in- 
numerable varieties of fortune, — had come at 
last to the cutting-wheel of Boehmer; to be 
united in strange fellowship, with comrades 
also blown together from all ends of the Earth, 
each with a History of its own! Could these 
aged stones (the youngest of them Six Thou- 
sand years of age, and upwards) but have 
spoken, — there were an Experience for Philo- 
sophy to teach by. But now, as was said, by 
little caps of gold (which gold also has a his- 
tory,) and daintiest rings of the same, they 
are all, being so to speak, enlisted under Boeh- 
mer's flag, — made to take rank and file, in 
new order; no Jewel asking his neighbour 
whence he came ; and parade there for a sea- 
son. For a season only; and then — to dis- 
perse, and enlist anew ad ivjinituni. In such 
inexplicable wise are Jewels, and Men also, 
and indeed all earthly things, jumbled together 
and asunder, and shovelled and wafted to and 
fro, in our inexplicable chaos of a World. 
This was what Boehmer called making his 
Necklace. 

So, in fact, do other men speak, and with 
even less reason. How many men, for exam- 
ple, hast thou heard talk of making money: 
of making say a million and a half of money 1 
Of which million and a half, how much, if 
one were to look into it, had they made? The 
accurate value of their Industry: not a six- 
pence more. Their making, then, was but, 
like Boehmer's, a clutching and heaping to- 
gether ; — by-and-by to be followed also by a 
dispersion. Made 1 Thou too vain indivi- 
dual ! were these towered ashlar edifices ; 
were these fair bounteous leas, with their 
bosky umbrages and yellow harvests; and the 
sunshine that lights them from above, and the 
granite rocks and fire-reservoirs that support 
them fiom below, made by thee? I think, by 
another. The very shilling that thou hast 
was dug (by man's force) in Carinthia and 
Parasiiav; smelted sufficiently ; and stamped, 
as would seem, not without the advice of our 
late Defender of the Faith, his Majesty George 
the Fourth. Thou hast it, and boldest it; but 
whether, or in what sense, thou hast made any 
farthing of it, thyself canst not say. If the 
courteous reader ask, V/hat things, then, are 
made by man 1 I will answer him. Very few 
indeed.' A Heroism, a Wisdom (a god-given 
Volition that has realized itself) is made now 
and then : for example, some five or six Books 
(since the Creation) have been made. Strange 
that there are not more; for surely every en- 
couragement is held out. Could I, or thou, 
happy reader, but make one, the world would 
let us keep it (unstolen) for Fourteen whole 
years, — and take what we could get for it. 



456 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



But in a word, Monsieur Boehmer has made 
his Necklace, what he calls made it : happy 
man is he. From a Drawing as large as 
reality, kindly furnished by"Taunay, Print- 
seller, of the Rue d'Enfer;* and again, in late 
years, by the Abbe Georgel, in the Second 
Volume of his Memoires, curious readers can 
still fancy to themselves what a princely Orna- 
ment it was. A row of seventeen glorious 
diamonds, as large almost as filberts, encircle, 
not too tightly, the neck, a first time. Looser, 
gracefully fastened thrice to these, a three- 
wreathed festoon, and pendants enough (simple 
pear-shaped, multiple star-shaped, or cluster- 
ing amorphous) encircle it, en wreath it, a 
second time. Loosest of all, softly flowing 
round from behind, in priceless catenary, rush 
down two broad threefold rows ; seem to knot 
themselves (round a verj'^ Queen of Diamonds,) 
on the bosom ; then rush on, again separated, 
as if there were length in plenty; the very 
tassels of them were a fortune for some men. 
And now, lastly, two other inexpressible three- 
fold rows, also with their tassels, unite them- 
selves (when the Necklace is on at rest) and 
into a doubly inexpressible sixfold row; stream 
down (together or asunder) over the hind- 
neck, — we may fancy, like lambent Zodiacal 
or Aurora-Borealis fire. 

All these on a neck of snow slight-tinged 
with rose-bloom, and within it royal Lil'e : 
amidst the blaze of lustres; in sylphish move- 
ments, espiegleries, coquetteries, and minuet- 



* Frontispiece of the "Jiffairedu Collier, Paris 1785;" 
where from Georgel's Editor has copied it. This " Affaire 
du Collier, Paris, 1785," is not, properly a Hook: hut a 
bound Collection of such Law Papers (Memoires pour, 
&.C.) as were printed and emitted by the various parties 
in that famed "Necklace Trial." These Law-Papers, 
bound into Two Volumes quarto : with Portraits, sucli 
as the Printshops yielded them at the time ; likewise 
with patches of jilS., containing Notes, Pasquinade- 
songs, and the like, of the most unspeakable character 
occasionally, — constitute this "Affaire du Collier;" 
which the Paris Dealers in Old Books can still procure 
there. It is one of the largest collections of Falsehoods 
that e.\ist in print; and. unfortunately, still, after ail 
the narrating and history there has been on the subject, 
forms our chief means of getting at the truth of that 
Transaction. The First Volume contains some Twenty- 
one Memoires pour: not, of course. Historical state- 
ments of truth; but Culprits' and Lawyers' stalemeuls 
of what they wished.to be believed ; each party lifin'r 
according to" his ability to lie. To reach the truth, or 
even any honest guess at the truth, the immensities of 
rubbish must be sifted, contrasted, rejected : what grain 
of historical evidence may lie at the bottom is then at- 
tainable. Thus, as this Transaction of the Diamond 
Necklace has been called the " Largest Lie of the 
Eighteenth Century," so it comes to us borne, not unfitly, 
on a whole illimitable dim Chaos of Lies! 

Nay, the Second Volume, entitled State de VJiffaire du 
Collier, is still stranger. It relates to the Intrigue and 
Trial of one Bette d'Elienville, who represents himself 
as a poor lad that had been kidnapped, blindfolded, in- 
troduced to beautiful Ladies, and engaged to get hus- 
bands for them ; as setting out on this task, and gradually 
getting quite bewitched and bewildered ;— most indubi- 
tably, going on to bewitch and bewilder other people on 
all hands of him: the whole in covseiiuence of this 
"Neckhice Trial," and the noise it was making! Very 
curious. The Lawyers did verily busy themselves wiih 
this affair of Betle's ; there are scarecrow Portraits 
given, that stood in the Printshops, and no man c;in 
know whether the Originals ever so much as existed. 
It is like the Dream of a Dream. The human mind 
stands stupenl ; ejaculates the wish that such Gnlph 
of Falsehood would close itself,— before general De- 
lirium supervene, and the Speech of Man become mere 
incredible, meaningless jargon, like that of choughs and 
daws. Even from Bette, however, by assiduous sifting, 
one gathers a particle of truth here and there. 



mazes; with every movement a flash of star- 
rainbow colours, bright almost as the move- 
ments of the fair young soul it emblems ! A 
glorious ornament; fit only for the Sultana of 
the World. Indeed, only attainable by such;, 
for it is valued at 1,800,000 livres; say in 
round numbers, and sterling money, between 
eighty and ninety thousand pounds. 



CHAPTER m. 

THE XKCKLACE CANNOT HE SOLD. 

Miscalculating Boehmer! The Sultana of 
the Earth shall never wear that Necklace of 
thine; no neck, either royal or vassal, shall 
ever be the lovelier for it. In the present dis- 
tressed state of our finances, (with the Ameri- 
can War raging round us,) where thinkest 
thou are eighty thousand pounds to be raised! 
for such a thingl In this hungry world, thou 
fool, these five hundred and odd Diamonds, 
good only for looking at, are intrinsically 
worth less to us than a string of as many dry 
Irish potatoes, on which a famishing Sanscu*- 
lotte might fill his belly. Little knowest thou, 
laughing Jouaillier-Bijoutier, great in thy pride 
of place, in thy pride of savoir-faire, what the 
world has in store for thee. Thou laughest 
there; by-and-by thou wilt laugh on the wrong 
side of thy face mainly. 

While the Necklace lay in stucco efSgy, and 
the stones of it were still "circulating in Com- 
merce," Du Barry's was the neck itwas meant 
for. Unhappily, as all dogs (male and female) 
have but their day, her day is gone; and now 
(so busy has Death been) she sits retired, on 
mere half-pay. without prospects, at Saint-Cyr. 
A generous France will buy no more neck- 
ornaments for her: — O Heaven ! the Guillotine- 
axe is already forging (North, in Swedish Dale- 
carlia, by sledge-hammers and fire; South, 
too, by taxes and tallies) that will sheer her 
neck in twain ! 

But, indeed, what of Du Barry! A foul 
worm ; hatched by royal heat, on foul composts, 
into a flaunting butterfly; now diswinged, 
and again a worm ! Are there not Kings* 
Daughters and Kings' Consorts: is not Decora- 
tion the first wish of a female heart, — often 
also (if the heart is empty) the last 1 The Por- 
tuguese Ambassador is here, and his rigorous 
Pombal is no longer Minister: there is an In- 
fanta in Portugal, purposing by Heaven's bless- 
ing to wed. — Singular! the Portuguese Am- 
bassador, though without fear uf Pombal 
praises, but will not purchase. 

Or why not our own loveliest Marie-.\n- 
toinette, once Dauphiness only; now every 
inch a Queen: what neck in the whole Earili 
would it beseem better? It is fit only for her. 
— Alas, Boehmer! King Louis has an eye for 
diamonds; but, he too, is without overplus of 
money: his high Queen herself answers queen- 
like, " VVe have more need of Seventy-fours 
than of Necklaces." Lmulalur ct alsicl! — Not 
without a qualmish feeling, we apply next to 
the Queen and King of the Two Sicilies.* In 



* See Memiires de Campan, ii. 1--26. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



457 



vain, O Boehmer! In crowned heads there is 
no hope for thee. Not a crowned head of them 
can spare the eighty thousand pounds. The 
age of Chivah-y is gone, and that of Bank- 
ruptcy is come. A dull, deep, pressing move- 
ment rocks all thrones : Bankruptcy is beating 
down the gate, and no Chancellor can longer 
barricade her out. She will enter; and the 
shoreless fire-lava of Democuact is at her 
back! Well may Kings, a second time, "sit 
still with awful eye," and think of far other 
things than Necklaces. 

Thus for poor Boehmer are the mournfuUest 
days and nights appointed; and this high- 
promising year (1780, as we laboriously guess 
and gather) stands blacker than all others in 
his calendar. In vain shall he, on his sleep- 
less pillow, more and more desperately revolve 
the problem; it is a problem of the insoluble 
sort, a true " irreducible case of Cardan :" the 
Diamond Necklace will not sell. 



CHAPTER IV. 
affinities: thf. two fixed-ideas. 

Nevertheless, a man's little Work lies not 
isolated, stranded; a whole busy World (a 
whole native-element of mysterious, never- 
resting Force) environs it; will catch it up; 
will carry it forward, or else backward: 
always, infallibly, either as living growth, or 
at worst as well-rotted manure, the Thing Done 
will come to use. Often, accordingly, for a 
man that had finished any little work, this 
were the most interesting question : In such a 
boundless whirl of a world, what hook will it 
be, and what hooks, that shall catch up this 
little work of mine ; and,whirl it also, — through 
such a dance T A question, we need not say, 
which, in the simplest of cases, would bring the 
whole Royal Society to a nonplus. — Good Corsi- 
canLetitia! while thou nursest thy little Na- 
poleon, and he answers thy mother-smile with 
those deep eyes of his, a world-famous French 
Revolution, with Federations of the Champ dc 
Mars, and September Massacres, and Bakers' 
Customers en queue, is getting ready: many a 
Danton and Desmoulins; prim-visaged, Tar- 
tuffe-louking Robespierre, (as yet all school- 
boys ;^ and Marat weeping (and cursing) bit- 
ter rheum, as he pounds horse-drugs, — are 
preparing the fittest arena for him ! 

Thus, too, while poor Boehmer is busy with 
those Diamonds of his, picking them "out of 
Commerce," and his craftsmen are grinding 
and setting them ; a certain ecclesiastical Co- 
adjutor and Grand Almoner, and prospective 
(Jommendator and Cardinal, is in Austria, 
hunting and giving suppers; for whom main- 
ly it is that Boehmer and his craftsmen so 
employ themselves. Strange enough, once 
more ! The foolish Jeweller at Paris, making 
foolish trinkets; the foolish Ambassador at 
Vienna, making blunders and debaucheries: 
these Two, all uncommunicating, wide asun- 
der as the Poles, are hourly forging for each 
other the wonderfuUest hook-and-eye ; that will 
hook them together, one day, — into artificial 
58 



Siamese-Twins, for the astonishment of man- 
kind. 

Prince Louis de Rohan is one of those select 
mortals born to honours, as the sparks fly 
upwards; and, alas, also (as all men are) to 
troubles no less. Of his genesis and descent 
much might be said, by the curious in such 
matters; yet, perhaps, if we weigh it well, in- 
trinsically liitle. He can, by diligence and 
faith, be traced back some hand-breadth or two, 
(some century or two;) but after that, merges 
in the mere " blood-royal of Brittany;" long, 
long on this side of the Northern Immigrations, 
he is not so much as to be sought for ; — and 
leaves the whole space onwards from that, intO' 
the bosom of Eternity, a blank, marked onljr 
by one point, the Fall of Man ! However, and 
what alone concerns us, his kindred, in these 
quite recent times, have been much about the 
Most Christian Majesty; could there pickup 
what was going. In particular, they have had 
a turn of some continuance for Cardinalship 
and Commendatorship. Safest trades these, of 
the calm, do-nothing sort: in the do-something 
line, in Generalship, or such like, (witness poor 
Cousin Soubise, at Rossbach,*) they might 
fare not so well. In any case, the actual 
Prince Louis, Coadjutor at Strasburg, while 
his uncle, the Cardinal-Archbishop, has not . 
yet deceased, and left him his dignities, but 
only fallen sick, already takes his place on 
one grandest occasion : he, thrice-happy Co- 
adjutor, receives the fair, young, trembling- 
Dauphiness, Marie-Antoinette, on her first en- 
trance into France; and can there, as Cere- 
monial Fugleman, with fit bearing and sem- 
blance, (being a tall man, of six-and-thirty,) do 
the needful. Of his other performances up to 
this date, a refined History had rather say 
nothing. 

In fact, if the tolerating mind will meditate 
it with any sympathy, what could poor Ro- 
han perform! Pertorming needs light, needs 
strength, and a firm clear footing ; all of which 
had been denied him. Nourished, from birth, 
with the choicest physical spoon-meat, indeed; 
yet, also, with no better spiritual Doctrine and 
Evangel of Life than a French Court of Louis 
the Well-beloved could yield; gifted, more- 
over, (and this, too, was but a new perplexity 
for him,) with shrewdness enough to see 
through much, with vigour enough to despise 
much; unhappily, not with vigour enough to 
spurn it from him, and be for ever enfran- 
chised of it, — he awakes, at man's stature, 
with man's wild desires, in a World of the 
merest incoherent Lies and Delirium; himself 
a nameless Mass of delirious Incoherence, — 
covered over, at most, (and held in a little,) by 



* Here is the Epigram they made against him on oc- 
casion of Rossbach,— in tliat " Despotism tempered by 
Epigrams," which France was then said to be :— 

" Soubise dit, la lanterne i la main, 

J' ai beau chercher, oii diable est mon arm6e f 

Elle eiait \d. pourlant hicr matin : 

Me I'a-t-on prise, ou I'aurais-je egareel — 

Que vnis-je, 6 ciel ! que mon ame est ravie ! 

Piodiffu heureux ! la voili, la voili! — 

Ah, ventrebleu ! rju' est-ce done que celal 

Je me trompais, c'est I'armee ennemie:" 

Lacretei.le, ii. 206» 
2Q 



458 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



conventional Politesse, and a Cloak of pros- 
pective Cardinal's Plush. Are not Intrigues, 
might Rohan say, the industry of this our 
Universe; nay, is not the Universe itself, at 
bottom, properly an Intrigue ? A Most Chris- 
tian Majesty, in the Parc-mix-cofs : he, thou 
seest, is the god of this lower world ; our war- 
banner (in the fight of Life) and celestial En- 
toulo-nika is a Strumpet's Petticoat: these are 
thy gods, O France! — What, in such singular 
circumstances, could poor Rohan's creed and 
world-theory be, that he should "perform" 
thereby'? Atheism? Alas, no; not even Athe- 
ism : only Machiavelism ; and the indestruct- 
ible faith that "ginger is hot in the mouth." 
Get ever new and better ginger, therefore ; chew 
it ever the more diligently : 't is all thou hast 
to look to, and that only for a day. 

Ginger enough, poor Louis de Rohan : too 
much of ginger! Whatsoever of it, for the 
five senses, money, or money's worth, or back- 
stairs diplomacy, can buy ; nay, for the sixth 
sense, too, the far spicier ginger: Antecedence 
of thy fellow-creatures, — merited, at least, by 
infinitely finer housing than theirs. Coadjutor 
of Strasburg, Archbishop of Strasburg, Grand 
Almoner of France, Commander of the Order 
of the Holy Ghost, Cardinal, Commendator of 
St. Wast d'Arras (one of the fattest benefices 
here below): all these shall be housings for 
Monseigneur: to all these shall his Jesuit 
Nursing-mother, (our vulpine Abbe Georgel,) 
through fair court-weather and through foul, 
triumphantly bear him, — and wrap him with 
them, fat, somnolent. Nurseling as he is. — By 
the way, a most assiduous, ever-wakeful Abbe 
is this Georgel; and wholly Monseigneur's. 
He has scouts dim-flying, far out, in the great 
deep of the world's business ; has spider- 
threads that over-net the whole world ; himself 
sits in the centre ready to run. In vain shall 
King and Queen combine against Monseigneur: 
"I was at M. de Maurepas' pillow before six," 
— persuasively wagging my sleek coif, and the 
sleek reynard-head under it; I managed it all 
for him. Here, too, on occasion of Reynard 
Georgel, we could not but reflect what a sin- 
gular species of creature 3'our Jesuit must 
have been. Outwardly, you would say, a 
man ; the smooth semblance of a man : in- 
"wardly, to the centre, filled with stone ! Yet 
in all breathing things, even in stone Jesuits, 
are inscrutable sympathies: how else does a 
Reynard Abbe so loyally give himself, soul 
and body, to a somnolent Monseigneur; — how 
else does the poor Tit, to the neglect of its 
own eggs and interests, nurse up a huge lum- 
bering Cuckoo; and think its pains all paid, 
if the soot-brown Stupidity will merely grow 
bigger and bigger! — Enough, by Jesuitic or 
•other means. Prince Louis de Rohan shall be 
j)assively kneaded and baked into Commenda- 
tor of St. Wast and much else ; and truly surh 
a Commendator as hardly, since King Thierri 
(first of the Faineans) founded that Establish- 
ment, has played his part there. 

Such, however, have Nature and Art com- 
bined together to make Prince Louis. A figure 
thrice-clothed with honours; with plush, and 
civic, and ecclesiastic garniture of all kinds ; 
but in itself little other than an amorphous 



congeries of contradictions, somnolence and 
violence, foul passions, and foul habits. It is 
by his plush cloaks and v/rappages mainly, as 
above hinted, that such a figure sticks together 
(what we call, "coheres,") in any measure ; 
were it not for these, he would flow out bound- 
lessly on all sides. Conceive him further, 
with a kind of radical vigour and fire, (for he 
can see clearly at times, and speak fiercely ;) 
yet left in this way to stagnate and ferment, 
and lie overlaid with such floods of fat ma- 
terial, — have we not a true image of the shame- 
fullest Mud-volcano, gurgling and sluttishly 
simmering, amid continual steamy indistinct- 
ness, (except, as was hinted, in wind-gusts ;) 
with occasional terrifico-absurd Mud-explo- 
sions ! 

This, garnish it and fringe it never so hand- 
somely, is, alas, the intrinsic character of 
Prince Louis. A shameful spectacle: such, 
however, as the world has beheld many times; 
as it were to be wished (but is not yet to be 
hoped) the world might behold no more. Nay, 
are not all possible delirious incoherences, 
outward and inward, summed up, for poor 
Rohan, in this one incrediblest incoherence, 
that he, Prince Louis de Rohan, is named 
Priest, Cardinal of the Church ? A debauched, 
merely libidinous mortal, lying there quite 
helpless, dissolute, (as we well say;) whom 
to see Church Cardinal (that is, symbolical 
Hinge, or main Corner, of the Invisible Holy 
in this World) an Inhabitant of Saturn might 
split with laughing, — if he did not rather 
swoon Avith pity and horror ! 

Prince Louis, as ceremonial fugleman at 
Strasburg, might have hoped to make some 
way with the fair young Dauphiness ; but 
seems not to have made any. Perhaps, in 
those great days, so tirying for a fifteen years' 
Bride and Dauphiness, the fair Antoinette Avas 
too preoccupied : perhaps, in the very face 
and looks of Prospective-Cardinal Prince 
Louis, her fair young soul read, all uncon- 
sciously, an incoherent Rorie-ism, (bottomless 
Mud-volcano-ism,) from which she by in- 
stinct rather recoiled. 

However, as above hinted, he is now gone, 
in these years, on Embassy to Vienna : with 
" four-and-twent}' pages," (if our remembrance 
of Abbe Georgel serve) " of noble birth," all 
in scarlet breeches ; and such a retinue and 
parade as drowns even his fat revenue in pe- 
rennial debt. Above all things, his Jesuit 
Familiar is with him. For so everywhere 
they must manage: Eminence Rohan is the 
cloak, Jesuit Georgel the man or automaton 
within it. Rohan, indeed, sees Poland a-par- 
titioning; or rather Georgel, with his "masked 
Austrian" traitor, "on the ramparts," sees it 
for him: but what can he dol He exhibits 
his four-and-twenty scarlet pages, (who 
"smuggle" to quite unconscionable lengths;) 
rides through a Catholic procession, Prospec- 
tive-Cardinal as he is, because it is too long, 
and keeps him from an appointment: hunts, 
gallants; gives suppers, Sardanapalus-wise, 
the finest ever seen in Vienna. Abbe Geor- 
gel (as we fancy it was) writes a Despatch in 
his name "every fortnight;" — mentions, in 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



459 



one of these, that "Maria Theresa stands, in- j ness has become a Queen. Eminence Rohan 
deed, with the handkerchief in one hand, weep- 1 is home from Vienna; to condole and con- 



for the woes of Poland ; but with the sword 
in the other hand, ready to cut Poland in sec- 
tions, and take her share."* Untimely joke; 
which proved to Prince Louis the root of un- 
speakable chagrins! For Minister D'Aiguil- 
lon (much against his duty) communicates 
the Letter to King Louis ; Louis to Du Barry, 
to season her sovper, and laughs over it: the 
thing becomes a court-joke ; the filially-pious 
Dauphiness hears it, and remembers it. Ac- 
counts go, moreover, that Rohan spake cen- 
suringly of the Dauphiness to her Mother: 
this, probably, is but hearsay and false; the 
devout Maria Theresa disliked him, and even 
despised him, and vigorously laboured for 
his recall. 

Thus, in rosy sleep and somnambulism, or 
awake only to quaff the full wine-cup of the 
Scarlet Woman, (his mother,) and again sleep 
and somnambulate, does the Prospective- 
Cardinal and Commendator pass his days. 
Unhappy man! This is not a world that was 
made in sleep; that it is safe to sleep and 
somnambulate in. In that " loud-roaring Loom 
of Time" (where above nine hundred millions 
of hungry Men, for one item, restlessly weave 
and work,) so many threads fly humming from 
their "eternal spindles;" and swift invisible 
shuttles, far darting, to the Ends of the World, 
— complex enough ! At this hour, a miser- 
able Boehmer in Paris (whom thou wottest 
not of) is spinning, of diamonds and gold, a 
paltry thrum that will go nigh to strangle the 
life out of thee. 

Meanwhile Louis the well-beloved has left 
(for ever) his Parc-aux-ccrfs ; and, amid the 
scarce-suppressed hootings of the world, taken 
up his last lodging at St. Denis. Feeling that 
it was all over, (for the small-pox has the 
victory, and even Du Barry is off,) he, as the 
Abbe Georgel records, "made the amende 
honorable to God," (these are his Reverence's 
own words ;) had a true repentance of three 
days' standing; and so, continues the Abbe, 



gratulate. He bears a letter from Maria 
Theresa; hopes the Queen will not forget old 
Ceremonial Fuglemen, and friends of the 
Dauphiness. Heaven and Earth ! The Dauphi- 
ness Queen will not see him; orders the Let- 
ter to be sent her. The King himself signifies 
briefly that he "will be asked for when 
wanted !" 

Alas ! at Court, our motion is the delicatest, 
unsurest. We go spinning, as it \\'ere, on 
teetotums, by the edge of bottomless deeps. 
Rest is fall ; so is one false whirl. A moment 
ago. Eminence Rohan seemed waltzing with 
the best : but, behold, his teetotum has carried 
him over: there is an inversion of the centre 
of gravity; and so now, heels uppermost, ve- 
locity increasing as the time, space as the 
square of the time, — he rushes. 

On a man of poor Rohan's somnolence and 
violence, the sympathizing mind can estimate 
what the effect was. Consternation, stupe- 
faction, the total jumble of blood, brains, and 
nervous spirits; in ear and heart, only univer- 
sal hubbub, and louder and louder singing of 
the agitated air. A fall comparable to that 
of Satan ! Men have, indeed, been driven from 
Court; and borne it, according to ability. A 
Choiseul, in these very years, retired Parthian- 
like, with a smile or scowl ; and drew half the 
Court-host along with him. Our Wolsey, 
though once an Ego ct Hex tneus, could journey, 
it is said, without strait-waistcoat, to his mo- 
nasetry ; and there, telling beads, look forward 
to a still longer journey. The melodious, too 
soft-strung, Racine, when his King turned his 
back on him, emitted one meek wail, and sub- 
missively — died. But the case of Coadjutor de 
Rohan difl'ered from all these. No loyalty was 
in him that he should die; no self-help, that 
he should live; no faith that he should tell 
beads. His is a mud-volcanic character; in- 
coherent, mad, from the very foundation of it. 
Think, too, that his Courtiership (for how could 
any nobleness enter there?) was properly a 



"fell asleep in the Lord." Asleep in the Lord, | gambling speculation: the loss of his trump 

Queen of Hearts can bring nothing but flat, 
unredeemed despair. No other game has he, 
in this world, — or in the next. And then the 
exasperating IV/iy.^ ihe How nunc it .■' For that 
Rohanic, or Georgelic, sprightliness of the 
"handkerchief in one hand, and sword in the 
other," (if indeed, that could have caused it all,) 
has quite escaped him. In the name of Friar 
Bacon's Head, what was it ? Imagination, with 
Desperation to drive her, may fly to all points 
of Space ; — and return with wearied wings, and 
no tidings. Behold nic here: this, which is the 
first grand certainty for man in general, is the 
first and last and only one for poor Rohan. And 
then his Here! Alas, looking upwards, he can 
eye, from his burning marie, the azure realms, 
once his ; Cousin Countess de Marsan,and so 
many Richelieus, Polignacs, and other happy 
angels, male and female, all blissfully gyrating 
there ; while he — ! 

Nevertheless hope, in the human breast, 
(hough not in the diabolical, springs eternal 
The outcast Rohan bends all his thoughts, fa- 
culties, prayers, purposes, to one object ; one 



Monsieur I'Abbe ! If such a mass of Laziness 
and Lust fell asleep in the Lord, ivho, fanciest 
thou, is it that falls asleep — elsewhere? 
Enough that he did fall asleep ; that thick- 
wrapt in the Blanket of the Night, under what 
keeping we ask not, he never through endless 
Time can, for his own or our sins, insult the 
face of the Sun any more ; — and so now we 
go onward, if not to less degrees of beastliness, 
yet, at least and worst, to cheering varieties of 
it. 

Louis XVI. therefore reigns, (and under the 
Sieur Gamain, makes locks ;) his fair Dauphi- 



* JUrmoires de VAbbe Oeorgel^ ii. 1 — 220. Abb6 Geor- 
gel, who has given, in the place referred to, a long 
solemn Narrative of the Necklace Business, passes for 
the grand authority on it : but neither will he, strictly 
taken up, abide scrutiny. lie is vague as may be j 
writing in what is called the " soaped-pig" fashion: 
yet sometimes you do catch him, and hold him. There 
are hardly above three dates in his whole Narrative. 
He mistakes several times; perhaps, once or twice, 
wilfully misrepresents, a little. The main incident of 
the business is misdated by him, almost a twelvemonth. 
It is to be remembered that the poor Abb6 wrote in 
exile ; and with cause enough for prepossessions and 
bostilities. 



460 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



object he will attain, or go to Bedlam. How 
many ways he tries ; what days and nights of 
conjecture, consultation ; what written un- 
published reams of correspondence, protesta- 
tion, back-stairs diplomacy of every rubric ! 
How many suppers has he eaten ; how many 
given, — in vain ! It is his morning song, and 
his evening prayer. From innumerable falls 
he rises ; only to fall again. Behold him even, 
with his red stockings, at dusk, in the Garden 
of Trianon: he has bribed the Concierge; will 
see her Majesty in spite of Etiquette and Fate ; 
peradventure, pitying his long sad King's-evil, 
she will touch him, and heal him. In vain, 
(says the Female Historian, Campan.)* The 
Chariot of Majest}' shoots rapidly by, with 
high-plumed heads in it; Eminence is known 
by his red stockings, but not looked at, only 
laughed at, and left standing like a Pillar of 
Salt. 

Thus through ten long years (of new resolve 
and new despondency, of flying from Saverne 
to Paris, and from Paris to Saverne) has it 
lasted ; hope deferred making the heart sick. 
Reynard Georgel and Cousin de Marsan, by 
eloquence, by influence, and being " at M. de 
Maurepas' pillow before six," have secured the 
Archbishopric, the Grand-Almonership, (by the 
medium of Poland ;) and, lastly, to tinker many 
rents, and appease the Jew, ihat fattest Com- 
mendatorship, founded by King Thierri the 
Donothing — perhaps with a view to such cases. 
AH good ! languidly croaks Rohan ; yet all not 
the one thing needful; alas, the Queen's eyes 
do not yet shine on me. 

Abbe Georgel admits (in his own polite di- 
plomatic way) that the mud-volcano was much 
agitated by these trials; and in time quite 
changed. Monseigneur deviated into cabalis- 
tic courses, after elixirs, philtres, and the phi- 
losopher's stone ; that is, the volcanic stream 
grew thicker and heavier: at last by Caglios- 
tro's magic, (for Cagliostro and the Cardinal by 
elective affinity must meet,) it sank into the 
opacity of perfect London fog! So, too, if 
Monseigneur grew choleric; wrapped himself 
up in reserve, spoke roughly to his domestics 
and dependents, — were not the terrifico-absurd 
mud explosions becoming more frequent 1 
Alas, what wonder"? Some nine-and-forty 
winters have now fled over his Eminence, (for 
it is 1783,) and his beard falls white to the 
shaver; but age for him brings no "benefit of 
experience." He is possessed by a fixed- 
idea ! 

Foolish Eminence ! is the Earth grown all 
barren and of a snuff colour, because one pair 
of eyes in it look on thee askance 1 Surely 
thou hast thy Body there yet; and what of 
Soul might from the first reside in it. Nay, a 
warm, snug Body, with not only five senses, 

♦ Madame Campan, in her Narrative, and, indeed, in 
her Memoirs generally, does not seem to infemd falsehood : 
this, in the Business of the Necklace, is sayin<; a great 
deal. She rather, perhaps, intends the prodiicins of an 
impression ; which may have appeared to herself to be 
the right one Bur, at all events, she has, here or else- 
where, no notion of historical rigour ; she gives hardly 
any date, or the like ; will tell the same thing, in difier- 
ent places, ditferent ways, fcc. There is a tradition that 
Louis XVIII. revised her Memoires before publication. 
She requires to be read with skepticism everywhere ; 
but yields something in that way. 



(sound still in spite of much tear and wear,) 
but most eminent clothing besides; — clothed 
with authority over much, with red Cardinal's 
cloak, red Cardinal's hat; with Commendator- 
ship, Grand-Almonership (so kind have thy 
Fripiers been,) and dignities and dominions 
too tedious to name. The stars rise nightly, 
with tidings (for thee, too, if thou wilt listen) 
from the infinite Blue ; Sun and Moon bring 
vicissitudes of season ; dressing green, with 
flower-borderings, and cloth of gold, this an- 
cient ever-young Earth of ours, and filling her 
breasts, with all-nourishing mother's milk. 
Wilt thou work] The whole Encyclopedia 
(not Diderot's only, but the Almighty's) is 
there lor thee to spread thy broad faculty upon. 
Or, if thou have no faculty, no Sense, hast thou 
not (as already suggested) Senses, to the number 
of five. What victuals thou wishest, command i 
with what wine savoureth thee, be filled. Al- 
ready thou art a false lascivious Priest; with 
revenues of, say, a quarter of a million ster- 
ling; and no mind to mend. Eat, foolish 
Eminence ; eat with voracity, — leaving the 
shot till afterwards! In all this the eyes of 
Marie Antoinette can neither help thee nor 
hinder. 

And yet what is the Cardinal, dissolute, mud- 
volcano though he be, more foolish herein, 
than all Sons of Adaml Give the wisest of 
us once a " fixed-idea," — which, though a tem- 
porary madness, who has not hadl — and see 
where his wisdom is ! The Chamois-hunter 
serves his doomed seven years in the Quick- 
silver Mines ; returns salivated to the marrow 
of the backbone; and next morning, — goes 
forth to hunt again. Behold Cardalion, King 
of Urinals ; with a woful ballad to his mistress'' 
eyebrow! He blows out, Werter-wise, his- 
foolish existence, because she will not have it 
to keep ;- heeds not that there are some five 
hundred millions of other mistresses in this 
noble Planet; most likely much such as she» 
O foolish men ! They sell their Inheritance,, 
(as their mother did hers,) thought it is Para- 
dise, for a crotchet : will they not, in every 
age, dare not only grape-shot and gallows- 
ropes, but Hell-fire itself, for better sauce to 
their victuals 1 My friends, beware of fixed- 
ideas. 

Here, accordingly, is poor Boehmer with 
one in his head too ! He has been hawking 
his " irreducible case of Cardan" (that Neck- 
lace of his) these three long years, through all 
Palaces and Ambassadors' Hotels, over the 
old " nine Kingdoms," (or more of them that 
there now are:) searching, sifting Earth, Sea, 
and Air, for a customer. To take his Neck- 
lace in pieces, and so, losing only his manual 
labour and expected glory, dissolve his fixed- 
idea, and fixed diaiuonds, into current ones: 
this were simply casting out the Devil — from 
himself; a miracle, and perhaps more! For 
he too has a Devil or Devils: one mad object 
that he strives at ; that he too will attain, or go 
to Bedlam. Creditors, snarling, hound him on 
from without; mocked Hopes, lost Labours, 
bear-bait him from within : to these torments 
his fixed-idea keeps him chained. In six-and- 
thirty weary revolutions of the Moon, was it 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



461 



wonderful the man's brain had got dried a 
little 1 

Behold, one day, being Court-Jeweller, he 
too bursts, almost as Rohan had done, into the 
Queen's retirement, or apartment; flings her- 
self (as Campan again has recorded) at her 
Majesty's feet; and there, with clasped, up- 
lifted hands, in passionate nasal-gutturals, 
with streaming tears and loud sobs, entreats 
her to do one of two things : Either to buy his 
Necklace ; or else graciously to vouchsafe him 
her royal permission to drown himself in the 
River Seine. Her majesty, pitying the dis- 
tracted, bewildered state of the man, calmly 
points out the plain third course: Depecez mire 
Collier, (take your Necklace in pieces ;) — add- 
ing, withal, in a tone of queenly rebuke, that 
if he would drown himself, he at all times 
could, without her furtherance. 

Ah, had he drowned himself, with the Neck- 
lace in his pocket; and Cardinal Commendator 
at his skirts ! Kings, above all, beautiful 
Queens, as far-radiant Symbols on the pin- 
nacles of the world, are so exposed to madmen. 
Should these two fixed-ideas that beset this 
beaulifullest Queen, and almost burst through 
her Palace-walls, one day unite, and this not to 
jump into the River Seine; — what maddest 
result may be looked for ! 



CHAPTER V. 



THE ARTIST. 



If the reader has hitherto (in our too figura- 
tive language) seen only the figurative hook 
and the figurative eye, which Boehmer and 
Rohan, far apart, were respectively fashioning 
for each other, he shall now see the cunning 
Milliner (an actual, unmetapborical Milliner) 
by whom these two individuals, with their two 
implements, are brought in contact, and hook- 
ed together into stupendous artificial Siamese- 
Twins ;— after which the whole nodus and 
solution will naturally combine and unfold 
itself. 

Jeanne de St. Remi, by courtesy or other- 
wise. Countess, styled also of Valois, and even 
of France, has now, (in this year of Grace, 
1783,) known the world for some seven-and- 
twenty summers ; and had crooks in her lot. 
She boasts herself descended, by what is called 
natural generation, from the i3!ood-RoyaI of 
France: Henri Second, before that fatal tour- 
ney-lance entered his right eye, and ended 
him, appears to have had, successively or 
simultaneously, four — unmentionable women : 
and so, in vice of the third of these, came a 
certain Henri de St. Remi into this world ; and, 
as High and Puissant Lord, ate his victuals 
and spent his days, on an allotted domain of 
Fontette, near Bar-sur-Aube, in Champagne. 
Of High and Puissant Lords, at this Fontette, 
six other generations followed; and thus ulti- 
mately, in a space of some two centuries, — 
succeeded in realizing this brisk little Jeanne 
de St. Remi, here in question. But, ah, what 
a falling: off! The Royal Family of France 
has well-nigh forgotten its left-hand collate- 
rals; the last High and Puissant Lord, (much 



dipt by his predecessors,) falling into drink, 
and left by a scandalous world to drink his 
pitcher dry, had to alienate by degrees his 
whole worldly Possessions, down almost to the 
indispensable, or inexpressibles; and die at 
last in the Paris Hotel-Dieu ; glad that it was 
not on the street. So that he has indeed given 
a sort of bastard Life-royal to little Jeanne, 
and her little brother; but not the smallest 
earthly provender to keep it in. The mother, 
in her extremity, forms the wonderfullest con- 
nections ; and little Jeanne, and her little 
brother, go out into the highways to beg.* 

A charitable Countess Boulainvilliers, struck 
with the little bright-eyed tatterdemalion from 
the carriage window, picks her up; has her 
scoured, clothed ; and rears her, in her fluc- 
tuating, miscellaneous way, to be, about the 
age of twenty, a nondescript of Mantuamaker, 
Soubrette, Court-beggar, Fine-lady, Abigail, 
and Scion-of-Royalty. Sad combination of 
trades ! The Court, after infinite soliciting, 
puts one off" with a hungry dole of little more 
than thirty pounds a year. Nay, the audacious 
Count Boulainvilliers dares (with what pur- 
poses he knows best) to offer some suspicious 
presents !f Whereupon his good Countess 
(especially as Mantuamaking languishes) 
thinks it could not but be fit to go down to 
Bar-sur-Aube ; and there see whether no frac- 
tions of that alienated Fontette Property, held, 
perhaps, on insecure tenure, may, by terror or 
cunning, be recoverable. Burning her paper 
patterns; pocketting her pension, (till more 
come,) Mademoiselle Jeanne sallies out thither, 
in her twenty-third year. 

Nourished in this singular way, alternating 
between saloon and kitchen-table, with the 
loftiest of pretensions, meanest of possessions, 
our poor High and Puissant Mantuamaker has 
realized for herself a " firce not beautiful, yet 
with a certain piquancy;" dark hair, blue 
eyes ; and a character, which the present 
writer, a determined student of human nature, 
declares to be undecipherable. Let the Psycho- 
logists try it ! Jeanne de Saint-Remi de Valois 
de France actually lived, and worked, and was: 
she has even published, at various times, three 
considerable Volumes of Autobiography, with 
loose Leaves (in Courts of Justice) of un- 
known number ;+ wherein he that runs may 



♦ Vie de Jeanne Comtesse de Lamotte, (by Herself.) 
Vol. I. 

i He was of Hebrew descent : erandson of the re- 
nowned .Tew Bernard, whom Louis XV., and even 
Louis XVL, used to "walk with in the Royal Garden," 
when they wanted him to lend them money.— See 
Suuveitirs du Dvc de Levis ; Menwires de Duclos, &c. 

% Four Meinoires Pour by her, in this JIffaire du 
Collier; lilie "Lawyers' tongues turned inside out!" 
Afterwards one Volume, Memoires Jvstificolifs de la 
Comtesse de, &.C., (London. 1788;) with Appendix of 
" Documents," so-called. This hns also been translated 
into a kind of Enslish. Then two Volumes, as quoted 
above : Vie de Jeanne de, &c. ; printed in London,— by 
way of extortinjr money frnw Paris. This latter Lying 
Autobiography of LamoUe was lioueht up by French 
persons in authority. It was the burning of this F.ditio 
Prinreps in the Sevres Potteries, on the .SOth of May. 
17115, which raised such a smoke, that the Legislative 
Assembly took alarm ; and had an invesli'.'ati(m about 
it, and consideralile examining of Potters, &;c., till the 
triuh came ont. Copies of the Book were speedily re- 
printed after the Tenth of August. It is in English no; 
and, except in the Necklace part, is not so entirely din 
tracted as the former. 

2 a2 



462 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



read, — but not understand. Strange Volumes! 
more like the screeching of distracted night- 
birds, (suddenly disturbed by the torch of Po- 
lice-Fowlers,) than the articulate utterance 
of a rational unfeathered biped. Cheerfully 
admitting these statements to be all lies; we 
ask, How.any mortal could, or should, so lie? 

The Psychologists, however, commit one 
sore mistake ; that of searching, in every cha- 
racter named human, for something like a 
conscience. Being mere contemplative re- 
cluses, for most part, and feeling that Morality 
is the Heart of Life, they judge that with all the 
■world it is so. Nevertheless, as practical men 
are aware, Life can go on in excellent vigour, 
without crotchet of that kind. What is the 
essence of Life 1 Volition ? Go deeper down, 
you find a much more universal root and cha- 
racteristic: Digestion. While Digestion lasts, 
Life cannot, in philosophical language, be said 
to be extinct: and Digestion will give rise to 
Volitions enough, at any rate, to Desires (and 
attempts) which may pass for such. He who 
looks neither before nor after, any further than 
the Larder, and Stateroom, (which is properly 
the finest compartment of the Larder,) will 
need no World-theory, (Creed, as it is called,) 
or Scheme of Duties : lightly leaving the world 
to wag as it likes with any theory or none, his 
grand object is a theory (and practice) of ways 
and means. Not goodness or badness is the 
type of him; only shiftiness or shiftlessness. 

And* now, disburdened of this obstruction, 
let the Psychologists consider it under a bolder 
view. Consider the brisk Jeanne deSaint-Remi 
de Saint-Shifty as a Spark of vehement Life 
(not developed into Will of any kind, yet fully 
into Desires of all kinds) cast into such a Life- 
element as we have seen. Vanity and Hunger; 
a Princess of the Blood, yet whose father had 
sold his inexpressibles; uncertain whether 
fosterdaughter of a fond Countess, with hopes 
sky-high, or supernumerary Soubrette, with 
not enough of Mantuamaking: in a word, Gig- 
manily clisgigs:ed : one of the saddest, pitiable, 
unpitied predicaments of man ! She is of that 
light unreflecting class, of that light unreflect- 
ing sex : variuni semper i:t iimtabile. And then 
her Fine-Ladyism, though a purseless one: 
capricious, coquettish, and with all the finer 
sensibilities of the heart ; now in the rackets, 
now in the sullens; vivid in contradictory 
resolves ; laughing, weeping without reason, — 
though these acts are said to be signs of reason. 
Consider, too, how she has had to work her way, 
all along, by flattery and cajolery ; wheedling, 
eaves-dropping, and nambypambying: how 
she needs wages, and knows no other produc- 
tive trades. Thought can hardly be said to 
exist in her: only Perception and Device. 
With an understanding lynx-eyed for the sur- 
face of things, but which pierces beyond the 
surface of nothing ; every individual thing (for 
she has never seized the heart of it) turns up 
a new face to her every new day, and seems a 
thing changed, a different thing. Thus sits, 
or rather vehemently bobs and hovers her 
vehement mind, in the middle of a boundless 
many-dancing whirlpool of gilt-shreds, paper 
clippings, and windfalls, — to which the revolv- 
ing chaos of my Uncle-Toby's Smoke-jack 



was solidity and regularity. Reader ! thou for 
thy sins must have met with such fair Irra- 
tionals ; fascinating, with their lively eyes, with 
their quick snappish fancies; distinguished in 
the higher circles, in Fashion, even in Litera- 
ture : they hum and buzz there, on graceful 
film wings; — searching, nevertheless, with the 
wonderfullest skill, for honey: "wjUamable as 
flies !" 

Wonderfullest skill for honey, we say ; and, 
pray, mark that, as regards this Countess de 
Saint-Shifty. Her instinct-of-genius is prodi- 
gious ; her appetite fierce. In any foraging 
speculation of the private kind, she, unthinking 
as you call her, will be worth a hundred 
thinkers. And so of such untamable flies the 
untamablest, Mademoiselle Jeanne is now 
buzzing down, in the Bar-sur-Aube Diligence ; 
to inspect the honey-jars of Fontette; and see 
and smell whether there be any flaws in them. 

Alas, at Fontette, we can, with sensibility, 
behold straw-roofs we were nursed under; 
farmers courteousl}'^ offer cooked milk, and 
other country messes; but no soul will part 
with his Landed Property, for which (though 
cheap) he declares hard money was paid. The 
honey-jars are all close, then ? — However, a 
certain Monsieur de Lamotte, a tall Gendarme, 
home on furlough from Luneville, is now at 
Bar; pays us attentions; becomes quite par- 
ticular in his attentions, — for we have a face 
" with a certain piquancy," the liveliest glib- 
snappish tongue, the liveliest kittenish manner, 
(not yet hardened into cat-hood.,) with thirty 
pounds a-year, and prospects. M. de Lamotte, 
indeed, is as yet only a private sentinel ; but 
then a private sentinel in the Gcnciarmcs : and 
did not his tather die fighting "at the head of 
liis company," at Minden 1 Why not in virtue 
of our own Countess-ship dub him too Count; 
by left-hand coUateralism, get him advanced 1 
— Finished before the furlough is done ! The 
untamablest of flies has again buzzed off; in 
wedlock with M. de Lamotte ; if not to get 
honey, yet to escape spiders; and so lies in 
garrison at Luneville, amid coquetries and 
hysterics, in Gigmanity disgigged — disconso- 
late enough. 

At the end of four long years, (too long,) M. 
de Lamotte, or call him now Count de Lamotte, 
sees good to lay down his fighting-gear, (un- 
happily still only the musket,) and become 
what is by certain moderns called " a Civi- 
lian :" not a Civil-Law Doctor; merely a citi- 
zen, one who does not live by being killed. 
Alas ! cold eclipse has all along hung over the 
Lamotte household. Countess Boulainvilliers, 
it is true, writes in the most feeling manner: 
but then the Royal Finances are so deranged ! 
Without personal pressing solicitation, on the 
spot, no Court-Solicitor, were his pension the 
raeagrest, can hope to better it. At Luneville, 
the sun indeed shines ; and there is a kind of 
Life; but only an un-Parisian, half or quarter 
Life ; the very tradesmen grow clamorous, and 
no cunningly devised fable, ready money alone, 
will appease them. Commandant Marquis* 
d'Autichamp* agrees with Madame Boulain- 

* He is the Bame Marquis d'Autichamp, who was to- 
"relieve Lyons," and raise the Siege of Lyons, in- 
Autumn, 1793, but could not do it. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



46S 



villiers that a journey to Paris were the pro- 
ject; whither, also, he himself is just going. 
Perfidious Commandant Marquis ! His plan 
is seen through : he dares to presume to make 
love to a Scion-of-Royalty ; or to hint that he 
could dare to presume to do it. Whereupon, 
indignant Count de Lamotte, as we said, throws 
■up his commission, and down his fire-arms ; 
•without further delay. The King loses a tail 
private sentinel; the world has a new black- 
leg : and Monsieur and Madame de Lamotte 
take places in the Diligence for Strasburg. 

Good Fostennother Boulainvilliers, how- 
ever, is no longer at Strasburg: she is forward 
at the Archiepiscopal palace in Saverne ; on a 
visit there, to his Eminence Cardinal Com- 
mendator Grand-Almoner Archbishop Prince 
Louis de Rohan ! Thus, then, has Destiny at 
last brought it about. Thus, after long wander- 
ings, on paths so far separate, has the time 
come, <^m this late year 1783,) when, of all the 
nine hundred millions of the Earth's denizens, 
these pre-appointed two beheld each other! 

The foolish Cardinal, since no sublunary 
means, not even bribing of the Trianon Con- 
cierge, will serve, has taken to the superlunary : 
he is here, with his fixed-idea; and volcanic 
vapourosity, darkening, under Cagliostro's ma- 
nagement, into thicker and thicker opaque, — 
of the Black-Art itself. To the glance of hun- 
gry genius Cardinal aad Cagliostro could not 
but have meaning. A flush of astonishment, 
a sigh over boundless wealth (for the moun- 
tains of debt lie invisible) in the hands of 
boundless Stupidity ; some vague looming o' 
indefinite hope: all this one can well fancy. 
But, alas, what, to a high plush Cardinal, is a 
now insolvent Scion-of-Royalty, — though with 
a face of some piquancy 1 The good Foster- 
mother's visit, in any case, can last but three 
days ; then, amid old nambypambyings, with 
the effusions of the nobler sensibilities, and 
tears of pity (at least for oneself,) Countess 
de Lamotte, and husband, must off with her 
to Paris, and new possibilities at Court. Only 
when the sky again darkens, can this vague 
looming from Saverne look out, by fits, as a 
cheering weather-sign. 



CHAPTER VL 

WILL THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS UNITE T 

However, the sky, according to custom, is 
not long in darkening again. The King's 
finances, we repeat, are in so distracted a 
state ! No D'Ormesson, no Joly de Fleury, 
weary of milking the already dry, will increase 
that scandalous Thirty Pounds of a Scion-of- 
Royalty by a single doit. Calonne himself, 
who has a willing ear and encouraging word 
for all mortals whatsoever, only with diffi- 
culty, and by aid of Madame of France,* 
raises it siill to some still miserable Sixty-five. 
Worst of all, the good Fostermother Boulain- 
villiers, in few months, suddenly dies : the 
wretched widower, sitting there, with his 
-white handkerchief, to receive condolences, 



* Campan. 



with closed shutters, mortuary tapestries, and 
sepulchral cressets burning, (which, however, 
the instant the condolences are gone, he blows 
out, to save oil,) has the audacity again., amid 
crocodile tears, to — drop hints !* Nay, more, 
he (wretched man in all senses) abridges the 
Lamotte table ; will besiege virtue both in the 
positive and negative way. The Lamottes,. 
wintery as the world looks, cannot begone too 
soon. 

As to Lamotte the husband, he, for shelter 
against much, decisively dives down to the 
"subterranean shades of Rascaldom;" gam- 
bles, swindles ; can hope to live, miscellane- 
ously, if not by the Grace of God, yet by the 
Oversight of the Devil, — for a lime. Lamotte 
the wife also makes her packages: and wav- 
ing the unseductive Count Boulainvilliers 
Save-all a disdainful farewell, removes to the 
Belle Imns;e in Versailles; there, within wind 
of Court, in attic apartments, on poor water- 
gruel board, resolves to await what can betide. 
So much, in few months of this fateful year 
1783, has come and gone. 

Poor Jeanne de Saint-Remi de Lamotte 
Valois, Ex-Mantuamaker, Scion-of-Royalty ! 
What eye, looking into those bare attic apart- 
ments, and water-gruel platters of the Belle 
Image, but must, in spite of itself, grow dim with 
almost a kind of tear for thee ! There thou 
art, with thy quick lively glances, face of a 
certain piquancy, thy gossamer untamable 
character, snappish sallies, glib all-managing 
:i.ngue ; thy whole incarnated, garmented, and 
so sharply appelent " spark of Life ;" cast 
down alive into this World, without vote of 
thine, (for the Elective Franchises have not 
yet got that length ;) and wouldst so fain live 
there. Paying scot-and-lot; providing, or fresh- 
scouring, silk court-dresses ; " always keep- 
ing a gig!" Thou must hawk and shark to 
and fro, from anteroom to anteroom ; become 
a kind of terror to all men in place, and wo- 
men that influence such ; dance not light Ionic 
measures, but attendance merely; have weep- 
ings, thanksgiving effusions, aulic, almost 
forensic, eloquence : perhaps eke out thy thin 
livelihood by some coquetries, in the small 
way; — and so, most poverty-stricken, cold- 
blighted, yet with young keen blood struggling 
against it, spin forward thy unequal feeble 
thread, which the Clotho-scissors will soon 
clip! 

Surely, now, if ever, were that vague loom- 
ing from Saverne Avelcome, as a weather-sign. 
How doubly welcome is his plush Eminence's 
personal arrival ; — for with the earliest spring 
he has come in person, as he periodically 
does ; vaporific, driven by his fixed-idea. 

Genius, of the mechanical practical kind, 
what is it but a bringing together of two 
Forces that fit each other, that will give birth 
to a third 1 Ever, from Tubalcain's time, 
Iron lay ready hammered ; Water, also, was 
boiling and bursting: nevertheless, for want 
of a genius, there was as yet no Steam-engine. 
In his Eminence Prince Louis, in that huge 

* Vie de Jeanne de Lamotte, &c., icrite par eli»- 



464 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



restless, incoherent Being of his, depend on 
it, brave Countess, there are Forces deep, 
manifold ; nay, a fixed-idea concentrates the 
■whole huge Incoherence as it were into one 
Force; cannot the eye of genius discover its 
/Mow ? 

Communing much with the CowvX-valctaUk, 
•our brave Countess has more than once heard 
talk of Boehmer, of his Necklace, and threat- 
ened death by water ; in the course of gossip- 
ing and tattling, this topic from lime to time 
emerges ; is commented upon with empty 
laughter, — as if there lay no further meaning 
in it. To the common eye there is indeed 
none : but to the eye of genius ? In some 
moment of inspiration, the question rises on 
our brave Lamotte : were not tins, of all ex- 
tant Forces, the cognate one that would unite 
with Eminence Rohan's 1 Great moment, 
light-beaming, fire-tlashing ; like birth of Min- 
erva ; like all moments of Creation ! Fancy 
how pulse and breath flutter, almost stop, in 
the greatness : the great not Divine Idea, the 
great Diabolic Idea is too big for her. — 
Thought (how often must we repeat it?) rules 
the world ; Fire and, in a less degree. Frost ; 
Earth and Sea, (for what is your swiftest ship, 
or steamship but a Thought — irabodied in 
■wood ■?) ; Reformed Parliaments, rise and ruin 
of Nations, — sale of Diamonds : all things 
obey Thought. Countess de Saint Remi de 
Lamotte, by power of thought is now made 
woman. With force of genius she represses, 
crushes deep down, her Undivine Idea; bends 
all her faculty to realize it. Prepare thyself. 
Reader for a series of the most surprising 
Dramatic Representations ever exhibited on 
any stage. 

We hear tell of Dramatists, and scenic illu- 
sion how " natural," how illusive it was: if 
the spectator, for some half-moment, can half- 
deceive himself into the belief that it was 
real, he departs doubly content. With all 
which, and much more of the like, I have no 
quarrel. But what must be thought of the 
Female Dramatist who, for eighteen long 
months, can exhibit the beautifullest Fata- 
morgana to a plush Cardinal, wide awake, 
with fifty years on his head ; and so lap him 
in her scenic illusion that he never doubts but 
it is all firm earth, and the pasteboard Cou- 
lisse-trees are producing Hesperides apples 1 
Could Madame de Lamotte, then have written 
a Hamlet i I conjecture, not. More goes to 
the writing of a Hamkt than completes! " imi- 
tation" of all characters and things in this 
Earth ; there goes, before and beyond all, the 
rarest understanding of these, insight into their 
hidden essences and harmonies. Erasmus's 
Ape, as is known in Literary History, sat by 
■while its Master was shaving, and " imitated" 
every point of the process ; but its own fool- 
ish beard grew never the smoother. 

As in looking at a finished Drama, it were 
nowise meet that the spectator first of all got 
behind the scenes, and saw the burnt-corks, 
brayed-resin, thunder-barrels, and withered 
hunger-bitten men and women, of which such 
heroic work was made: so here with the 
reader. A peep into the side-scenes shall be 



granted him, from time to time. But, on the 
whole, repress, O reader, that too insatiable 
scientific cui'iosity of thine; let thy cesthetic 
feeling first have play; and witness what a 
Prospero's-grolto poor Eminence Rohan is led 
into, to be pleased he knows not why. 

Survey first what we might call the stage- 
lights, orchestra, general structure of the thea- 
tre, mood and condition of the audience. The 
theatre is the World, with its restless business 
and madness; near at hand rise the royal 
Domes of Versailles, mystery around them, 
and as background the memory of a thousand 
years. By the side of the River Seine walks, 
haggard, wasted, a Jouaillier-Bijoutier de la 
Reine, with necklace in his pocket. The au- 
dience is a drunk Christopher Sly in the fittest 
humour. A fixed-idea, driving him headlong 
over steep places, like that of the Gadarenes' 
Swine, has produced a deceptibility, as of des- 
peration, that will clutch at straws. Under- 
stand one other word: Cagliostro is prophesy- 
ing to him ! The Quack of Quacks has now 
for years had him in leading. Transmitting 
"predictions in cipher;" questioning, before 
Hieroglyphic Screens, Columbs in a state of 
Innocence, for elixirs of life, and philosopher's 
stone ; unveiling, in fuliginous, clear-obscure 
the (sham) majesty of nature; he isolates him 
more and more from all unpossessed men. 
Was it not enough that poor Rohan had be- 
come a dissolute, somnolent-violent, ever- 
vapory Mud-volcano ; but black Egyptian 
magic must be laid on him ! 

If, perhaps, too, our Countess de Lamotte, 
with her blandishments, — for though not beau- 
tiful, she "has a certain piquancy," cf cetera? — 
Enough, his poor Eminence sits in the fittest 
place, in the fittest mood: a newly-awakened 
Christopher Sly; and with his "small ale," 
too, beside him. Touch, only, the lights with 
fire-tipt rod ; and let the orchestra soft-warbling 
strike up their fara-lara fiddle-diddle-dee ! 



CHAPTER VIL 



MARIE-AKTOIJfETTE. 



Such a soft-warbling fara-lara was it to his 
Eminence, when (in early January of the year 
1784) our Countess first, mysteriously, and 
under seal of sworn secrecy, hinted to him 
that, with her winning tongue and great talent 
as Anecdotic Historian, she had worked a pas- 
sage to the ear of Queen's Majesty itself.* 
Gods ! Dost thou bring with thee airs from 
Heaven 1 Is thy face yet radiant with some 
reflex of that Brightness beyond bright! — Men 
with fixed idea are not as other men. To 
listen to a plain varnished tale, such as your 
Dramatist can fashion; to ponder the words; 
to snufl^ them up, as Ephraim did the east-wind, 
and grow flatulent and drunk with them: what 
else could poor Eminence do 7 His poor 
somnolent, so swift-rocked soul feels a new 



* Compare Rohan's Memoires Pour, (there are four 
of them,) in the Affaire dii Collier, with Lamotte'3 
four. They go on in the way of controversy, of argu- 
ment, and response. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



465 



-element infused into it; turbid resinous light, 
wide-coruscating, glares over the " waste of 
his imagination." Is he interested in the mys- 
terious tidings 1 Hope has seized them ; there 
is in the world nothing else that interests 
him. 

The secret friendship of Queens is not a 
thing to be let sleep: ever new Palace Inter- 
views occur ; — yet in deepest privacy; for how 
should her Majesty awaken so many tongues 
of Principalities and Nobilities, male and fe- 
male, that spitefully watch herl Above all, 
however, "on the 2d of February," that day 
of "the Procession of blue Ribands,"* much 
was spoken of; somewhat, loo, of Monseigneur 
de Rohan ! — Poor Monseigneur, hadst thou 
three long ears, thou'dst hear her. 

But will she not, perhaps, in some future 
priceless Interview, speak a good word for 
thee? Thyself shalt speak it, happy Emi- 
nence ; at least, write it : our tutelary Countess 
will be the bearer! — On the 21st of March 
goes off that long exculpatory imploratory 
Letter : it is the first Letter that went off from 
Cardinal to Queen; to be followed, in time, by 
"above two hundred others ;" which are gra- 
ciously answered by verbal Messages, nay, at 
length by Royal Autographs on gilt paper, — 
the whole delivered by our tutelary Countess.j" 
The tutelary Countess comes and goes, fetch- 
ing and carrying ; with the gravity of a Roman 
Augur, inspects those extraordinary chicken- 
bowels, and draws prognostics from them. 
Things are in fair train : the Dauphiness took 
some offence at Monseigneur, but the Queen 
has nigh forgotten it. No inexorable Queen ; 
ah no! So good, so free, light-hearted; only 
«ore beset with malicious Polignacs and 
others ; — at times, also, short of money. 

Marie Antoinette, as the reader well knows, 
has been much blamed for want of Etiquette. 
Even now, when the other accusations against 
her have sunk down to oblivion and the Father 
of Lies, this of wanting Etiquette survives 
her; — in the Castle of Ham, at this hour,t M. 
de Polignac and Company may be wringing 
their hands, not without an oblique glance at 
her for bringing them thither. She indeed 
discarded Etiquette ; once, when her carriage 
broke down, she even entered a hackney- 
coach. She would walk, too, at Trianon, in 
mere straw-hat, and, perhaps, muslin gown ! 
Hence, the Knot of Etiquette being loosed, the 
Frame of Society broke up; and those aston- 
ishing " Horrors of the French Revolution" 
supervened. On what Damocles' hairs must 
the judgment-sword hang over this distracted 
Earth ! Thus, however, it was that Tenlerden 
Steeple brought an influx of the Atlantic on 
us, and so Godwin Sands. Thus, too, might 
it be that because Father Noah took the liber- 
ty of, say, rinsing out his wine-vat, his Ark 
was floated off, and a World drowned. — Beau- 
tiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled low! 
For, if thy Being came to thee out of old Haps- 



* Lamotte's Mimoires Justificatifs, (London, 1788.) 
f See GeorireC : see Lamotte's Memoires ; in her Ap- 
pendix of '■ Documents" lo that volume, certain of these 
Letters are given. 
J A. D. 1831. 

59 



burgh Dynasties, came it not also (like my 
own) out of Heaven .' Sunt l'ichrym<v.rerum, et 
mentem mortnlin tangunf. Oh, is there a man's 
heart that thinks, without pity, of those long 
months and years of slow-wasting ignominy; 
— of thy Birth, soft-cradled in Imperial Schon- 
brunn, the winds of heaven not to visit thy 
face too roughly, thy foot to light on softness, 
thy eye on splendour; and then of thy Death, 
or hundred Deaths, to which the Guillotine 
and FouquierTinville's judgment-bar was but 
the merciful end ] Look there, O man born of 
woman ! The bloom of that fair face is wast- 
ed, the hair is gray with care; the brightness 
of those eyes is quenched, their lids hang 
drooping, the face is stony, pale, as of one 
living in death. Mean weeds (which her own 
hand has mended)* attire the Queen of the 
World. The death-hurdle, where thou sitlest, 
pale, motionless, which only curses environ, 
must stop: a people, drunk with vengeance, 
will drink it again in full draught: far as the 
eye reaches, a multitudinous sea of maniac 
heads; the air deaf with their triumph-yell! 
The Living-dead must shudder with yet one 
other pang: her startled blood yet again suf- 
fuses with the hue of agony that pale face, 
which she hides with her hands. There is, 
then, 110 heart to say, God pity thee] think 
not of these; think of Him whom thou wor- 
shippest, the Crucified, — who, also, treading 
the wine-press alone, fronted sorrow still deep- 
er; and triumphed over it, and made it Holy; 
and built of it a "Sanctuary of Sorrow," for 
thee and all the wretched ! Thy path of thorns 
IS nigh ended. One long last look at the Tui- 
leries, where thy step was once so light, — 
where thy children shall not dwell. The head 
is on the block; the axe rushes — Dumb lies 
the World; that wild-yelling World, and all 
its madness, is behind thee. 

Beautiful Highborn that wert so foully hurled 
low ! Rest yet in thy innocent gracefully heed- 
less seclusion, (unintruded on by me,) while 
rude hands have not yet desecrated it. Be the 
curtains, that shroud in (if for the last time on 
this Earth) a Royal Life, still sacred to me. 
Thij fault, in the French Revolution, was that 
thou wert the Symbol of the Sin and Misery 
of a thousand years; that with Saint-Bartholo- 
mews, and Jacqueries, with Gabelles, and 
Dragonades, and Parcs-aux-cerfs, the heart of 
mankind was filled full, — and foamed over, 
into all-involving madness. To no Napoleon, 
to no Cromwell wert thou wedded: such sit 
not in the highest rank, of themselves; are 
raised on high by the shaking and confound- 
ing of all the ranks. As poor peasants, how 
happy, worthy had ye two been ! But by evil 
destiny ye were made a King and Queen of; 
and so both once more — are become an aston- 
ishment and a by-word to all times. 



CHAPTER VIIL 

THE TWO FIXED-IDEAS WILL UNITE. 

"Countess de Lamotte, then, had penetrated 
into the confidence of the Queen 1 Those gilt- 

* Weber : Mimoires concernant Marie-Antoinette, (Lon- 
don, 1809,) torn, iii., notes, 106. 



466 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



paper Autographs were actually written by the 
Queen V Reader, forget not to repress that too 
insatiable, scientific curiosity of thine ! What 
I know is that a certain Vilette-de-Retaux, with 
military whiskers, denizen of Rascaldom, com- 
rade there of Monsieur le Comte, is skilful in 
imitating hands. Certain it is, also, that Ma- 
dame laComtesse has penetrated to the Trianon 
— Doorkeeper's. Nay, as Campan herself must 
admit, she has met, " at a Man-midwife's in 
Versailles," with worthy Queen's-valet Les- 
claux, — or Desclos, for there is no uniformity 
in it. With these, or the like of these, she in 
the back-parlor of the Palace itself, (if late 
enough,) may pick a merry-thought, sip the 
foam from a glass of Champagne. No further 
seek her honours to disclose, for the present: 
or anatomically dissect, as we said, those ex- 
traordinary chicken-bowels, from which she, 
and she alone, can read Decrees of Fate, and 
also realize ihem. 

Skeptic, seest thou his Eminence waiting 
there, in the moonlight; hovering to and fro on 
the back terrace, till she come out — from the 
ineffable Interview 1* He is close muffled; 
walks restlessly observant; shy also, and court- 
ing the shade. She comes: up closer with thy 
capote, O Eminence, down with thy broad- 
brim ; for she has an escort ! 'T is but the 
good Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux: and 
now he is sent back again, as no longer need- 
ful. Mark him, Monseigneur, nevertheless ; 
thou wilt see him yet another time. Monseig- 
neur marks little : his heart is in the ineffable 
Interview, in the gilt-paper Autograph, alone. 
— Queen's-valet Lesclaux? Methinks, he has 
much the stature of Villette, denizen of Ras- 
caldom ! Impossible ! 

How our Countess managed with Cagliostro ? 
Cagliostro, gone from Strasburg, is as yet far 
distant, winging his way through dim Space; 
will not be here for months : only his " predic- 
tions in cipher" are here. Here or there, how- 
ever, Cagliostro, to our Countess, can be use- 
ful. At a glance, the eye of genius has de- 
scried him to be a bottomless slough of falsity, 
vanity, gulosity, and thick-eyed stupidity: of 
foulest material, but of fattest; — fit compost 
for the Plant she is rearing. Him who has 
deceived all Europe she can undertake to 
deceive. His Columbs, demonic Masonries, 
Egyptian Elixirs, what is all this to the light- 
giggling exclusively practical Lamotte? It 
runs off from her, as all speculation, good, bad, 
and indifferent, has always done, " like water 
from one in wax-cloth dress." With the lips 
meanwhile she can honour it; Oil of Flattery 
(the best patent antifriction known) subdues 
all irregularities whatsoever. 

On Cagliostro, again, on his side, a certain 
uneasy feeling might, for moments intrude 
itself: the raven loves not ravens. But what 
can he do ? Nay, she is partly playing his 
game : can he not spill her full cup yet, at the 
right season, and pack her out of doors 1 
Oftenest, in their joyous orgies, this light 
fascinating Countess, — who perhaps has a 



♦ See Qtorgd. 



design on his heart, seems to him but one 
other of those light Papiliones, who have flut- 
tered round him in all climates ; whom with 
grim muzzle he has snapt by the thousand. 

Thus, what with light fascinating Countess, 
what with Quack of Quacks, poor Eminence 
de Rohan lies safe; his mud-volcano placidly 
simmering in thick Egyptian haze: withdrawn 
from all the world. Moving figures, as of men, 
he sees ; takes not the trouble to look at. 
Court-cousins rally him ; are answered in si- 
lence ; or, if it go too far, in mud-explosions 
lerrifico-absurd. Court-cousins and all man- 
kind are unreal shadows merely; Queen's fa- 
vour the only substance. 

Nevertheless, the World, on its side, too, 
has an existence; lies not idle in these days. 
It has got its Versailles Treaty signed, long 
months ago; and the Plenipotentiaries all home 
again, for votes of thanks. Paris, London, and 
other great Cities, and small, are working, 
intriguing; dying, being born. There, in the 
Rue Taranne, for instance, the once noisy 
Denis Diderot has fallen silent enough. Here, 
also, in Bolt Court, old Samuel Johnson, like 
an over-wearied Giant, must lie down, and 
slumber without dream; — the rattling of car- 
riages and wains, and all the world's din and 
business rolling by, as ever, from of old. — 
Sieur Boehmer, however, has not yet drowned 
himself in the Seine ; only walks haggard, 
wasted, purposing to do it. 

News (by the men'st accident in the world) 
reach Sieur Boehmer, of Madame's new favour 
with her Majesty ! Men will do much before 
they drown. Sieur Boehmer's Necklace is on 
Madame's table, his guttural nasal rhetoric ift 
her ear: he will abate many a pound and 
penny of the first just price; he will give cheer- 
fully a Thousand Louis-d'or, as cadeau, to the 
generous Scion-of-Royalty that shall persuade 
her majesty. The man's importunities grow 
quite annoying to our Countess; who, in her 
glib way, satirically prattles how she has been 
bored, — to Monseigneur, among others. 

Dozing on down cushions, far inwards, with 
soft ministering Hebes, and luxurious appli- 
ances; with ranked He3'ducs, and a Faleiaille 
innumerable, that shut out the prose-world and 
its discord : thus lies Monseigneur, in enchant- 
ed dream. Can he, even in sleep, forget his 
tutelary Countess, and her service ? By the 
delicatest presents he alleviates her distresses, 
most undeserved. Nay, once or twice, gilt 
Autographs, from a Queen, — with whom he is 
evidently rising to unknown heights in favour, 
— have done Monseigneur the honour to make 
him her Majesty's Grand Almoner, when the 
case was pressing. Monseigneur, we say, has 
had the honour to disburse charitable cash, on 
her Majesty's behalf, to this or the other dis- 
tressed deserving object : say only to the length 
of a few thousand pounds, advanced from his 
own funds ; — her majesty being at the mo- 
ment so poor, and charity a thing that will not 
wait. Always Madame, good foolish, gadding 
creature, takes charge of delivering the mo- 
ney. — Madame can descend from her attics, in 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



467 



the Belle Image; and feel the smiles of Nature 
and Fortune, a little; so bounteous has the 
Queen's Majesty been.* 

To Monseigneur the power of money over 
highest female hearts had never been incredi- 
ble. Presents have, many times, worked won- 
ders. But then, O Heavens, what present? 
Scarcely were the Cloud-Compeller himself, all 
coined into new Louis-d'or, worthy to alight 
in such a lap. Loans, charitable disbursements, 
however, as we see, are premissible ; these, by 
defect of payment, may become presents. In 
the vortex of his Eminence's day-dreams, lum- 
bering multiform slowly round, this of impor- 
tunate Boehmer and his Necklace, from time 
to time, turns up. Is the Queen's Majesiy 
at heart desirous of it; but again, at the 
moment, too poor? Our tutelary Countess 
answers vaguely, mysteriously ; — confesses, at 
last, under oath of secrecy, her own private 
suspicion that the Queen wants this same 
Necklace, of all things ; but dare not, for a 
stingy husband, buy it. She, the Countess de 
Lamotte, will look further into the matter ; and, 
if aught serviceable to his Eminence can be 
suggested, in a good way suggest it, in the 
proper quarter. 

Walk warily. Countess de Lamotte ; for now, 
with thickening breath, thou approachest the 
moment of moments ! Principalities and Pow- 
ers, Purlement, Grand Chambie, and Tournelle, 
with all their whips and gibbet-wheels ; the 
very Crack of Doom hangs over thee, if thou 
trip. Forward, with nerve of iron, on shoes 
of felt ; like a Treasure-digger, "in silence; 
looking neither to the right nor left," where 
yawn abysses deep as the Pool, and all Pande- 
monium hovers eager to rend thee into rags ! 



CHAPTER IX. 



PARK OF VERSAH.LES. 



Or will the reader incline rather taking the 
other and sunny side of the matter to enter 
that Lamottic-Circean theatirical establish- 
ment of Monseigneur de Rohan ; and see there 
how (under the best of Dramaturgists) Melo- 
drama, with sweeping pall, flits past him; 
■while the enchanted Diamond fruit is gradual- 
ly ripening, to fall by a shake ? 

The 28th of July (of this same momentous 
r/84) has come; and with it the most raptu- 
lous tumult into the heart of Monseigneur. 
Ineffable expectancy stirs up his whole soul, 
■with the much that lies therein, from its low- 
est foundations: borne on wild seas to Armi- 
da Islands, yet (as is fit) through Horror dim- 
hovering round, he tumultuously rocks. To 
the Chateau, to the Park ! This night the 
Queen will meet thee, the Queen herself: so 
far has our tutelary Countess brought it. What 
can ministerial impediments, Polignac in- 
trigues, avail against the favour, nay (Heaven 
and Earth !) perhaps the tenderness of a Queen! 
She vanishes from amid their meshwork of 
Etiquette and Cabal; descends from herceles- 



* Qeorgel. Rohan's Four Memeires Ptur : Lamotte's 
Foui. 



tial Zodiac to thee, a shepherd of Latmos. 
Alas, a white-bearded, pursy shepherd, fat and 
scant of breath! Who can account for the 
taste of females 1 But thou, burnish up thy 
whole faculties of gallantry, thy fifty years' 
experience of the sex ; this night, or never ! — 
In such unutterable meditations, does Mon- 
seigneur restlessly spend the day; and long 
for darkness, yet dread it. 

Darkness has at length come. The perpen- 
dicular rows of Heyducs, in that Palais or Ho- 
tel de Strasbourg, are all cast prostrate in 
sleep; the very Concieige resupine, with open 
mouth, audibly drinks in nepenthe ; when Mon- 
seigneur, '• in blue greatcoat, with slouched 
hat," issues softly, with his henchman, (Planta 
of the Orisons,) to the Park of Versailles. 
Planta must loiter invisible in the distance ; 
Slouched-hat will wait here, among the leafy 
thickets ; till our tutelary Countess, " in black 
domino," announce the moment, which surely 
must be near. 

The night is of the darkest for the season ; 
no Moon ; warm, slumbering July, in motion- 
less clouds, drops fatness over the Earth. The 
very stars from the Zenith see not Mon- 
seigneur; see only his cloud-covering, fringgd 
with twilight in the far North. Midnight, tell- 
ing itself forth from these shadowy Palace 
Domes? All the steeples of Versailles, the 
villages around, with metal tongue, and huge 
Paris itself dull-droning, answer drowsily Yes ! 
Sleep rules this Hemisphere of the W^orld. 
From Arctic to Antarctic, the Life of our 
Earth lies all, in long swaths, or rows, (like 
those rows of Heyducs and snoring Con- 
cierge,) successively mown down, from verti- 
cal to horizontal, by Sleep ! Rather curious 
to consider. 

The flowers are all asleep in Little Trianon, 
the roses folded in for the night ; but the Rose 
of Roses still wakes. O wondrous Earth ! O 
doubly wondrous Park of Versailles with Lit- 
tle and Great Trianon, — and a scarce-breath- 
ing Monseigneur ! Ye Hydraulics of Lenotre, 
that also slumber, with stop-cocks, in your 
deep leaden chambers, babble not of Itiin, when 
ye arise. Ye odorous balm-shrubs, huge spec- 
tral Cedars, thou sacred Boscage of Horn- 
beam, ye dim Pavilions of the Peerless, whis- 
per not I Moon, lie silent, hidden in thy va- 
cant cave; no star look down: let neither 
Heaven nor Hell peep through the blanket of 
the Night, to cry, Hold, Hold!— The Black 
Domino ? Ha ! Yes ! — With stouter step than 
might have been expected, Monseigneur is un- 
der way; the Black Domino had only to whis- 
per, low and eager: "In the Hornbeam Arbour!" 
And now, Cardinal, O now ! — Yes, there ho- 
vers the white Celestial ; " in white robe of 
linon mouchete," finer than moonshine; a Juno' 
by her bearing: there in that bosket! Mon-- 
seigneur, down on thy knees ; never can red 
bieeches be better wasted. O he would kiss 
the royal shoe-tie, or its shadow, (were there 
one :) not words ; only broken gaspings, iflur'- 
muring prostrations, eloquently speak h'is- 
meaning. But, ah, behold ! Our tutelary Black 
Domino, in haste, with vehement whisper: 
" On vient !'^ The white Juno drops a fairest 
Rose, with these ever-memorable words, " Vou* 



468 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



savez ce que cda veut dire (you know what that 
means ;") vanishes in the thicket, the Black 
Domino hurrying her with eager whisper of 
" Vite,vilc, (away, away!") for the sound of 
footsteps (doubtless from Madame, and Ma- 
dame d'Artois, imwelcome sisters that they 
jire !) is approaching fast. Monseigneur picks 
up his Rose; runs as for the King's plate; al- 
most overturns poor Planta, whose laugh as- 
sures him that all is safe.* 

O Ixion de Rohan, happiest mortal of this 
world, since the first Ixion of deathless me- 
mory, — who, nevertheless, in that cloud-em- 
brace, begat strange Centaurs! Thou art 
Prime Minister of France without peradven- 
ture : is not this the Rose of Royalty, worthy 
to become ottar of roses, and yield perfume 
for ever"? How thou, of all people, wilt con- 
trive to govern France in these very peculiar 
times. — But that is little to the matter. There, 
doubtless, is thy Rose, (which, methinks, it 
were well to have a Box or Casket made for:) 
nay, was there not in the dulcet of thy Juno's 
*' Nous suvcz" a kind of trepidation, a quaver, — 
as of still deeper meanings ! 

Reader, there is hitherto no item of this 
miracle that is not historically proved and 
true. — In distracted black-magical phantasma- 
gory, adumbrations of yet higher and highest 
Dalliances,"!- hover stupendous in the back- 
ground: whereof your Georgels and Campans, 
and other official characters, can take no no- 
tice ! There, in distracted black-magical phan- 
tasmagory, let these hover. The truth of them 
for us is that they do so hover. The truth of 
them in itself is known only to three persons: 
Dame (self-styled Countess) de Lamotte; the 
Devil ; and Philippe Egalite, — who furnished 
money and facts for the Lamotte Memuircs, and, 
before guillolinement, begat the present King 
of the French. 

Enough, that Ixion de Rohan, lapsed almost 
into deliquium, by such sober certainty of 
waking bliss, is the happiest of all men; and 
his tutelary Countess the dearest of all women, 
save one only. On the 25th of August, (so 
strong still are those villainous Drawing-room 
cabals,) he goes weeping, but submissive, (by 
order of a gilt Autograph,) home to Saverne ; 
till further dignities can be matured for him. 
He carries his Rose, now con^nderably faded, in 
a Casket of fit price ; may, if he so please, per- 
petuate it as poi-poiirri. He names a favourite 
walk in his Archiepiscopal pleasure-grounds, 
Pronienofle de la l\ose ; there let him court diges- 
tion, and loyally somnambulate till called for. 

I notice it as a coincidence in chronology, 
that, few days after this date, the Demoiselle 
(or even, for the last month, Baroness) Gay 

* Compare Oeorgely Lamotte's Memoires Justificatifs, 
and ttie Memnires Pour of ttie various parlies, especi:il- 
ly Gay d'Oliva's. Georgel places the scene in ttie year 
1785; quite wrong. Lamotte's "royal Autographs" 
(as given in the Appendix to Mdmoires Justifcatif^) 
peein to be misdated as lo the day of the month. There 
is endless confusion of dates. 

f Lamotte's Mewoires Justijicatifs ; M.S. Songs in the 
Affaire du Collier. &.C. &c. Nothing can e.xneed the 
brutality of these things, (unfit for Print or Pen ;) which, 
nevertheless, found believers; increase of believers, in 
the public exasperation ; and did the Queen (say all her 
Jlisiorians) incalculable damage. 



d'Oliva began to find Countess de Lamotte 
"not at home," in her fine Paris hotel, in her 
fine Charonne country-house; and went no 
more, with Villette, and such pleasant dinner- 
guests, and her, to see Beaumarchais' Marriage 
de Figaro,* running its hundred nights. 



CHAPTER X. 



DEHllVD THE SCENES. 



"The Queen 1" Good reader, ilwu surely art 
not a Partridge the Schoolmaster, or a Mon- 
seigneur de Rohan, to mistake the stage for a 
reality! — "But who this Demoiselle d'Oliva 
was V Reader, let us remark rather how the 
labours of our Dramaturgic Countess are in- 
creasing. 

New actors I see on the scene ; not one of 
whom shall guess what the other is doing; or, 
indeed, know rightly what himself is doing. 
For example, cannot Messieurs de Lamotte 
and Villette, of Rascaldom, like Nisus and 
Euryalus, take a midnight walk of contempla- 
tion, with " footsteps of Madame and Madame 
d'Artois," (since all footsteps are much the 
same,) without offence to any one ■* A Queen's 
Similitude can believe that a Queen's Self 
(for frolic's sake) is looking at her through 
the thickets ;-j- a terrestrial Cardinal can kiss 
with devotion a celestial Queen's slipper, or 
Queen's Similitude's slipper, — and no one but 
a Black Domino the wiser. All these shall 
follow each his precalculated course ; for their 
inward mechanism is known and fit wires 
hook themselves on this. To Two only is 
a clear belief vouchsafed: to Monseigneur, 
(founded on stupidity;) to the great creative 
Dramaturgist, sitting at the heart of the whole 
mystery, (founded on completest insight.) 
Great creative Dramaturgist ! How, like Schil- 
ler, " by union of the Possible with the Neces- 
sarily-existing, she brings out the" — Eighty 
thousand Pounds ! Don Aranda, with his 
triple-sealed missives and hoodwinked secre- 
taries, bragged justly that he cut down the 
Jesuits in one day; but here, without minis- 
terial salary, or King's favour, or any help be- 
yond her own black domino, labours a greater 
than he. How she advances, stealthily, stead- 
fastly, with Argus eye and ever ready-brain; 
"with nerve of iron, (m shoes of fell!" O 
worthy to have intrigued for Jesuitdom, for 
Pope's Tiara ; — to have been Pope Joan thy- 
self, in those old days ; and as Arachne of 
Arachnes, sat in the centre of that stupendous 
spider-web, that, reaching from Goa to Aca- 
pulco, and from Heaven to Hell, overnetted 
the thoughts and souls of men ! — Of which 
spider-web stray tatters, in favourable dewy 
mornings, even yet become visible. 

The Demoiselle d'Oliva? She is a Parisian 
Demoiselle of three-and-twenty, tall, blond, and 
beautiful ;t from unjust guardians, and aa 
evil world, she has had somewhat to suSer. 



* Gay d'Oliva's First Mhnoire Pour, p. 37. 

f See Lamotte; see Oay d'Oliva. 

$1 was then presented "to two I/adies, one of whom 
was remarkable for the richness of her shape, She had 
blue eyes and chestnut hair' (Bette d'IClienville's Se- 
cond Mcmoire Pour ; in the Suit', de r.^Jfoi'-edu Collier.) 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



469 



"In the month of June, 1784," says the De- 
moiselle herself, in her (judicial) Autobio- 
graphy, " I occupied a small apartment in the 
Rue du Jour, Quartier St. Euslache. I was 
not far from the Garden of the Palais-Royal ; 
I had made it my usual promenade." For, 
indeed, the real God's-truth is, I was a Parisian 
unfortunate-female, with moderate custom; 
and one must go where his market lies. "I 
frequently passed three or four hours of the 
afternoon there, with some women of my ac 



custom as will come. In due time, she shall 
again, but with breath of Terror, be blown 
upon; and blown out of France to Brussels. 



CHAPTER XI. 



THE NECKLACE IS SOLD. 

Autumn, with its gray moaning winds, and 
coating of red strown leaves, invites Courtiers 
i to enjoy the charms of Nature ; and all busi- 
quaintance, and a little child of four years old, ness of moment stands still. Countess de 
whom I was fond of, whom his parents will- Lamotte, while everything is so stagnant, and 
ingiy trusted with me. I even went thither alone, even Boehmer (though with sure hope) has 
except for him, when other company failed. | locked up his Necklace for the season, can 



• One afternoon, in the month of July fol- 
lowing, I was at the Palais-Royal : my whole 
company, at the moment, was the child I 
speak of. A tall young man, walking alone, 
passes several times before me. He was a 
man I had never seen. He looks at me ; he 
looks fixedly at me. I observe even that al- 
ways, as he comes near, he slackens his pace, 
as if to survey me more at leisure. A chair 
stood vacant; two or three feet from mine. 
He seats himself there. 

"Till this instant, the sight of the young 
man, his walks, his approaches, his repeated 
gazings, had made no impression on me. But 
now when he was sitting so close by, I could 
not avoid noticing him. His eyes ceased not 
to wander over all my person. His air be- 
comes earnest, grave. An unquiet curiosity 
appears to agitate him. He seems to measure 
my figure, to seize by turns all parts of my 
physiognomy." — He finds me (but whispers 
not a syllable of it) tolerably like, both in per- 
son and profile; for even the Abbe Georgel 
says, I was a bcUc murtisane. 

"It is time to name this young man: he 
was the Sieur de Lamotte, styling himself 
Comte de Lamotte." Who doubts if? He 
praises "my feeble charms;" expresses a 
■wish to " pay his addresses to me." I, being 
a lone spinster, know not what to say; think 
it best in the meanwhile to retire. Vain pre- 
caution ! "I see him all on a sudden appear 
in my apartment!" 

On his "ninth visit" (for he was always 
civility itself) he talks of introducing a great 
Court-lady, by whose means I may even do 
her Majesty some little secret-service, — the 
reward of which will be unspeakable. In the 
dusk of the evening, silks mysteriously rustle; 
enter the creative Dramaturgist, Dame, styled 
Countess, de Lamotte; and so — the too intru- 
sive, scientific reader, has now, for his punish- 
ment, f(ot on the wrong side of that loveliest 
Transparency ; finds nothing but grease-pots, 
and vapour of expiring wicks ! 

The Demoiselle Gay d'Oliva may once more 
sit, or stand, in the Palais-Royal, with such 



This is she whom Bette.and Bette's Advocate, intended 
the world to t:ike for Gay d'Oliva. "The other is of 
middle size : dark eyes, chestnut hair, while complexion : 
the sound of her voice is agreealile ; she speaks per- 
fectly well, and with no less facility than vivacity;" 
this one is meant for Lamotte. Oliva's real name was 
Essigny ; the Oliva (Olisva, anagram of Valois) was 
given her by Lamotte along with the title of Baroness, 
MS. Notes, Affaire du Collier.) 



drive, with her Count and his Euryalus, Vil- 
lette, down to native Bar-sur-Aube ; and there 
(in virtue of a Queen's bounty) show the en- 
vious a Scion-of-royalty rf-grafted ; and make 
them yellower looking on it. A well-varnish- 
ed chariot, with ihe Arms of Valois duly 
painted in bend-sinister; a house gallantly 
furnished, bodies gallantly attired, — secure 
them the favourablest reception from all man- 
ner of men. The very Due de Penthievre 
(Egalite's father-in-law) welcomes our La- 
motte, with that urbanity characteristic of his 
high station, and the old school. Worth, in- 
deed, makes the man, or woman; but leather 
(of gig-straps) and prunella (of gig-lining) 
first makes it go. 

The great creative Dramaturgist has thus 
let down her drop-scene ; and only, with a 
Letter or two to Saverne, or even a visit thithers 
(for it is but a day's drive from Bar,) keeps 
up a due modicum of intermediate instru- 
luental music. She needs some pause, in good 
sooth, to collect herself a little ; for the last act 
and grand Catastrophe is at hand. Two fixed- 
ideas, (Cardinal's and Jeweller's,) a negative 
and a positive, have felt each other ; stimu- 
lated now by new hope, are rapidly revolving 
round each other, and approximating; like 
two flames, are stretching out long fire-tongues 
to join and be one. 

Boehmer, on his side, is ready with the 
readiest; as, indeed, he has been these four 
long years. The Countess, it is true, will 
have neither part nor lot in that foolish Cadcau 
of his, or in the whole foolish Necklace busi- 
ness : this she has in plain words (and even 
not without asperity, due to a bore of such 
magnitude) given him to know. From her, 
nevertheless, by cunning inference, and the 
merest accident in the world, the sly Jouail- 
lier-Bijoutier has gleaned thus much, that 
Monseigneur de Rohan is the man. — Enough! 
Enough ! Madame shall be no more troubled* 
Rest there, in hope, thou Necklace of the 
Devil ; but, Monseigneur, be thy return 
speedy ! 

Alas, the man lives not that would be 
speedier than Monseigneur, if he durst. But 
as yet no gilt Autograph invites him, permits 
him ; the few gilt Autographs are all negatory, 
procrastinating. Cabals of Court; for evef 
cabals ! Nay, if it be not for some Necklace, 
or other such crotchet or necessity, who knows 
but he may never be recalled, (so fickle is 
womankind;) but forgotten, and left to rot 
2R 



470 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



here, like his Rose, into pot-pourri? Our tu- 
telary Countess, too, is shyer in this matter 
than we ever saw her. Nevertheless, by in- 
tense skilful cross-questioning, he has extorted 
somewhat; sees partly how it stands. The 
Queen's Majesty will have her Necklace, (for 
when, in such case, had not woman her 
way?); and can even pay for it — by instal- 
ments ; but then the stingy husband ! Once 
for all, she will not be seen in the business. 
Now, therefore, were it, or -^ere it not, per- 
missible to mortal to transact it secretly in her 
stead? That is the question. If to mortal, 
then to Monseigneur. Our Countess has even 
ventured to hint afar off at Monseigneur (kind 
Countess!) in the proper quarter ; but his dis- 
cretion is doubted, — in regard to money mat- 
ters. — Discretion ? And I on the Promenade dc 
la Eose? — Explode not, Eminence! Trust 
will spring of trial : thy hour is coming. 

The Lamottes, meanwhile, have left their 
farewell card with all the respectable classes 
of Bar-sur-Aube; our Dramaturgist stands 
again behind the scenes at Paris. How is it, 
O Monseigneur, that she is still so shy with 
thee, in this matter of the Necklace; that she 
leaves the love-lorn Latmian shepherd to 
droop, here in lone Saverne, like weeping-ash, 
in naked winter, on his Promenade of the 
Rose, with vague commonplace responses 
that "his hour is coming?" — By Heaven and 
Earth ! at last, in late January, it is come. Be- 
hold it, this new gilt Autograph : "To Paris, 
on a small business of delicacy, which our 
Countess will explain," — which I already 
know! To Paris ! Horses; Postillions; Beef- 
eaters ! — And so his resuscitated Eminence, 
all wrapt in furs, in the pleasantest frost, 
(Abbe Georgel says, joi beau froid dc Janvier,) 
over clear-jingling highways, rolls rapidly, — 
borne on the bosom of Dreams. 

O Dame de Lamotte, has the enchanted 
Diamond fruit ripened, then ? Hast thou given 
it the little shake, big with unutterable fate? — 
I? can the Dame justly retort: Who saw me 
in it? — The reader, therefore, has still Three 
scenic Exhibitions to look at, by our great 
Dramaturgist ; then the Fourth and last, — by 
another Author. 

To us, reflecting how oftenest the true 
moving force in human things works hidden 
underground, it seems small marvel that this 
month of January, (1785,) wherein our Coun- 
tess so little courts the eye of the vulgar his- 
torian, should, nevertheless, have been the 
busiest of all for her ; especially the latter half 
thereof. 

Wisely eschewing matters of business, 
(which she could never in her life under- 
stand,) our Countess will personally take no 
charge of that bargain-making; leaves it all 
to her Majesty and the gilt Autographs. Assi- 
duous Boehmer, nevertheless, is in frequent 
close conference with Monseigneur: the Paris 
Paiais-de-Strasbourg, shut to the rest of men, 
sees the Jouaillier-BijoLitier, with eager official 
aspect, come and go. The grand difficulty is 
— must we say it? — her Majesty's wilful whim- 
sicality, unacquaintance M'ith Business. She 



positively will not write a gilt Autograph, 
authorizing his Eminence to make the bargain; 
but writes rather, in a petting manner, that the 
thing is of no consequence, and can be given 
up! Thus must the poor Countess dash to 
and fro, like a weaver's shuttle, between Paris 
and Versailles; wear her horses and nerves 
to pieces; nay, sometimes in the hottest haste, 
wait many hours, within call of the Palace, 
considering what can be done, (with none but 
Villette to bear her company,) — till the Queen's 
whim pass. 

At length, after furious-driving and confer- 
ences enough, on the 29(h of January, a mid- 
dle course is hit on. Cautious Boehmer shall 
write out (on finest paper) his terms ; which 
are really rather fair : Sixteen hundred thou- 
sand livres; to be paid in five equal instal- 
ments ; the first this day six months ; the 
other four from three months to three months; 
this is what Court-Jewellers, Boehmer and 
Bassange, on the one part, and Prince Cardinal 
Commendator Louis de Rohan, on the other 
part, will stand to ; witness their hands. Which 
written sheet of finest paper our poor Countess 
must again take charge of, again dash off with 
to Versailles ; and therefrom, after trouble 
unspeakable, (shared in only by the faithful 
Villette, of Rascaldom,) return with it, bearing 
this most precious marginal note, — " Bon — 
Marie Jlntoincttc de France," in the Autograph 
hand! Happy Cardinal! ihis lliou shalt keep 
in the innermost of all thy repositories. 
Boehmer, meanwhile, secret as Death, shall 
tell no man that he has sold his Necklace; or 
if much pressed for an actual sight of the 
same, confess that it is sold to the Favourite 
Sultana of the Grand Turk for the time 
being.* 

Thus, then, do the smoking Lamotte horses 
at length get rubbed down, and feel the taste 
of oats, after midnight; the Lamotte Countess 
can also gradually sink into needful slumber, 
perhaps not unbroken by dreams. On the 
morrow the bargain shall be concluded; next 
day the Necklace be delivered, on Monseig- 
neur's receipt. 

Will the reader, therefore, be pleased to 
glance at the following two Life-Pictures, 
Real-Phantasmagories, or whatever we may 
call them : they are the two first of those Three 
scenic real-poetic Exhibitions, brought about 
by our Dramaturgist: short Exhibitions, but 
essential ones. 



CHAPTER Xn. 

THE TTECKLACJE VANISHES. 

It is the first day of February ; that grand day 
of Delivery. The Sieur Boehmer is in the 
Court of the Palais de Strasbourg; his look 
mysterious-official, but (though much emaci- 
ated) radiant with enthusiasm. The Seine 
has missed him : though lean, he will fatten 
again, and live through new enterprises. 

Singular, were we not used to it: the name, 

* Campan. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



471 



Boehmer, as it passes upwards and inwards 
lowers all halberls of Heyducs in perpendicu- 
lar rows : the historical eye beholds him, 
bowing low, wiih plenteous smiles, in the 
plush Saloon of Audience. Will it please 
Monseigneur, then, to do the nc-plus-ultra of 
Necklaces the honour of looking at it! A 
piece of Art, which the Universe cannot par- 
allel, shall be parted with (Necessity compels 
Court-Jeweliers) at that ruinously low sum. 
They, the Court-Jewellers, shall have much 
ado to weather it; but their work, at least, 
will find a fit Wearer, and go down to juster 
posterity. Monseigneur will merely have the 
condescension to sign this Receipt of Deli- 
very : ail ihe rest, her Highness the Sultana 
of the Sublime Porte has settled it. — Here the 
Court-Jeweller, with his joyous, though now 
much emaciated face, ventures on a faint 
knowing smile; to which, in the lofty disso- 
lute-serene of Monseigneur's, some twinkle of 
permission could not but respond. — This is 
the First of those Three real-poetic Exhibi- 
tions, brought about by our Dramaturgist, — 
with perfect success. 

It was said, long afterwards, that Monseig- 
neur should have known, that Boehmer should 
have known, her Highness the Sultana's mar- 
ginal-note (that of " Right — Marie Jlntoineltc of 
France") to be a forgery and mockery : the of 
France was faial to it. Easy talking, easy 
criticizing! But how are two enchanted men 
to know; two men with a fixed-idea each, a 
negative and a positive, rushing together to 
neutralize each other in rapture? — Enough, 
Monseigneur has ihe nc-plus-ultra of Necklaces, 
conquered by man's valour and woman's wit; 
and rolls off with it, in mysterious speed, to 
Versailles, — triumphant as a Jason with his 
Golden Fleece. 

The Second grand scenic Exhibition by our 
Dramaturgic Countess occurs in her own 
apartment at Versailles, so early as the follow- 
ing night. It is a commodious apartment, 
with alcove ; and the alcove has a glass door.* 
Monseigneur enters, — with a tbllower bearing 
a mysterious Casket; carefully depositing it, 
and then respectfully withdrawing. It is the 
Necklace itself in all its glory I Our tutelar)^ 
Countess, and Monseigneur, and we, can at 
leisure admire the queenly Talisman ; con- 
gratulate ourselves that Ihe painful conquest 
of it is achieved. 

But, hist ! A knock, mild, but decisive, as 
from one knocking with authority! Mon- 
seigneur and we retire to our alcove ; there, 
from behind our glass screen, observe what 
passes. Who comes 1 The door flung open : 
de par la Rrine ! Behold him, Monseigneur : 
he enters with grave, respectful, yet official 
air; worthy Monsieur Queen's-valet Lesclaux, 
the same who escorted our tutelary Countess, 
that moonlight night, from the back apartments 
of Versailles. Said we not, thou wouldst see 
him once more 1 — Mcthinks, again, spite of his 
Queen's-uniform, he has much the features of 
Villette of Rascaldom ! — Rascaldom or Valet- 
dom, (for to the blind all colours are the 

• Ceorgel, &c. 



same,) he has, with his grave, respectful, yet 
official air, received the Casket, and its price- 
less contents; with fit injunction, with fit en- 
gagements; and retires bowing low. 

Thus, softly, silently, like a very Dream, flits 
away our solid necklace, — through the Horn 
Gate of Dreams! 



CHAPTER XIII. 
SCENE third: bt dame de lamottk. 

Now, too, in these same days (as he can 
afterwards prove by affidavit of Landlords) 
arrives Count Cagliostro himself, from Lyons ! 
No longer by predictions in cipher ; but by his 
living voice, (often in wrapt communion with 
the unseen world, " with Caraffe and four can- 
dles;") by his greasy prophetic bulldog face, 
(said to be the " most perfect quack-face of the 
eighteenth century,") can we assure ourselves 
that all is well ; that all will turn " to the glory 
of Monseigneur, to the good of France, and 
of mankind,"* and Egyptian masonry. " To- 
kay flows like water;" our charming Countess, 
with her piquancy of face, is sprightlier than 
ever; enlivens with the brightest sallies, with 
the adroitest flatteries to all, those suppers of 
the gods. Nights, Suppers — too good to 
last ! Nay, now also occurs another and Third 
scenic Exhibition, fitted by its radiance to 
dispel from Monsiegneur's soul the last trace 
of care. 

Why the Queen does not, even yet, openly 
receive me at Court '! Patience, Monseigneur! 
Thou little knowest those too intricate cabals; 
and how she still but works at them silently, 
with royal suppressed fury, like a royal lioness 
only delivering herself from the hunter's toils. 
Meanwhile, is not thy work done 1 The Neck- 
lace, she rejoices over it; beholds (many times 
in secret) her Juno-neck mirrored back the 
lovelier lor it, — as our tutelar Countess can 
testify. Come lo-morrow to the GCil de J'cenf ; 
there see with eyes, in high noon, as already in 
deep midnight thou hast seen, M-hether in her 
royal heart there were delay. 

Let us stand, then, with Monseigneur, in 
that ffifZ de Eauf, in the Versailles Palace Gal- 
ery ; for all well-dressed persons are admitted : 
there the Loveliest, in pomp of royalty, will 
walk to mass. The world is all in pelisses 
and winter furs ; cheerful, clear, — with noses 
tending to blue. A lively many-voiced Hum 
plays fitful, hither and thither; of sledge par- 
ties and Court parties : frosty state of the 
weather ; stability of M. de Calonne ; Majesty's 
looks yesterday; — such Hum as always, in 
these sacred Court-spaces smce Louis le Grand 
made and consecrated them, has, with more 
or less impetuosity, agitated our common At- 
mosphere. 

Ah, through that long high Gallery what 
figures have passed — and vanished ! Louvois, 
— with the Great King, flashing fire-glances 
on the fugitive ; in his red right hand a pair 
of tongs, which pious Maintenon hardly holds 

• Oeorgel, &c. 



472 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



back: Louvois, where art thou 1 Ye Mare- 
chaux de France? Ye unmentionable-women 
of past generations? Here also was it that 
rolled and rushed the " sound, absolutely like 
thunder,"* of Courtier hosts; in that dark 
hour when the signal light in Louis the Fif- 
teenth's chamber-window was blown out ; and 
his ghastly infectious Corpse lay alone, for- 
saken on its tumbled death-lair, "in the hands 
of some poor women :" and the Courtier-hosts 
rushed from the Deep-fallen to hail the New- 
risen ! These too rushed, and passed ; and 
their "sound, absolutely like thunder," became 
silence. Figures 1 Men ] They are fast fleet- 
ing Shadows: fast chasing each other: it is 
not a Palace, but a Caravansera. — Monseig- 
neur, (with thy too much Tokay overnight !) 
cease puzzling: here thou art, this blessed 
February day : — the Peerless, will she turn 
lightly that high head of hers, and glance 
aside into the CEi7 de Bcouf, in passing 1 Please 
Heaven, she will. To our tutelary Countess, 
at least, she promised it ;■]- though, alas, so 
fickle is womankind ! — 

Hark ! Clang of opening doors ! She issues, 
like the Moon in silver brightness, down the 
Eastern steeps. La Reine vient ! What a figure ! 
I (with the aid of glasses) discern her. O 
Fairest, Peerless! Let the hum of minor dis- 
coursing hush itself wholly; and only one 
successive rolling peal of Vive la Reine (like 
the moveable radiance of a train of fire-works) 
irradiate her path. — Ye Immortals ! She does, 
she beckons, turns her head this way ! — " Does 
she notl" says Countess de Lamotte. — Ver- 
sailles, the (Eilde Bwuf, and all men and things, 
are drowned in a sea of Light; Monseigneur 
and that high beckoning Head are alone, with 
each other, in the Universe. 

O Eminence, what a beatific vision ! Enjoy 
it, blest as the gods; ruminate and re-enjoy 
it, with full soul: it is the last provided for 
thee. Too soon (in the course of these six 
months) shall thy beatific vision, like Mirza's 
vision, gradually melt away; and only oxen 
and sheep be grazing in its place; — and thou, 
as a doomed Nebuchadnezzar, be grazing with 
them. 

"Does she notl" said the Countess de La- 
motte. That it is a habit of hers ; that hardly 
a day passes ivilhout her doing it: this the 
Countess de Lamotte did not say. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE TJECKLACE CAJTNOT BE PAID. 

Here, then, the specially Dramaturgic labours 
of Countess de Lamotte may be said to termi- 
nate. The rest of her life is Histrionic merely, 
or Histrionic and Critical ; as, indeed, what 
had all the former part of it been but a Hypo- 
crisia, a more or less correct Playing of Parts 1 
O "Mrs. Facing-both-ways, (as old Bunyan 
said,) what a talent hadst thou! No Proteus 
ever took so many shapes, no Chameleon so 
often changed color. One thing thou wert to 



• Cuvipan. 



t See Georgel. 



Monseigneur; another thing to Cagliostro, 
and Vilette of JRascaldom; a third thing to the 
World, (in printed Mcmoiren ;) a fourth thing to 
Philippe Egalite : all things to all men! 

Let her, however, we say, but manage now to 
act her own parts, with proper Histrionic illu- 
sion; and, by Critical glosses, give her past 
Dramaturgy the fit aspect, to Monsiegneur and 
others : this henceforth, and not new Drama- 
turgy, includes her whole task. Dramatic 
Scenes, in plenty, will follow of themselves; 
especially that Fourth and final Scenjs, spoken 
of above as by another Author, — by Destiny 
itself. 

For in the Lamotte Theatre (so different 
from our common Pasteboard one) the Play 
goes on, even when the Machinist has left it. 
Strange enough: those Air-images, which from 
her Magic-lantern she hung out on the empty 
bosom of Night, have clutched hold of this 
solid-seeming World, (which some call the 
Material World, as if that made it more a Real 
one,) and will tumble hither and thither the 
solidest mass there. Yes, reader, so goes it 
here below. What thou callest a Brain-web, 
or mere illusive Nothing, is it not a web of the 
Brain ; of the Spirit which inhabits the Brain ;, 
and which, in this World, rather, as I think, 
to be named the spiritual one,) very naturally 
moves and tumbles hither and thither all things 
it meets with, in Heaven or in Earth 1 — So, too, 
the Necklace, though we saw it vanish through 
the Horn Gate of Dreams, and in my opinion 
man shall never more b'ehold it, — yet its activ- 
ity ceases not, nor will. For no Act of a man, 
no Thing, (how much less the man himself!) 
is extinguished when it disappears : through 
considerable times (there are instances of 
Three Thousand Years) it visibly works ; in- 
visibly, unrecognised, it works through end- 
less times. Such a Hyper-magical is this our 
poor old Real world ; which some take upon 
them to pronounce effete, prosaic ! Friend, it 
is thyself that art all withered up into effete 
Prose, dead as ashes: know this, (I advise 
thee ;) and seek passionately, with a passion 
little short of desperation, to have it remedied. 

Meanwhile, what will the feeling heart think 
to learn that Monseigneur de Rohan (as we 
prophesied) again experiences the fickleness 
of a Court; that, notwithstanding beatific vi- 
sions, at noon and midnight, the Queen's Ma- 
jesty (with the light ingratitude of her sex) 
flies off at a tangent; and, far from ousting his 
detested and detesting rival. Minister Breteuil, 
and openly delighting to honour Monseig- 
neur, will hardly vouchsafe him a few gilt Auto- 
graphs, and those few of the most capricious, 
suspicious, soul-confusing tenor? What terrifi- 
co-absurd explosions, which scarcely Cag- 
liostro, with Caraffe and four candles, can still ; 
how many deep-weighed Humble Petitions, Ex- 
planations, Expostulations, penned with fervid- 
est eloquence, with craftiest diplomacy, — all de- 
livered by our tutelar Countess: in vain! — O 
Cardinal, with what a huge iron mace, like 
Guy of Warwick's, thou smitest Phantasms in 
two (which close again, take shape again;) 
and only thrashest the air ! 

One comfort, however, is that the Queen's 
Majesty has committed herself. The Rose cf 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



473 



Trianon, and what may pertain thereto, lies it 
not here ? That " Right — Marie Jlntoinette vf 
France" too; and the 3()th of July, first-instal- 
ment-day, coming ? She shall be broutiht to 
terms, good Eminence ! Order horses and beef- 
eaters for Saverne ; there, ceasing all written 
or oral communication, starve her into capitu- 
lating.* It is the bright May month: his Emi- 
nence again somnambulates the Promenade de 
la Rose: but now with grim dry eyes; and, 
from time to time, terrifically stamping. 

But who is this that I see mounted on cost- 
liest horse and horse-gear; betting at New- 
market Races ; though he can speak no Eng- 
lish word, and only some Chevalier O'NieJ, 
some Capuchin Macdermot (from Bar-sur 
Aube) interprets his French into the dialect 
of the Sister Island? Few days ago I ob- 
served him walking in Fleet-street, thought- 
fully through Temple-Bar; — in deep treaty 
■with Jeweller Jeffreys, with Jeweller Grey,f 
for the sale of Diamonds: such a lot as one 
may boast of. A tall handsome man; with 
ex-military whiskers ; with a look of troubled 
gayety, and rascalism : you think it is the 
Sieur (self-styled Count) de Lamotte ; nay, 
the man himself confesses it ! The Diamonds 
were a present to his Countess, — from the still 
bountiful Queen. 

Villette, too, has he completed his sales at 
Amsterdam 1 Him I shall by and by behold ; 
not betting at Newmarket, but drinking wine 
and ardent spirits in the Taverns of Geneva. 
Ill-gotten wealth endures not; Rascaldom has 
no strongbox. Countess de Lamotte, for what a 
set of cormorant scoundrels hast tbou laboured ; 
art thou still labouring ! 

Still labouring, we may say : for as the fatal 
30th of July approaches, what is to be looked 
for but universal Earthquake ; Mud-explosion 
that will blot out the face of Nature] Me- 
thinks, stood I in thy pattens, Dame de La- 
motte, I would cut and run. — " Run !" exclaims 
she, with a toss of indignant astonishment: 
"calumniated Innocence run V For it is sin- 
gular how in some minds (that are mere bot- 
tomless "chaotic whirlpools of gilt shreds") 
there is no deliberate Lying whatever; and 
nothing is either believed or disbelieved, but 
only (with some transient suitable Histrionic 
emotion) spoken and heard. 

Had Dame de Lamotte a certain greatness 
of character, then ; at least, a strength of tran- 
scendant audacity, amounting to the bastard- 
heroic ■? Great, indubitably great, is her Drama- 
turgic and Histrionic talent: but as for the 
rest, one must answer, with reluctance. No. 
Mrs. Facing-both-ways is a " Spark of vehe- 
ment Life," but the furthest in the world from 
a brave woman : she did not, in any case, 
show the bravery of a woman; did, in many 
cases, show the mere screaming trepidation of 
one. Her grand quality is rather to be reckoned 
negative: the "untamableness" as of a fly; 
the " wax-cloth dress" from which so m\xch 



•See Lamotte. 

+ Grey lived in No. 13, New Bond Street; Jeffreys in 
Piccadilly (Rolian's Meminre Pour; see also Count de 
Lamotte's Narrative, in Mcmoires Justificatifs ) Rohan 
says, " Jeflreys bouglit more llian 10,00ui. worth." 
60 



ran down like water. Small sparrows, as I 
learn, have been trained to fire cannon ; but 
would make poor Artillery Officers in a Water- 
loo. Thou dost not call that Cork a strong 
swimmer? which, nevertheless, shoots, with- 
out hurt, the Falls of Niagara; defies the 
thunderbolt itself to sink it, for more than a 
moment. Without intellect, imagination, power 
of attention, or any spiritual faculty, how brave 
were one, — with fit motive for it, such as 
hunger ! How much might one dare, by the 
simplest of methods, by not thinking of it, not 
knowing it ! — Besides, is not Cagliostro, foolish 
blustering Quack, still here 1 No scapegoat 
had ever broader back. The Cardinal, too, 
has he not money 1 Queen's Majesty, even in 
effigy, shall not be insulted; the Soubises, De 
Marsans, and high and puissant Cousins, must 
huddle the matter up : Calumniated Innocence, 
in the most universal of Earthquakes, will 
find some crevice to whisk through, as she has 
so often done. 

But all this while how fares it with his Emi- 
nence, left somnanibulating the Promenade de 
la Rose ; and at times truculently stamping? 
Alas, ill; and ever worse. The starving method, 
singular as it may seem, brings no capitula- 
tion ; brings only, after a month's waiting, our 
tutelary Countess, with a gilt Autograph, in- 
deed, and " all wrapt in silk threads, sealed 
where they cross, — but which we read with 
curses.* 

We must back again to Paris; there pen 
new Expostulations ; which our unwearied 
Countess will take charge of, but, alas, can 
get no answer to. However, is not the 30th 
of July coming? — Behold (on the 19th of that 
month,) the shortest, most careless of Auto- 
graphs with some fifteen hundred pounds of 
real money in it, to pay the — interest of the 
first instalment; the principal (of some thirty 
thousand) not being at the moment perfectly 
convenient! Hungry Boehmer makes large 
eyes at this proposal ; will accept the money, 
but only as part of payment ; the man is posi- 
tive: a Court of Justice, if no other means, 
shall get him the remainder. What now is to 
be done ? 

Farmer-general Mons. Saint-James, Cag- 
liostro's disciple, and wet with Tokay, will 
cheerfully advance the sum needed — for her 
Majesty's sake ; thinks, however (with all his 
Tokay,) it were good to speak with her Majesty 
first. — I observe, meanwhile, the distracted 
hungry Boehmer driven hither and thither, not 
by his fixed-idea ; alas, no, but by the far more 
frightful ghos! thereof, — since no payment is 
forthcoming. He stands, one day, speaking 
with a Queen's waiting-woman (Madam Cam- 
pan herself,) in " a thunder-shower, which 
neither of them notice," — so thunderstruck are 
they.f What weather-symptoms for his Emi- 
nence ! 

The 30th of July has come, but no money ; 
the 30th is gone, but no money. O Eminence, 
what a grim farewell of July is this of 1785 ! 
The last July went out with airs from Heaven, 



>See Lamotte. 

2r2 



t Campan. 



474 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and Trianon Roses. These August days, are 
they not worse than dog's days ; worthy to be 
blotted out from all Almanacs? Boehmer 
and Bassange thou canst still see ; but only 
"return from them swearing."* Nay, what 
new misery is this? Our tutelary Histrionic 
Countess enters, distraction in her eyes ;-j- she 
has just been at Versailles ; the Queen's Ma- 
jesty, with a levity of caprice which we dare 
not trust ourselves to characterize, declares 
plainly that she will deny ever having got the 
Necklace ; ever having had, with his Emi- 
nence any transaction whatsoever ! — Mud- 
explosion without parallel in volcanic annals. 
— The Palais de Strasbourg appears to be be- 
set with spies ; the Lamottes (for the Count, 
too, is here) are packing up for Bur-sur-Aube. 
The Sieur Boehmer, has he fallen insane? 
Or into communication with Breteuil ? — 

And sc distractedly and distractively, to the 
sound of all Discords in Nature, opens that 
Fourth, final Scenic Exhibition, composed by 
Destiny. 



CHAPTER XV. 

SCEXE FOURTH : BY DESTINY. 

It is Assumption-day, the 15th of August. 
Don thy pontificalia, Grand-Almoner ; crush 
down these hideous temporalities out of sight. 
In any case, smooth thy countenance into 
some sort of lofty-dissolute serene: thou hast 
a thing they call worshipping God to enact, 
thyself the first actor. 

The Grand-Almoner has done it. He is in 
Versailles CEil de Basnf Gallery ; where male 
and female Peerage, and all Noble France in 
gala, various and glorious as the rainbow, 
waits only the. signal to begin worshipping: 
on the serene of his lofty-dissolute counte- 
nance, there can nothing be read.+ By Hea- 
ven ! he is sent for to the Royal Apartment I 

He returns with the old lofty-dissolute look, 
inscrutably serene: has his turn for favour 
actually come, then ? Those fifteen long 
years of soul's travail are to be rewarded by 
a birth? — Monsieur le Baron de Breteuil 
issues ; great in his pride of place, in this the 
crowning moment of his life. With one radi- 
diant glance, Breteuil summons the Officer on 
Guard: with another, fixes Monseigneur: "De 
jiar le Eoi, Monseiiinenr : you are arrested ! At 
your risk, Officer!" — Curtains as of pitch- 
black whirlwind envelope Monseigneur; whirl 
off with him, — to outer darkness. Versailles 
Gallery explodes aghast ; as if Guy Fawkes's 
Plot had burst under it. "The Queen's Ma- 
jesty was weeping," whisper some. There 
will be no Assumption service ; or such a 
one as was never celebrated since Assump- 
tion came in fashion. 

Europe, then, shall ring with it from side to 
side! — But why rides that Heyduc as if all 



♦ Lamntte. f Oeorgel. 

tThis is Bette d'Enteville's description of liim ; "A 
handsome man, of fifty ; witti high complexion ; hair 
white-gray, and the front of the heiid bald : of high 
stature; carriage noble and easy, though burdened with 
a certain degree of corpulency ; who, I never doubted, 
was Monsieur de Rohan." (First Memoire Pour.) 



the Devils drove him? It is Monseigneur's 
Heyduc: Monseigneur spoke three words in 
German to him, at the door of his Versailles 
Hotel ; even handed him a slip of writing, 
which (some say, with borrowed Pencil, "in 
his red square cap ") he had managed to pre- 
pare on the way hither.* To Paris ? To the 
Palais-Cardinal ! The horse dies on reaching 
the stable ; the Heyduc swoons on reaching 
the cabinet: but his slip of writing fell from 
his hand ; and I (says the Abbe Georgel) was 
there. The red Portfolio, containing all the 
gilt Autographs, is burnt utterly, with much 
else, before Breteuil can arrive for apposition 
of the seals ! — Whereby Europe, in ringing 
from side to side, must worry itself with guess- 
ing: and at this hour (on this paper) sees the 
matter in such an interesting clear-obscure. 

Soon Count Cagliostro and his Serapmc 
Countess go to join Monseigneur, in State 
Prison. In few days, follows Dame de La- 
motte (from Bar-sur-Aube) ; Demoiselle d'Oli- 
va by and by (from Brussels); Villette-de-Retaux 
from his Swiss retirement, in the taverns of 
Geneva. The Bastille opens its iron bosom 
to them all. 



CHAPTER LAST. 



MISSA X.ST. 



Thus, then, the Diamond Necklace having, 
on the one hand, vanished through the Horn 
Gate of Dreams, and so (under the pincers 
of Nisus LaiTiotte and Euryalus Villette) lost 
its sublunary individuality and being; and, on 
the other hand, all that trafficked in it, sitting 
now safe under lock and key, that justice may 
take cognisance of them, — our engagement in 
regard to the matter is on the point of terminat- 
ing. That extraordinary Proces du Collier (Neck- 
lace Trial,) spinning itself through Nine other 
ever-memorable Months, to the astonishment 
of the hundred and eighty-seven assembled 
Farlicmenliers, and of all Quidduncs, Journal- 
ists, Anecdotists, Satirists, in both Hemis- 
pheres, is, in every sense, a " Celebrated Trial," 
and belongs to Publishers of such. How, by 
innumerable confrontations and expiscatory 
questions, through entanglements, doublings, 
and windings that fatigue eye and soul, this 
most involute of Lies is finally winded off to 
the scandalous-ridiculous cinder-heart of it, 
let others relate. 

Meanwhile, during these Nine ever-memora- 
ble Months, till they terminate late at night 
precisely with the May of 1786,| how many 
"fugitive leaves," quizzical, imaginative, or 
at least mendacious, were flying about in 
Newspapers ; or stitched together as Pam- 
phlets ; and what heaps of others were left 
creeping in Manuscript, we shall not say ; — 
having, indeed, no complete Collection of 
them, and, what is more to the purpose, little to 



* Oeorgel. 

fOn the 31st of May, 1786, sentence was pro- 
nounced : about ten at ni?ht, the Cardinal got out of 
the Bastille ; large mobs hurrahing round him, — out of 
spleen to the Court. (See Oeorfd.) 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE. 



475 



do with such Collection. Nevertheless, search- 
ing for some fit Capital of the composite 
order, to adorn adequately the now finished 
singular Pillar of our Narrative, what can suit 
us better than the following, so far as we know, 
yet unedited, 

Occasional Discourse, by Count Messandro Cagli- 
osiro, Thaumaturgist, Prophet, and Arch-Qrwck : 
delivered in the Bastille : Year of Liirifer, 5789 ; 
of the Hcgira Mohammedan, (from BTecca,) 1201 ; 
of the Hcgira Cagliostric, { from Palermo,) 24; 
of the Vulgar Era, 1785. 

"Fellow Scoundrels, — An unspeakable In- 
trigue, spun from the soul of that Circe-Me- 
gsera, by our voluntary or involuntary help, 
has assembled us all, if not under one roof- 
tree, yet within one grim iron-bound ring-wall. 
For an appointed number of months, in the 
ever-rolling flow of Time, we, being gathered 
from the four winds, did by Destiny work to- 
gether in body corporate ; and, joint labourers 
in a Transaction already famed over the Globe, 
obtain unity of Name, (like the Argonauts of 
old,) as Conqjierors of the Diamond Necklace. Ere 
long it is done, (for ring-walls hold not captive 
the free Scoundrel for ever;) and we disperse 
again, over wide terrestrial Space ; some of 
•us, it may be, over the very marches of Space. 
Our Act hangs indissoluble together; floats 
wondrous in the older and older memory of 
men : while we, little band of Scoundrels, who 
saw each other, now hover so far asunder, to 
see each other no more, if not once more only 
on the universal Doomsday, the last of the 
Days ! 

" In such interesting moments, while we 
stand within the verge of parting, and have 
not yet parted, methinks it were well here, in 
these sequestered Spaces, to institute a few 
general reflections. Me, as a public speaker, 
the Spirit of Masonry, of Philosophy, and 
Philanthropy, and even of Prophecy (blowing 
mysterious from the Land of Dreams) impels 
to do it. Give ear, O Fellow Scoundrels, to 
what the Spirit utters ; treasure it in your 
hearts, practise it in your lives. 

" Sitting here, penned up in this which (with 
a slight metaphor) I call the Central Cloaca 
of Nature, where a tyrannical De Launay can 
forbid the bodily eye free vision, you with the 
mental eye see but the better. This Central 
Cloaca, is it not rather a Heart, into which, 
from all regions, mysterious conduits intro- 
duce, and forcibly inject, whatsoever is choicest 
in the Scoundrelism of the Earth; there to 
be absorbed, or again (by the other auricle) 
ejected into new circulation 1 Let the eye of 
the mind run along this immeasurable venous- 
arterial system ; and astound itself with the 
magnificent extent of Scoundreldom ; the deep, 
I may say, unfathomable, significance of 
Scoundrelism. 

"Yes, brethren, wide as the Sun's range is 
our Empire; wider than old Rome's in its 
palmiest era. I have in my time been far ; in 
frozen Muscovy, in hot Calabria, east, west, 
wheresoever the sky overarches civilized man : 
and never hitherto saw I myself an alien ; out 
of Scoundreldom I never was. Is it not even 



said, from of old, by the opposite party: 'All 
men are liars? ' Do they not (and this nowise 
'in haste') whimperingly talk of 'one just 
person,' (as they call him,) and of the remain- 
ing thousand save one that take part with usi 
So decided is our majority." — (Applause.) 

" Of the Scarlet Woman, — yes, Monseigneur, 
without offence, — of the Scarlet Woman that 
sits on Seven Hills, and her Black Jesuit Mili- 
tia, out foraging from Pole to Pole, I speak 
not ; for the story is too trite : nay, the Militia 
itself, as I see, begins to be disbanded, and in- 
valided, for a second treachery ; treachery to 
herself! Nor yet of Governments ; for a like 
reason. Ambassadors, said an English pun- 
ster, lie abroad for their masters. Their mas- 
ters, we answer, lie, at home, for themselves. 
Not of all this, nor of Courtship, (with its so 
universal Lovers' vows.) nor Courtiership, nor 
Attorneyism, nor Public Oratory, and Selling 
by Auction, do I speak : I simply ask the gain- 
sayer. Which is the particular trade, profes- 
sion, mystery, calling, or pursuit of the Sons 
of Adam that they successfully manage in the 
other wayl He cannot answer! — No: Phi- 
losophy itself, both practical and even specu- 
lative, has, at length (after shamefullest grop- 
ing) stumbled on the plain conclusion that 
Sham is indispensable to Reality, as Lying to 
Living; that without Lying the wlmle busi- 
ness of the world, from swaying of senates to 
selling of tapes, must explode into anarchic 
discords, and so a speedy conclusion ensue. 

"But the grand problem. Fellow Scoundrels, 
as you well know, is the marrying of Truth 
and Sham ; so that they become one flesh, man 
and wife, and generate these three : Profit, 
Pudding, and Respectability that always keeps 
her Gig. Wondrously, indeed, do Truth and 
Delusion play into one another : Reality rests 
on Dream. Truth is but the skin of the bot- 
tomless Untrue : and ever, from time to time, 
the Untrue sheds it; is clear again; and the 
superannuated True itself becomes a Fable. 
Thus do all hostile things crumble back into 
our Empire; and of its increase there is no end. 

" O brothers, to think of the Speech with- 
out meaning, (which is mostly ours,) and of 
the Speech with contrary meaning, (which is 
wholly ours,) manufactured by the organs of 
Mankind in one solar day! Or call it a day 
of Jubilee, when public Dinners are given, 
and Dinner-orations are delivered: or say, a 
Neighbouring Island in time of General Elec- 
tion ! ye immortal gods ! The mind is lost; 
can only admire great Nature's plenteousueas 
with a kind of sacred wonder. 

" For, tell me. What is the chief end of man 1 
' To glorify God,' said the old Christian Sect, 
now happily extinct. 'To eat and find eata- 
bles by the readiest method,' answers sound 
Philosophy, discarding whims. If the readier 
method (than this of persuasive-attraction) is 
discovered, — point it out. — Brethren, I said the 
old Christian Sect was happily extinct: as, in- 
deed, in Rome itself, there goes the wonderful- 
lest traditionary Prophecy,* of that Nazareth 
Christ coming back, and being crucified a 
second time there ; which truly I see not in the 

* Goethe mentions it (Italiasnische Reise.) 



476 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS, 



least how he could fail to be. Nevertheless, 
that old Christian whim, of an actual living 
and ruling God, and some sacred covenant 
binding all men in Him, with much other mys- 
tic stuff, does, under new or old shape, linger 
•with a few. From these few, keep yourselves 
for ever far ! They must even be left to their 
-whim, which is not like to prove infectious. 

" But neither are we, my Fellow Scoundrels, 
without our Religion, our Worship ; which, 
like the oldest, and all true Worships, is one 
of Fear. The Christians have their Cross, 
the Moslem their Cresent: but have not we, 
too, our — Gallows 1 Yes, infinitely terrible is 
the Gallows; bestrides, with its patibulary 
fork, the Pit of bottomless Terror. No Mani- 
cheans are we ; our God is One. Great, ex- 
ceeding great, I say, is the Gallows ; of old, 
even from the beginning, in this world ; know- 
ing neither variableness nor decadence ; for 
ever, for ever, over the wreck of ages, and all 
civic and ecclesiastic convulsions, meal-mobs, 
revolutions, the Gallows with front serenely 
terrible towers aloft. Fellow Scoundrels, fear 
the Gallows, and have no other fear ! This is 
the Law and the Prophets. Fear every ema- 
nation of the Gallows. And what is every 
buffet, with the fist, or even with the tongue, of 
one having authority, but some such emana- 
tion. And what is Force of Public Opinion 
but the infinitude of such emanations, — rush- 
ing combined on you like a mighty storm- 
wind ? Fear the Gallows, I say ! O when, 
with its long black arm, it has clutched a man, 
what avail him all terrestrial things ? These 
pass away, with horrid nameless dinning in 
his ears ; and the ill-starred Scoundrel pendu- 
lates between Heaven and Earth, a thing re- 
jected of bath." — (Profound sensation.) 

"Such, so wide in compass, high, gallows- 
high in dignity, is the Scoundrel Empire; and 
for depth, it is deeper than the Foundations of 
the World. For what was Creation itself 
wholly (according to the best Philosophers) 
but a Divulsion by the Timk-Spiiut, (or Devil 
so-called ;) a forceful Interruption, or breaking 
asunder, of the old Quiescence of Eternity 1 
It was Lucifer that fell, and made this lordly 
World arise. Deepi It is bottomless-deep; 
the very Thought, diving, hobs up from it 
baffled. Is not this that they call Vice of Ly- 
ing the Adam-Kadmoii, or primeval Rude-Ele- 
ment, old as Chaos mother's-womb of Death 
and Hell; whereon their thin film of Virtue, 
Truth, and the like, poorly wavers — for a day 1 
All Virtue, what is it, even by their own show- 
ing, but Vice transformed, — that is, manufac- 
tured, rendered artificial'! ' Man's Vices are 
the roots from which his Virtues grow out and 
see the light,' says one : ' Yes,' add I, ' and 
thanklessly steal their nourishment!' Were 
it not for the nine hundred ninety and nine 
unacknowledged (perhaps martyred and ca- 
lumniated) Scoundrels, how were their single 
Just Person (with a murrain on him !) so much 
as possible 1 — Oh, it is high, high : these things 
are too great for me; Intellect, Imagination, 
flags her tired wings; the soul lost, baffled'* — 
— Here Dame de Lamotle tittered audibly, 
and muttered, Coq-d'-Inde, (which, being inter- 
preted into the Scottish tongue, signifies Bub- 



bly- Jock!) The Arch-Quack, whose eyes were 
turned inwards as in rapt contemplation,. 
started at the litter and mutter: his eyes flashed 
outwards with dilated pupil ; his nostrils 
opened wide ; his very hair seemed to stir in. 
its long twisted pigtails, (his fashion of curl;) 
and as Indignation is said to make Poetry, it 
here made Prophecy, or what sounded as such. 
With terrible, working features, and gesticula- 
tion not recommended in any Book of Gesture, 
the Arch-Quack, in voice supernally discord- 
ant (like Lions worrying Bulls of Bashan) 
began : 

" Sniff not, Dame de Lamotte ; tremble, thou 
foul Circe-Megcera: thy day of desolation is at 
hand! Behold ye the Sanhedrim of Judges, 
with their fanners (of written Parchment) 
loud-rustling, as they winnow all her chaff, and 
down-plumage, and she stands there naked 
and mean 1 — Villette, Oliva, do ye blab se- 
crets ? Ye have no pity of her extreme need ; 
she none of yours. Is thy light-giggling, un- 
tamable heart at last heavy? Hark ye f 
Shrieks of one cast out; whom they brand on 
both shoulders with iron stamp ; the red hot 
" V," thou Volnisc, hath it entered thy soul ? 
Weep, Circe de Lamotte; wail there in truckle 
bed, and hysterically gnash thy teeth : nay, do, 
smother thyself in thy door-mat coverlid ; thou 
hast found thy mates; thou art in the Sal- 
petriere ! — Weep, daughter of the high and 
puissant Sans-inexpressibles ! Buzz of Pari- 
sian Gossipry is about thee; but not to help 
thee : no, to eat before thy time. What shall 
a King's Court do with thee, thou unclean 
thing, while thou yet li vest"! Escape! Flee 
to utmost countries ; hide there, if thou canst, 
thy mark of Cain ! — In the Babylon of Fog- 
land ! Ha ! is that my London 1 See I Judas 
Iscariot Egalite ? Print, yea print abundantly 
the abominations of your two hearts : breath 
of rattlesnakes can bedim the steel mirror, but 
only for a time. — And there! Ay, there at 
last ! Tumblest thou from the lofty leads, 
poverty-stricken, O thriftless daughter of the 
high and puissant, escaping bailiffs? Des- 
cendest thou precipitate, in dead night, from 
window in the third story: hurled forth by 
Bacchanals, to whom thy shrill tongue had 
grown unbearable 1* Yea, through the smoke 
of that new Babylon thou fallest headlong ; 
one long scream of screams makes night 
hideous : thou liest there, shattered like addle 
egg, 'nigh to the Temple of Flora !' O La- 
motte, has thy Hypncrisia ended, then ? Thy 
many characters were all acted. Here at last 
thou actest not, but art what thou seemest: a 
mangled squelch of gore, confusion, and 
abomination ; which men huddle underground, 
with no burial stone. Thou gallows-car- 
rion !" — 

— Here the prophet turned up his nose, (the 
broadest of the eighteenth centurj^) and opened 



* The Encjlish Translator of Lamotte's Life says, she 
felt from the le.ids of her house, nich the Temple of 
Flora, endeavourins; to escape seizure for debt ; and was 
taken up so much liurt that she died in consequence. 
Another report runs that she was flung out of window, 
as in the Casliostric text. One way or other she did 
die, on the 2.'?d of August, 1791 (Siographie Uuiverselle, 
XXX. 287.) Where the "Temple oif Flora" was, or is» 
ope knows not. 



THE DIAMOND NECKLACE, 



477 



wide his nostrils with such a greatness of dis- 
gust, that all the audience, even Lamotte her- 
self, sympathetically imitated him. — "ODame 
de Lamotte! Dame de Lamotte ! Now, when 
the circle of thy existence lies complete: and 
my eye glances over these two score and three 
years that were lent thee, to do evil as thou 
couldst ; and I behold thee a bright-eyed little 
Tatterdemalion, begging and gathering slicks 
in the Bois de Boulogne; and also at length a 
squelched Putrefaction, here on London pave- 
ments ; with the headdressings and hungerings, 
the gaddings and hysterical gigglings that 
came between, — Wliat shall I say was the 
meaning of thee at alH — 

" Villette-de-Retaux! Have the catchpoles 
trepanned thee, by sham of battle, in thy Ta- 
vern, from the sacred Republican soil.* It is 
thou that wert the hired Forger of Hand- 
writings? Thou wilt confess it '! Depart, un- 
whipt, yet accursed. — Ha ! The dread Symbol 
of our Faith ? Swings aloft, on the Castle of 
St. Angelo, a Pendulous Mass, which I think I 
discern to be the body of Villette ! There let 
him end ; the sweet morsel of our Juggernaut. 

"Nay, weep not thou, disconsolate Oliva; 
blear not thy bright blue eyes, daughter of the 
shady Garden ! Thee shall the Sanhedrim 
not harm: this Cloaca of Nature emits thee; 
as notablest of unfortunate-females, thou shalt 
have choice of husbands not without capital; 
and accept one.f Know this, for the vision 
of it is true. 

"But the Anointed Majesty whom ye pro- 
faned ? Blow, spirit of Egyptian Masonry, 
blow aside the thick curtains of Space! Lo 
you, her eyes are red with their first tears of 
pure bitterness ; not with their last. Tirewo- 
man Campan is choosing, from the Printshops 
of the Quais, the reputed-best among the 
hundred likenesses of Circe de Lamotte :t a 
Queen shall consider if the basest of women 
ever, by any accident, darkened daylight or 
candle-light for the highest. The Portrait 
answers: 'Never!' — (Sensation in the audi- 
ence.) 

" — Ha! What is this? Angels, Uriel, Ana- 
chiel, and the other Five; Pentagon of Re- 
juvenescene; Power that destroyed Original 
Sin ; Earth, Heaven, and thou Outer Limbo, 
which men name Hell ! Does the Empiue of Im- 



*See Oeorgel, and Villette's Mfmoire. 

\ Affaire du Collier is this MS. Note : " Gay d'Oliva, a 
cominon-giil of the Palais-Royal, who was chosen to 
play a part in this Business, got married, some years 
afterwards, to one Beausire, an Ex-Nohle, I'orinerly 
attached lo the d'Artois Household. In 1700, he was 
Captain of the National Guard Company of the Temple. 
He then retired to Ohoisy, and manaaed to l)e named 
Procurcnr of that Coimnune : he finally employed him- 
self in drawing up Lists of Proscription in the Luxem- 
bourg Prison, when he played the part of informer, 
(mouton.) See Tiiblmu des Prisons de Paris sous Robes- 
pierre." These details are correct. In the Memoires 
snrles Prisons, (new Title of the Book just referred lo.) 
ii. 171, we find this: "The second Denouncer was 
Beausire, an Ex-Nolile, known under the old govern- 
ment for his iiitrifues. To give an idea of hirn, it is 
enoui-h to say that he married the d'Oliva," fcc, as in 
the MS. Note already given. Finally is added: "He 
was the main spy of Boyenval ; who, however, said that 
he made use of tiim ; fnit that Fouquier-Tinvi'le did not 
like him, and would have him guillotined in good 
time " 

t See Campan. 



posTuiiE waver 1 Burst there, in starry sheen, 
updarting. Light-rays from out its dark foun- 
dations; as it rocks and heaves, not in travail- 
throes, but in death-throes ] Yea, Light-rays, 
piercing, clear, that salute the Heavens, — lo, 
they kindle it ; their starry clearness becomes as 
red Hellfire ! Ijiposture is burnt up ; one Red- 
sea of Fire, wild-billowing enwraps the World ; 
with its fire-tongue licks at the Stars. Thrones 
are hurled into it, and Dubois Milres, and Pre- 
bendal Stalls that drop fatness, and — ha! what 
see 1 1 — all the Gigs of Creation : all, all ! Wo 
is me ! Never since Pharaoh's Chariots, in 
the Red-sea of water, was there wreck of 
Wheel-vehicles like this in the Sea of Fire. 
Desolate, as ashes, as gases, shall they wander 
in the wind. 

"Higher, higher, yet flames the Fire-Sea; 
crackling with new dislocated timber; hissing 
with leather and prunella. The metal Images 
are molten ; the marble Images become mor- 
tar-lime; the stone Mountains sulkily explode. 
Respectability, with all her collected Gigs 
inflamed for funeral pyre, wailing, leaves the 
Earth, — to return under new Avatar. Impos- 
ture, how it burns, through generations: how 
it is burnt up — for a time. The World is black 
ashes ; which — when will they grow green T 
The Images all run into amorphous Corinthian 
brass; all Dwellings of men destroyed; the 
very mountains peeled and riven, the valleys 
black and dead: it is an empty World! Wo 

to them that shall be born then ! A King, a 

Queen, (ah me!) were hurled in; did rustle 
once ; flew aloft, crackling, like paper-scroll. 
Oliva's Husband was hurled in ; Iscariot Ega- 
lite ; thou grim De Launay, with thy grim Bas- 
tille ; whole kindreds and peoples ; five millions 
of mutually destroying Men. For it is the 
End of the Dominion of Impostuhe (which is 
Darkness and opaque Firedamp ; and the burn- 
ing up, with unquenchable fire, of all the Gigs 
that are in the Earth !" — Here the Prophet 
paused, fetching a deep sigh ; and the Cardinal 
uttered a kind of faint, tremulous Hem ! 

"Mourn not, O Monseigneur, spite of thy 
nephritic cholic, and many infirmities. For 
thee mercifully it was not unto death.* O 
Monseigneur, (for thou hadst a touch of good- 
ness,) who would not weep over thee, if he 
also laughed 1 Behold ! The not too judicious 
Historian, that long years hence, amid remotest 
wilderness, writes thy Life, and names thee 
Mud-volcano : even he shall reflect that it was 
thy Life this same; ihy only chance through 
whole Eternity ; which thou (poor gambler) 
hast expended so : and, even over his hard 
heart, a breath of dewy pity for thee shall 
blow. — O Monseigneur, thou wert not all igno- 
ble : thy Mud-volcano was but strength dis- 
located, fire misapplied. Thou wentest raven- 
ing through the world; no Life-elixir or Stone 
of the Wise could we two (for want of funds) 
discover: a foulest Circe undertook to fatten 
thee; and thou hadst to fill thy belly with the 
east wind. And bursti By the Masonry of 

* Rohan was elected of the Constituent Assemhiy; 
and even got a compliment or two in it. as Court-victim, 
from here and there a man of weak judgment. He was 
one of the first who, recalcitrating asainst "Civil Con- 
stitution of the Clergy," &c., took himself across th« 
Rhine. 



478 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Enoch. No ! Behold has not thy Jesuit 
Familiar his Scouts dim-flying over the deep 
of human things 1 Cleared art thou of crime, 
save that, of fixed-idea; weepest, a repentant 
exile, in the Mountains of Auvergne. Neither 
shall the Red Fire-sea itself consume thee; 
only consume thy Gig, and, instead of Gig 
(0 rich exchange !) restore thy Self Safe be- 
yond the Rhine-stream, thou livest peaceful 
days; savest many from the fire, and anointest 
their smarting burns. Sleep finally, in thy 
mother's bosom, in a good old age I" — The 
Cardinal gave a sort of guttural murmur, or 
gurgle, which ended in a long sigh. 

" O Horrors, as ye shall be called," again 
burst forth the Quack, " why have ye missed 
the Sieur de Lamotte; why not of him, too, 
made gallows-carrion 1 Will spear, or sword- 
stick, thrust at him, (or supposed to be thrust,) 
through window of hackney-coach, in Pic- 
cadilly of the Babylon of Fog, where he jolts 
disconsolate, not let out the imprisoned animal 
existence? Is he poisoned, tool"* Poison 
will not kill the Sieur Lamotte; nor steel, nor 
massacres.f Let him drag his utterly super- 
fluous life to a second and a third generation ; 
and even admit the not too judicious Historian 
to see his face before he die. 

" But, ha !" cried he, and stood wide-staring, 
horror struck, as if some Cribb's fist had 
knocked the wind out of him : " horror of 
horrors ! Is it not Myself I see ? Roman In- 
quisition ! Long months of cruel baiting ! 
Life of Giuseppe Ealsamo .' Cagliostro's Body 
still lying in St. Leo Castle, his Self fled — 



tvhithcr? By-standers wag their heads, and 
say; 'The Brow of Brass, behold how it has 
got all unlackered; these Pinchbeck lips can 
lie no more!' Eheu! Ohoo!" — and he burst 
into unstanchable blubbering of tears; and 
sobbing out the moanfuUest broken howl, sank 
down in swoon ; to be put to bed by De Launay 
and others. 

Thus spoke (or thus might have spoken) 
and prophesied, the Arch-quack Cagliostro; 
and truly much better than he ever else did : 
for not a jot or tittle of it (save only that of 
our promised Interview with Nestor de La- 
motte, which looks unlikelier than ever, for 
we have not heard of him, dead or living, since 
182G,) but he has turned out to be literally /rw^. 
As, indeed, in all his History, one jot or title 
of untruth, that we could render true, is, per- 
haps, not discoverable ; much as the distrust- 
ful reader may have disbelieved. 

Here, then, our little labour ends. The Neck- 
lace was, and is no more : the stones of it again 
"circulate in commerce" (some of them per- 
haps, in Rundle's at this hour;) may give rise to 
what other Histories we know not. The Con- 
querors of it, every one that trafficke-d in if, 
have they not all had their due, which was 
Death 1 

This little Business, like a little cloud, 
bodied itself forth in skies clear to the unob- 
servant: but with such hues of deep-tinted 
villany, dissoluteness, and general delirium, as 
to the observant, betokened it electric ; and 
wise men (a Goethe, for example) boded 
Earthquakes. Has not the Earthquakes come 1 



MEMOIES OF MIEABEAU; 

[London and Westminstep. Review, 1837. 



A PROVERB says, " The house that is a- 
building looks not as the house that is built," 
Environed with rubbish and mortar-heaps with 
scatfold-poles, hodmen, dust-clouds, some ru- 
diments only of that thing that is to be, can, 
to the most observant, disclose themselves 
through the mean tumult of the thing that hither- 
to is. How true is this same with regard to all 
works and facts whatsoever in our world; em- 
phatically" true in regard to the highest fact and 

* See Lamotte's Narrative, (Memoires Justifi^-atifs.) 
•f Lamotte, after his wife's death, had returned to 
Paris ; and been arrested — not for building churches. 
The Sentence of the old Parlement against him, in re- 
gard to the Neclilace business, he sets annulled by the 
new Courts ; but is, nevertheless, "retained in confine- 
ment," (Moniteur Newspaper, 7th August, 1782.) He 
was still in Prison at the time the September Massacre 
broke out. From Maton de la Vareniie we cite the fol- 
lowing grim passage : Maton is in La Force Prison. 

"At o"ne in the morning," (of Monday, .September 3.) 
writes Maton, "the grate that led to our quarter was 
again opened. Four men in uniform, holding each a 
naked sabre and blazing torch, mounted to our corridor ; 
a turnkey showing the way; and entered a room close 
on ours, to invesiigate a tiox, which they broke open. 
This done, they halted in the gallery ; and began inter- 
rogating one Cuissa, to know where Lamotte was; 
who, they said, under a pretext of finding a treasure, 
whicb they should share in, had swindled one of them 



work which our world witnesses, — the Life of 
what we call an Original Man. Such a man 
is one not made altogether by the common 
pattern ; one whose phases and goings forth 
cannot be prophesied of, even approximately ; 
though, indeed, by their very newness and 
strangeness they most of all provoke prophecy. 
A man of this kind, while he lives on earth, is 
"unfolding himself out of nothing into some- 
thing," surelj' under very complex conditions : 

out of 300 livres. having asked him to dinner for that 
purtx)se. The wretched Cuissa, whom they had in 
their power, and who lost his life that night, answered, 
all trembling, that he remembered the fact well, 
but could not say what had become of the prisoner. 
Resolute to find this Lamotte and confront him with 
Cuissa, they ascended into other rooms, and made fur- 
ther rummaging there ; but apparently without effect, 
for 1 heard them say to one another: "Come, search 
among the corpses, then for, J^om de Dieu! we must 
know what is becon)e of him." (Jl/a Resurrection, par 
Maton de la Varenne ; reprinted in l)\e Histoire Parle- 
nientaire, xviii. 142.) — Lamotte lay in the Bicetre 
Prison ; but had got out, precisely in the nick of time, — 
and dived bi-yond soundings. 

* Memoires biogra-phiques, litteraires, et politigiies, de 
Mirabeiiu ; Merits par lui-meme, par son Pire Oncle, et son 
Fils Adoptif (Memoirs, biographical, literary, and politi- 
cal, of Mirabeau : written by himself, by his Father, his 
Uncle, and his Adopted Son.) 8vols. 8 vo,Paris, 1834—36- 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



479 



he is drawing continually towards him, in con- 
tinual succession and variation, the materials 
of his structure, nay, his very plan of it, from 
the whole realm of accident, you may say, and 
from the whole realm of free-will: he is build- 
ing his life together in this manner; a guess 
and a problem as yet, not to others only but to 
himself Hence such criticism by the by- 
standers; loud no-knowledge, loud misknow- 
ledge ! It is like the opening of the Fisher- 
man's Casket in the Arabian Tale, this begin- 
ning and growing-up of a life : vague smoke 
wavering hither and thither; some features of 
a Genie looming through; of the ultimate 
shape of which no fisherman or man can judge. 
And yet, as we say, men do judge, and pass 
provisional sentence, being forced to it; you 
can predict with what accuracy! "Look at 
the audience in a theatre," says one: " the life 
of a man is there compressed within five hours' 
duration ; is transacted on an open stage, with 
lighted lamps, and what the fittest words and 
art of genius can do to make the spirit of it 
clear; yet listen, when the curtain falls, what 
a discerning public will say of that I And now, 
if the drama extended over three-score and ten 
years ; and were enacted, not with a view to 
clearness, but rather indeed with a view to 
concealment, often in the deepest attainable 
involution of obscurity; and your discerning 
public occupied otherwise, cast its eye on the 
business now here for a moment, and then there 
for a moment!" Wo to him, answer we, who 
has no court of appeal against the world's judg- 
ment! He is a doomed man: doomed by con- 
viction to hard penalties; nay, purchasing ac- 
quittal (too probably) by a still harder penalty, 
that of being a trivialty, superficialty, self-ad- 
vertiser, and partial or total quack, which is the 
hardest penalty of all. 

But suppose farther, that the man, as we 
said, was an original man ; that his life-drama 
would not and could not be measured by the 
three unities alone, but partly by a rule of its 
own too: still farther, that the transactions he 
had mingled in were great and world-dividing; 
that of all his judges there were not one who 
had not something to love him for unduly, to 
hate him for unduly ! Alas! is it not precisely in 
this case, where the whole world is promptest lo 
judge, that the whole world is likeliest to be 
wrong: natural opacity being so doubly and 
trebly darkened by accidental difficulty and per- 
version 1 The crabbed moralist had some show 
of reason who said: "To judge of an original 
contemporary man, you must, in general, re- 
verse the world's judgment about him ; the 
world is not only wrong on that matter, but 
cannot on any such matter be right." 

One comfort is, that the world is ever work- 
ing itself righter and righter on such matters ; 
that a continual revisal and rectification of the 
world's first judgment on them is inevitably 
going on. For, after all, the world loves its 
original men, and can in no wise forget them ; 
not till after a long while; sometimes not till 
after thousands of years. Forgetting them, 
what indeed, should it remember? The world's 
wealth is its original men; by these and iheir 
works it is a world and not a waste: the me- 
mory and record of what nxv it bore — this is 



the sum of its strength, its sacred " property 
for ever," whereby it upholds itself, and steers 
forward better or worse, through the yet undis- 
covered deep of Time. All knowledge, all art, 
all beautiful or precious possession of exist- 
ence, is, in the long run, this, or connected with 
this. Science itself, is it not, under one of its 
most interesting aspects. Biography; is it not 
the Record of the Work which an original man, 
still named by us, or not now named, was 
blessed by the heavens to do? That Sphere- 
and-cylmder is the monument and abbreviated 
history of the man Archimedes; not to be for- 
gotten, probably, till the world itself vanish. 
Of Poets, and what they have done, and how 
the world loves them, let us, in these days, very 
singular in respect of that Art, say nothing, or 
next to nothing. The greatest modern of the 
poetic guild has already said: "Nay if thou 
wilt have it, who hut the poet first formed gods 
for us, brought them down to us, raised us up 
to them ?" 

Another remark, on a lower scale, not un- 
worthy of notice, is by Jean Paul: that, "as in 
art, so in conduct, or what we call morals, be- 
fore there can be an Aristotle, with his critical 
canons, there must be a Homer, many Homers 
with their heroic performances." In plainer 
words, the original man is the true creator (or 
call him revealer) of Morals too : it is from his 
example that precepts enough are derived, 
and written down in books and systems : he pro- 
perly is the Thing; all that follows after is 
but talk about the thing, better or worse inter- 
pretation of it, more or less wearisome and in- 
effectual discourse of logic on it. A remark, 
this of Jean Paul's which, well meditated, may 
seem one of the most pregnant lately written 
on these matters. If any man had the ambi- 
tion of building a new system of morals, (not 
a promising enterprise, at this time of day,) 
there is no remark known to us which might 
better serve him as a chief corner-stone, where- 
on to found, and to build, high enough, notliing 
doubting; — high, for instance, as the Christian 
Gospel itself. And to whatever other heights 
man's destiny may yet carry him ! Consider 
whether it was not, from the first, by example, 
or say rather by human exemplars, and such 
reverent imitation or abhorrent aversion and 
avoidance as these gave rise to, that man's 
duties were made indubitable to him ] Also, 
if it is not yet, in these last days, by very much 
the same means, (example, precept, prohibition, 
" force of public opinion," and other forcings 
and inducings,) that the like result is brought 
about; and, from the Woolsack down to the 
Treadmill, from Almack's to Chalk Farm and 
the west-end of Newgate, the incongruous 
whirlpool of life is forced and induced to whirl 
with some attempt at regularity? The two 
Mosaic Tables were of simple limited stone : 
no logic appended to them : we, in our days, 
are privileged with Logic — Systems of Morals, 
Professors of Moral Philosophy, Theories of 
Moral Sentiment, Utilities, Sympathies, Moral 
Senses, not a few; useful for those that feel 
C'.imforl in ihem. But to the observant eye, is 
it not still plain that the rule of man's life rests 
not very steadily on logic (rather carries logic 
unsteadily resting on il, as an excuse, an ex- 



480 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



position, or ornamental solacement to oneself 
and others;) that ever, as of old, tlie thing a 
man will do is the thing he feels commanded 
to do ; of which command, again, the origin 
and reasonableness remains often as good as 
ijidemonstrable by logic ; and, indeed, lies 
mainly in this, that it has been demonstrated 
otherwise and better by experiment ; namely, 
that an experimental (what we name original) 
man has already done it, and we havesffwit to 
be good and reasonable, and now know it to be 
so once and for evermore 1 — Enough of this. 

He were a sanguine individual, surely, that 
should turn to the French Revolution for new 
rules of conduct and creators or exemplars of 
morality, — except, indeed, exemplars of the 
gibbetted, in-lerrorem sort. A greater work, it 
is often said, was never done in the world's 
history by men so small. Twenty-five mil- 
lions (say these severe critics) are hurled 
forth out of all their old habitudes, arrange- 
ments, harnessings, and garnitures, into the 
new, quite void arena and career of Sansculoit- 
isrn ; there to show what originality is in them. 
Fanfaronading and gesticulation, vehemence, 
effervescence, heroic desperation, they do show 
in abundance ; but of what one can call origi- 
nality, invention, natural stuff or character, 
amazingly little. Their heroic desperation, 
such as it was, we will honour and even ve- 
nerate, as a new document (call it rather a 
renewal of that primeval ineffaceable docu- 
ment and charter) of the manhood of man. 
But, -for the rest, there were Federations; 
there were Festivals of Fraternity, " the 
Statute of Nature pouring water from her two 
mamnielles,'" and the august Deputies all drink- 
ing of it from the same iron saucer: Weights 
and Measures were attempted to be changed ; 
the Months of the Year became Pluviose, 
Thermidor, Messidor (till Napoleon said, II 
faiidra se debarrasscr de se Messidor, One must 
get this Messidor sent about its business :) 
also Mrs. Momoro and others rode prosperous, 
as Goddesses of Reason ; and then, these being 
mostly guillotined, Mahomet Robespierre did, 
with bouquet in hand, and in new nankeen 
trowsers, m front of the Tuileries, pronounce 
the scraggiest of prophetic discourses on the 
Eire Su/ircnte, and set fire to much emblematic 
pasteboard: — all this, and an immensity of 
such, the twenty-five millions did devise and 
accomplish ; but (apart from their heroic des- 
peration, which was no miracle either, beside 
that of the old Dutch, for instance) this, and 
the like of this, was almost all. Their arena 
of Sansculotttsin was the most original arena 
opened to man for above a thousand years; 
and they, at bottom, were unexpectedly com- 
mon-place in it. Exaggerated common-place, 
triviality run distracted, and a kind of uni- 
versal ■' Frenzy of John Dennis," is the figure 
thev exhibit. The brave Forster, — sinking 
slowly of broken heart, in the mid^t of that 
volcanic chaos of the Reign of Terror, and 
clinging still to the cause, which, though now 
bloody and terrible, he believed to be the 
highest, and for which he had sacrificed all, 
country, kindred, f( rtune, friends, and life, — 
compares the Revolution, indeed, to "an ex- 



plosion and new creation of the world ;" but 
the actors in it, that went buzzing about him, 
to a " lumdvoU mikkcn, handful of flies."* And 
yet, one may add, this same explosion of a 
world was their work ; the work of these — 
flies? The truth is, neither Forster nor any 
man can see a French Revolution ; it is like 
seeing the ocean: poor Charles Lamb com- 
plained that he could not see the multitudin- 
ous ocean at all, but only some insignificant 
fraction of it from the deck of the Margate 
hoy. It must be owned, however, (urge these 
severe critics,) that examples of rabid trivi- 
ality abound, in the French Revolution, to 
a lamentable extent. Consider Maximilien 
Robespierre ; for the greater part of two years, 
what one may call Autocrat of France. A 
poor sea-green (vcrdnlrc,) atrabiliar Formula 
of a man ; without head, without heart, or any 
grace, gift, or even vice beyond common, if it 
were not vanity, astucity, diseased rigour 
(which some count strength) as of a cramp; 
really a most poor sea-green individual in. 
spectacles ; meant by Nature for a Methodist 
parson of the stricter sort, to doom men who 
departed from the written confession ; to chop 
fruitless shrill logic ; to contend, and suspect, 
and ineffectually wrestle and ivriggle; and, on 
the whole, to love, or to know, or to be 
(properly speaking) Nothing; — this was he 
who, the sport of wracking winds, saw him- 
self whirled aloft to command la premiere nation 
de Vunivers, and all men shouting long life to 
him ; one of the most lamentable, tragic, sea- 
green objects, ever whirled aloft in that man- 
ner, in any country, to his own swift destruc- 
tion, and the world's long wonder! 

So argue these severe critics of the French 
Revolution: with whom we argue not here; 
but remark rather, what is more to the pur- 
pose, that the French Revolution did disclose 
original men : among the twenty-five millions, 
at least one or two units. Some reckon, in 
the present stage of the business, as many as 
three : Napoleon, Danton, Mirabeau. Whether 
more will come to light, or of what sort, when 
the computation is quite liquidated, one can- 
not say: meanwhile let the world be thankful 
for these three; — as, indeed, the world is; 
loving original men, without limit, were they 
never so questionable, well knowing how rare 
they are! To us, accordingly, it is rather 
interesting to observe how on these three also, 
questionable as they surely are, the old pro- 
cess is repeating itself; how these also are 
getting known in their true likeness. A 
second generation, relieved in some measure 
from the spectral hallucinations, hysterical 
ophthalmia, and natural panic-delirium of the 
first contemporary one, is .gradually coming 
to discern and measure what its predecessor 
could only execrate and shriek over: for, as 
our Proverb said, the dust is sinking, the rub- 
bish-heaps disappear; the built house, such 
as it is, and was appointed to be, stands 
visible, better or worse. 

Of Napoleon Bonaparte, what with so many 
bulletins, and such self-proclamation from 
artillery and battle-thunder, loud enough to 



»Forsier's Briefe und Nachla«s. 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



481 



ring through the deafest brain, in the remotest 
nook of this earth, and now, in consequence, 
with so many biographies, histories, and histo- 
rical arguments for and against, it may be 
said that he can now sift for himself; that his 
true figure is in a fair way of being ascer- 
tained. Doubtless it will be found one day 
what sisnificance was in him; how (we quote 
from a New England Book) "the man was a 
divine missionary, though unconscious of it ; 
and preached, through the cannon's throat, 
that great doctrine, La carriere ouuerle aux tuhns, 
(The tools to him that can handle them,) which 
is our ultimate Political Evangel, wherein 
alone can Liberty lie. Madly enough he 
preached, it is true, as enthusiasts and first 
missionaries are wont; with imperfect utter- 
ance, amid much frothy rant; yet as articu- 
lately, perhaps, as the case admitted. Or call 
him, if you will, an American backwoodsman, 
who had to fell unpenetrated forests, and battle 
with innumerable wolves, and did not entirely 
forbear strong liquor, rioting, and even theft; 
whom, nevertheless, the peaceful sower will 
follow, and, as he cuts the boundless harvest, 
bless." — From " the incarnate Moloch," which 
the word once was, onwards to this quiet 
version, there is a considerable progress. 

Still more interesting is it, not without a 
touch almost of pathos, to see how the rugged 
Terra Filius Danton begins likewise to emerge, 
from amid the blood-tinted obscurations and 
shadows of horrid cruelty, into calm light ; and 
seems now not an Anthropophagus, but partly 
a man. On the whole, the Earth feels it to be 
something to have a "Son of Earth;" any 
reality, rather than a hypocrisy and formula ! 
With a man that went honestly to work with 
himself, and said and acted, in any sense, with 
the whole mind of him, there is always some- 
thing to be done. Satan himself, according to 
Dante, was a praiseworthy object, compared 
with those jusle-milicu angels (so over-nu- 
merous in limes like ours) who " were ncillier 
faithful nor rebellious," but were for their little 
selves only: trimmers, moderates, plausible 
persons, who, in the Dantean Hell, are found 
doomed to this frightful penalty, that "they 
have not the hope to die, {-non han sperama di 
morte.) but sunk in torpid death-life, in mud 
and the plague of flies, they are to doze and 
dree for ever, — " hateful to God and to the 
Enemies of God:" 

" JVon ragioTium di lor, ma guarda e passa .'" 

If Bonaparte were the " armed Soldier of 
Democracy," invincible while he continued 
true to that, then let us call this Danton the 
Evfunt Perdu, and wuenlisted Revolter and 
Titan of Democracy, which could not yet have 
soldiers or discipline, but was by the nature 
of it lawless. An Earthborn, we say, yet 
honestly born of Earth ! In the Memoirs of 
Gural, and elsewhere, one sees these fire-eyes 
beam with earnest insight, fill with the water 
of tears; the huge rude features speak withal 
of wild human sympathies; that Antaeus' bosom 
also held a heart. "It is not the alarm-can- 
non that you hear," cries he to the terror- 
struck, when the Prussians were already at 
Verdun: "it is the pas de charge against our 
61 



enemies. De I'audacc, et encore de Vaudace, et 
toKJours de Vaudace : to dare, and again to dare, 
and without limit to dare!" — there is nothing 
left but that. Poor " Mirabeau of the Sanscu- 
lottes," what a mission ! And it could not be 
but done, — and it was done ! But, indeed, may 
there not be, if well considered, more virtue in 
this feeling itself, once bursting earnest from 
the wild heart, than in whole lives of imma- 
culate Pharisees and Respectabilities, with 
their eye ever set on "character," and the 
letter of the law: "Que mon noru snii flciri, Let 
my name be blighted, then; let the Cause be 
glorious, and have victory !" By and by, as 
we predict, the Friend of Humanity, since so 
many Knife-grinders have no story to tell him, 
will find some sort of story in this Danton. A 
rough-hewn giant of a man, (not anthropopha- 
gous entirely;) whose "figures of speech" (and 
also of action) " are all gigantic ;" whose 
"voice reverberates from the domes," — and 
dashes Brunswick across the marches in a 
very wrecked condition. Always his total 
freedom from cant is one thing ; even in his 
briberies, and sins as to money, there is a 
frankness, a kind of broad greatness. Sin- 
cerity, a great rude sincerit}', (of insight and 
of purpose,) dwelt in the man, which quality 
is the root of all : a man who could see through 
many things, and would stop at very few 
things; who marched impetuously, where to 
march was almost certainly to fall ; and now 
bears the penalty, in a " name" blighted, yet, 
as we say, visibly clearing itself. Once 
cleared, why should not this name, too, have 
significance for men ? The wild history is a 
tragedy, as all human histories are. Brawny 
Dantons, still to the present hour, " rend the 
glebe," as simple brawny Farmers, and reap 
peaceable harvests, at Arcis-sur-Aube; and 
this Danton — ! It is an t/wrhymed tragedy; 
very bloody, fuliginous, (after the manner of 
the elder dramatists ;) yet full of tragic ele- 
ments; not undeserving natural pity and fear. 
In quiet times, perhaps still at a great distance, 
the happier onlooker may stretch out the hand, 
across dim centuries, to him, and say: "Ill- 
starred brother, how thou foughtest with wild 
lion-strength, and yet not with strength enough, 
and flamedst aloft, and wert trodden down of 
sin and misery ; — behold, thou also wert a 
man!" It is said there lies a Biography of 
Danton written, in Paris, at this moment ; but 
the editor waits till the "force of public opi- 
nion" ebb a little. Let him publish, with 
utmost convenient despatch, and say what he 
knows, if he do know it: the lives of remark- 
able men are always worth understanding 
instead of misunderstanding ; and public 
opinion must positively adjust itself the best 
way it can. 

But without doubt the far most interestingi 
best-gifted of this questionable trio is not the 
Mirabean of the Sansculottes, but the Mira- 
beau himself: a man of much finer nature 
than either of the others; of a genius equal in 
strength (we will say) to Napoleon's; but a 
much humaner genius, almost a poetic one. 
With wider sympathies of his own, he appeals 
far more persuasively to the sympathies of mea. 
2S 



482 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Of him, too, it is interesting to notice the 
progressive dawning, out of caluinny, misre- 
presentation, and confused darkness, into visi- 
bility and light; and how the world manifests 
its continued curiosity about him; and as 
book after book comes forth with new evi- 
■ dence, the matter is again taken up, the old 
judgment on it revised and ane.w revised; — 
whereby, in fine, we can hope the right, or ap- 
proximately right, sentence will be found ; and 
so the question be left settled. It would seem 
this Mirabeau also is one whose memory the 
world will not, for a long while, let die. Very 
different from many a high memory, dead and 
deep buried long since then ! In his lifetime, 
even in the final effulgent part of it, this Mira- 
beau took upon him to write, with a sort of 
awe-struck feeling, to our Mr. Wilberforce ; 
and did not, that we can find, get the benefit 
of any answer. Pitt was prime minister, and 
then Fox, then again Pitt, and again Fox, in 
sweet vicissitude ; and the noise of them, re- 
verberating through Brookes's and the club- 
rooms, through tavern dinners, electioneering 
hustings, leading articles, filled all the earth ; 
and it seemed as if those two (though which 
might be iclitch, you could not say) were the 
Ormuzd and Ahriman of political nature; — 
and now ! Such difference is there (once 
more) between an original man, of never such 
questionable sort, and the most dexterous, cun- 
ningly-devised parliamentary mill. The dif- 
ference is great; and one of those on which 
the future time makes largest contrast with 
the present. Nothing can be more important 
than the mill while it continues and grinds; 
important above all to those who have sacks 
about the hopper. But the grinding once done, 
how can the memory of it endure? It is im- 
portant now to no individual, not even to the 
individual with a sack. So that, this tumult 
well over, the memory of the original man, 
and of what small revelation he, as Son of 
Nature and brother-man, could make, does 
naturally rise on us: his memorable sayings, 
actings, and sufferings, the very vices and 
crimes he fell into, are a kind of pabulum 
which all mortals claim their right to. 

Concerning Pcuchet, Chaussard, G issicourf,ar\(i, 
indeed, all the former Biographers of Mira- 
beau,. there can little be said here, except that 
they abound with errors: the present ultimate 
Fils Mop if, has never done picking faults 
with them. Not as memorials of Mirabeau, 
but as memorials of the world's relation to him, 
of the world's treatment of him, they may, a 
little longer, have some perceptible signifi- 
cance. From poor Peuchet (he was known 
in the Monileur once,) and other the like la- 
bourers in the vineyard, you can justly demand 
thus much; and not justly much more. 

Etienne Dumont's Souvenirs sur Mirabeau 
might not, at first sight, seem an advance 
towards true knowledge, but a movement the 
other way, and yet it was really an advance. 
The book, for one thing, was hailed by a uni- 
versal choral blast from all manner of reviews 
and periodical literatures that Europe, in all 
its spellable dialects, had: whereby, at least, 
the minds of men were again drawn to the 
subiect: and so, amid whatever hallucinalion. 



ancient or new-devised, some increase of in- 
sight was unavoidable. Besides, the book 
itself did somewhat. Numerous specialities 
about the great Frenchman, as read by the 
eyes of the little Genevese, were conveyed 
there ; and could be deciphered, making allow- 
ances. Dumont is faithful, veridical.; within 
his owi\ limits he has even a certain freedom, 
a picturesqueness and light clearness. It is 
true, the whim he had of looking at the great 
Mirabeau as a thing set in motion mainly by 
him (M. Dumont) and such as he, was one of 
the most wonderful to be met with in psycho- 
logy. Nay, more wonderful still, how the re- 
viewers, pretty generally, some from whom 
better was expected, took up the same with 
aggravations; and it seemed settled on all 
sides, that here again a pretender had been 
stripped, and the great made as little as the 
rest of us (much to our comfort); that, in fact, 
figuratively speaking, this enormous Mirabeau, 
the sound of whom went forth to all lands, was 
no other than an enormous trumpet, or coach- 
horn, (of japanned tin,) through which a dex- 
terous little M. Dumont was blowing all the 
while, and making the noise! Some men and 
reviewers have strange theories of man. Let 
any son of Adam, the shallowest now living, 
try honestly to scheme out, within his head, an 
existence of this kind ; and say how verisimi- 
lar it looks ! A life and business actually con- 
ducted on such coach-horn principle, — we say 
not the life and business of a statesman and 
world-leader, but say of the poorest laceman 
and tape-seller, — were one of the chief miracles 
hitherto on record. Oh, M. Dumont! But thus, 
too, when old Sir Christopher struck down the 
last stone in the Dome of St. Paul's, was it he 
that carried up the stone? No; it was a cer- 
tain strong-backed man, never mentioned, 
(covered wiih envious orunenvious oblivion,) 
— probably of the Sister Island. 

Let us add, however, more plainly, that M. 
Dumont was less to blame here than his re- 
viewers were. The good Dumont accurately 
records what ingenious journey-work and 
fetching and carrying he did for his Mirabeau ; 
interspersing many an anecdote, which the 
world is very glad of; extenuating nothing we 
do hope, nor exaggerating any thing: this is 
what he did, and had a clear right and call to 
do. And what if it failed, not altogether, yet 
in some measure if it did fail, to strike him, 
that he still properly was but a Dumont? Nay, 
that the gift this Mirabeau had of enlisting 
such respectable Dumonts to do hod-work and 
even skilful handiwork for him ; and of ruling 
them and bidding them by the look of his eye; 
and of making them cheerfully fetch and carry 
for him, and serve him as loyal subjects, with 
a kind of chivalry and willingness, — that this 
gift was precisely the kinghood of the man, 
and did itself stamp him as a leader among 
men ! Let no man blame M. Dumont (as some 
have too harshly done); his error is of over- 
sight, and venial; his worth to us is indisput- 
able. On the other hand, let all men blame 
such public instructors and periodical indi- 
viduals as drew that inference and life-theory 
for him, and brayed it forth in that loud man- 
ner; or rather, on the whole, do not blame, but 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



48^ 



pardon, and pass by on the other side. Such 
things are an ordained trial of public patience, 
•which perhaps is the better for discipline; 
and seldom, or rather never, do any lasting 
injury. 

Close following on Dumont's "Reminis- 
cences" came this Biography by M. Lucas 
Montigny, "Adopted Son;" the first volume in 
1834, the rest at short intervals ; and lies 
complete now in Eight considerable Volumes 
octavo: concerning which we are now to 
speak, — unhappily, in the disparaging sense. 
In fact it is impossible for any man to say un- 
mixed good of M. Lucas's work. That he, as 
Adopted Son, has lent himself so resolutely to 
the washing of his hero white, and even to the 
white-washing of him where the natural colour 
was black, be this no blame to him; or even, 
if you will, be it praise. If a man's Adopted 
Son may not write the best book he can for 
him, then who may? But the fatal circum- 
stance is, that M. Lucas Montigny has not 
written a book at all ; but has merely clipped 
and cut out, and cast together the materials for 
a book, which other men are still wanted to 
write. On the whole M. Montigny rather sur- 
prises one. For the reader probably knows, 
what all the world whispers to itself, that when 
"Mirabeau, in 1783, adopted this infant born 
the year before," he had the best of all con- 
ceivable obligations to adopt him; having, by 
his own act, («o»j-notarial,) summoned him to 
appear in this World. And now consider both 
what Shakspeare's Edmund, what Poet Savage, 
and such like, have bragged ; and also that the 
Mirabeaus, from time immemorial, had (like a 
certain British kindred known to us) " pro- 
duced many a blackguard, but not one block- 
head !" We almost discredit that statement, 
which all the world whispers to itself; or, if 
crediting it, pause over the ruins of families. 
The Haarlem canal is not flatter than M. Mon- 
tigny's genius. He wants the talent which 
seems born with all Frenchmen, that of pre- 
senting what knowledge he has in the most 
knowable form. One of the solidest men, too : 
doubtless a valuable man; whom it were so 
pleasant for us to praise, if we could. May he 
be happy in a private station, and never write 
more; — except for the Bureaux de Prefecture, 
with tolerably handsome official appointments, 
which is far better! 

His biographical work is a monstrous quar- 
ry, or mound of shot-rubbish, in eight strata, 
hiding valuable matter, which he that seeks 
will find. Valuable, we say; for the Adopted 
Sonhavingaccess,nay welcome and friendly en- 
treaty, to family papers, to all manner of ar- 
chives, secret records; and workingtherein long 
years, with a filial unweariedness, has made 
himself piously at home in all corners of the 
matter. He might, with the same spirit, (as 
we always upbraidingly think,) so easily have 
made us at home too! But no: he brings to 
light things new and old; now precious illus- 
trative |)rivate documents, now the poorest 
public heaps of mere pamphleieer and parlia- 
mentary matter, so attainable elsewhere, often 
so omissible were it nor to be attained ; and 
jumbles and tumbles the whole together with 
such reckless clumsiness, with such endless 



copiousness (having wagons enough) as giveg 
the reader many a pang. The very pains be- 
stowed on it are often perverse; the whole is 
become so hard, heavy; unworkable, except 
in the sweat of one's brow ! Or call it a mine, 
— artificial-natural silver mine. Threads of 
beautiful silver ore lie scattered, which you 
must dig for, and sift : suddenly, when your 
thread or vein is at the richest, it vanishes (as 
is the way with mines) in thick masses of 
agglomerate and pndJing-stone, no man can 
guess whither. This is not as it should be; 
and yet unfortunately it could be no other. 
The long bad book is so much easier to do 
than the brief good one; and a poor bookseller 
has no way of measuring and paying but by 
the ell, cubic or superficial. The very weaver 
comes and says, not "I have woven so many 
ells of stuff"," but "so many ells of siich stuff:" 
satin and Cashmere-shawl stuff, — or, if it be 
so, dufiie and coal-sacking, and even cobweb 
stuff'. 

Undoubtedly the Adopted Son's will was 
good. Ought we not to rejoice greatly in the 
possession of these same silver-veins ; and take 
them in the buried mineral state, or in any 
state ; too thankful to have them now inde- 
structible, now that they are printed? Let the 
world, we say, be thankful to M. Montigny, and 
yet know what it is they are thanking him for. 
No Life of Mirabeau is to be found in these 
Volumes, but the amplest materials for writing 
a Life. Were the Eight Volumes well riddled 
and smelted down into One Volume, such as 
might be made, that one were the volume T 
Nay it seems an enterprise of such uses, and 
withal so feasible, that some day it is as good 
as sure to be done, and again done, and finally 
well done. 

The present reviewer, restricted to a mere 
article, purposes, nevertheless, to sift and ex- 
tract somewhat. He has bored (so to speak) 
and run mine-shafts through the book in vari- 
ous directions, and knows pretty well what is 
in it, though indeed not so well where to find 
the same, having unfortunately (as reviewers 
are wont) "mislaid our paper of references!" 
Wherefore, if the best extracts be not presented, 
let not M. Lucas suffer. By one means and 
another, some sketch of Mirabeau's history; 
what befel him successively in this World, and 
what steps he successively took in consequence ; 
and how he and it, working together, made the 
thing we call Mirabeau's Life, — may be brought 
out; extremely imperfect, yet truer, one can 
hope, than the Biographical Dictionaries and 
ordinary voice of rumour give it. Whether, 
and if so, where and how, the current estimate 
of Mirabeau is to be rectified, fortified, or in 
any important point overset and expunged, will 
hereby come to light, almost of itself, as we' 
proceed. Indeed, it is very singular, consider- 
ing the emphatic judgments daily uttered, in 
print and speech, about this man, what Egyp- 
tian obscurity rests over the mere facts of his 
external history ; the right knowledge of which, 
one would fancy, must be the preliminary of 
any judgment, however faint. But thus, as 
we always urge, are such judgments generally 
passed : vague pklnnrild, (decrees of the common 
people;) made up of innumerable loud emp*./ 



484 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ayes and loud empty noes ; which are without 
meaning, and have only sound and currency: 
plebiscita needing so much revisal ! — To the 
work, however. 

One of the most valuable elements in these 
eight chaotic volumes of M. Montigny is the 
knowledge he communicates of Mirabeau's 
father; of his kindred and family, contemporary 
and anterior. The father, wc in general knew, 
was Victor Riquetti, Marquis de Mirabeau, 
called and calling himself the Friend of Men ; a 
title, for the rest, which bides him no good, in 
these days of ours. Accordingly one heard it 
added with little surprise, that this Friend of 
Men was the enemy of almost every man he 
had to do Avilh; beginning at his own hearth, 
ending at the utmost circle of his acquaintance ; 
and only beyond that, feeling himself free to 
love men. " The old hypocrite I" cry many, — 
not we. Alas, it is so much easier to love men 
while they exist only on paper, or quite flexible 
and compliant in your imagination, than to 
love Jack and Kit who stand there in the body, 
hungry, untoward; jostling you, barring yoo, 
with angular elbows, with appetites, irasci- 
bilities, and a stupid will of their own ! There 
is no doubt but old Marquis Mirabeau found it 
extremely difficult to get on with his brethren 
of mankind ; and proved a crabbed, sulphurous, 
choleric old gentleman, many a sad time: 
nevertheless, there is much to be set right in 
that matter ; and M. Lucas, if one can carefully 
follow him, has managed to do it. Had M. 
Lucas but seen good to print these private 
letters, family documents, and more of them, 
(for he "could make thirty octavo volumes,") 
in a separate state ; in mere chronological 
order, with some small commentary of anno- 
tation; and to leave all the rest alone! — As it 
is, one must search and sift. Happily the old 
Marquis himself, in periods of leisure, or forced 
leisure, whereof he had many, drew up certain 
"unpublished memoirs" of his father and pro- 
genil(,rs ; out of which memoirs young Mira- 
beau also in forced leisure (still more forced, 
in the CJastle of If!) redacted one Memoir, of a 
very readable sort: by the light of this latter, 
go far as it will last, we walk with convenience. 

The Mirabeaus were Riquettis by surname, 
which is a slight corruption of the Italian Jrri- 
ghetti. They came from Florence: cast out of 
it in some Guelph-Ghibelline quarrel, such as 
were common there and then, in the }'ear 1267. 
Stormy times then, as now ! The chronologist 
can remark that Dante Alighieri was a little 
boy of some four years that morning the Arri- 
gheitis had to go, and men had to say, "They 
are gone, these villains ! They are gone, these 
martyrs !" the little boy listening with interest. 
Let the boy become a man, and he too shall 
have to go; and prove rome e duro caUc, and 
what a world this is ; and have his poet-nature 
not killed, for it would not kill, but darkened 
into Old-Hebrew sternness, and sent onwards 
to Hades and Eternity for a home to itself. 
As Dame Quickly said in the Dream — " Those 
were rare times, Mr. Rigmarole ! — Pretty much 
like our own," answered he. — In this manner did 
the Arrighettis (doubtless in grim Longobardic 
lie) scale the Alps; and become Tramontane 



French Riquettis ; and produce, — among other 
things, the present article in this Review. 

It was hinted above that these Riquettis 
were a notable kindred ; as indeed there is 
great likelihood, if we knew it rightly, the 
kindred and fathers of most notable men are. 
The Vaucluse fountain, that gushes out as a 
river, may well have run some space under 
ground in that character, before it found vent. 
Nay perhaps it is not always, or often, the in- 
trinsicall}' greatest of a family-line that be- 
comes the noted one, but only the best favoured 
of fortune. So rich here, as elsewhere, is 
Nature, the mighty Mother; and scatters from 
a single Oak-tree, as provender for pigs, what 
would plant the whole Planet into an oak- 
forest! For truly, if there were not a mute 
force in her, where were she with the speak- 
ing and exhibiting one ] If under that frothy 
superficies of braggarts, babblers, and high- 
sounding, richly-decorated personages, that 
strut and fret, and preach in all times Quam 
parvd sapientia rcs;alnr, there lay not some sub- 
stratum of silently heroic men; working as 
men; with man's energy, enduring and en- 
deavouring; invincible, who whisper not even 
to themselves how energetic they are ? — The 
Riquetti family was, in some measure, defined 
already by analogy to that British one; as a 
family totally exempt from blockheads, but a 
little liable to produce blackguards. It took 
root in Provence, and bore strong southern 
fruit there: a restless, stormy line of men; 
with the wild blood running in them, and as 
if there had been a doom hung over them 
("like the line of Alreus," Mirabeau used to 
sa)^) which really there was, the wild blood 
itself being doom enough. How long they had 
stormed in Florence and elsewhere, these 
Riquettis, history knows not; but for the space 
of those five centuries, in Provence, they were 
never without a man to stand Riquetti-like on 
the earth. Men sharp of speech, prompt of 
stroke ; men quick to discern, fierce to resolve ; 
headlong, headstrong, strong everyway; who 
often found the civic race-course too strait for 
them, and kicked against the pricks ; doing 
this thing or the other, which the world had to 
animadvert upon, in various dialects, and find 
" clean against rule." 

One Riquetti (in performance of some vow 
at sea, as the tradition goes) chained two 
mountains together: "the iron chain is still to 
be seen at Moustier; — it stretches from one 
mountain to the other, and in the middle of it 
there is a large star with five rays ;" the sup- 
posed date is 1390. Fancy the Smiths at 
work on this business ! The town of Moustier 
is in the Basses-Alpes of Provence: whether 
the Riquetti chain creaks there to this hour, 
and lazily swags in the winds, with its "star 
of five rays" in the centre, and ofl^ers an un- 
certain perch to the sparrow, we knnw not. 
Or perhaps it was cut down in the Revolution 
time, when there rose such a hatred of no- 
blesse, such a famine for iron; and made into 
pikes? The Adopted Son, so minute generally, 
ought to have mentioned, but does not. — That 
there was building of hospitals, endowing of 
convents, Chartreux, Rtcollets, down even to 
Jesuits; still more, that there was harrying 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



«& 



and fighting, needs not be mentioned : except 
only that all this went on with uncommon 
emphasis among the Riquetlis. What quarrel 
could there be and a Riquetti not in ill They 
fought much: with an eye to profit, to redress 
of disprofit; probably too for the art's sake. 

What proved still more rational, they got 
footing in Marseilles as trading nobles, (a kind 
of French Venice in those days,) and took 
with great diligence to commerce. The family 
biographers are careful to say that it was in 
the Venetian style, however, and not ignoble. 
In which sense, indeed, one of their sharp- 
spoken ancestors, on a certain bishop's un- 
ceremoniously styling him "Jean de Riquetti, 
Merchant of Marseilles," made ready answer, 
"I am, or was, merchant of police here," (first 
consul, an office for nobles only,) "as my 
Lord Bishop is merchant of holy-water:" let 
his Reverence take that. At all events, the 
ready-spoken proved first-rate traders ; ac- 
quired their baslide, or mansion, (white, on 
one of those green hills behind Marseilles,) 
endless warehouses: acquired the lands first 
of this, then of that; the lands, Village, and 
Castle of Mirabeau on the banks of the Du- 
rance; respectable Castle of Mi rabeau, "stand- 
ing on its scarped rock, in the gorge of two 
valleys, swept by the north wind," — very 
brown and melancholy-looking now! What 
is extremely advantageous, the old Marquis 
says, they had a singular talent for choosing 
wives; and always chose discreet, valiant 
women; whereby the lineage was the better 
kept up. One grandmother, whom the Mar- 
quis himself might all but remember, was 
wont to say, alluding to the degeneracy of the 
age: "You are meni You are but mannikins 
{sias houmachomcs, in Provencal ;) we women, 
in our time, carried pistols in our girdles, and 
could use them too." Or fancy the Dame Mi- 
rabeau sailing stately towards the church- 
font; another dame striking in to take preced- 
ence of her; the Dame Mirabeau despatching 
this latter with a box on the ear {sunjfict) and 
these words: "Here, as in the army, the bag- 
gage goes last!" Thus did the Riquettis 
grow, and were strong; and did exploits 'in 
their narrow arena, waiting for a wider one. 

When it came to courtiership, and your 
field of preferment was the Versailles ffiil-de- 
Bceuf, and a Grand Monarque walking encir- 
cled with scarlet women and adulators there, 
the course of the Mirabeaus grew still more 
complicated. They had the career of arms 
open, better or worse: but that was not the 
only one, not the main one; gold apples seem- 
ed to rain on other careers, — on that career 
lead bullets mostly. Observe how a Bruno, 
Count de Mirabeau, comports himself: — like 
a rhinoceros yoked in carriage-gear; his fierce 
forest-horn set to dangle a plume of fcurs-dc- 
lis. "One day he had chased a blue man (it is 
a sort of troublesome usher, at Versailles) 
into the very cabinet of the king, who there- 
upon ordered the Duke de la Feuillade to 'put 
Mirabeau under arrest.' Mirabeau refused 
to obey; 'he would not be punished for chas- 
tising the insolence of a valet ; for the rest, 
would go to the diucr du roi, (king's dinner,) 
who might then give his order himself.' He 



came accordingly ; the king asked the duke 
why he had not executed the order? The 
duke was obliged to say how it stood ; the king, 
with a goodness equal to his greatness, then 
said, 'It is not of to-day that we know him to 
be mad; one must not ruin him,'" — and rhino- 
ceros Bruno journeyed on. But again, on the 
day when they were " inaugurating the pedes- 
trian statue of King Louis in the Place des 
Victoires," (a masterpiece of adulation,) the 
same Mirabeau, "passing along the PontNeuf 
with the Guards, raised his spontoon to his 
shoulder before Henry the Fourth's statue, and 
saluting first, bawled out, 'Friends, we will 
salute this one; he deserves it as well as 
some :' " (^Mes amis, saluons cclui-ci ; il en vaut 
hien un aidrc.) — Thus do they, the wild Riquet- 
tis, in a state of courtiership. Not otherwise, 
according to the proverb, do wild bulls, unex- 
pectedly finding themselves in crockery-shops. 
O Riquetti kindred, into what centuries and 
circumstances art thou come down ! 

Directly prior to our old Marquis himself, 
the Riquetti kindred had as near as possible 
gone out. Jean Antoine, afterwards named 
Silverstock, (Col dc Argoit,) had, in the earlier 
part of his life, been what he used to call hilled, 
— of seven-and-twenty wounds in one hour. 
Haughtier, juster, more choleric man need not 
be sought for in biography. He flung gabelle- 
men and excisemen into the river Durance 
(though otherwise a most dignified, methodic 
man) when their claims were not clear; he 
ejected, by the like brief process, all manner 
of attorneys from his villages and properties j 
he planted vineyards, solaced peasants. He 
rode through France repeatedly, (as the old- 
men still remembered,) with the gallantestJ 
train of outriders, on return from the wars ;• 
intimidating innkeepers and all the world, into' 
mute prostration, into unerring promptitude, 
by the mere light of his eye ; — withal drinking 
rather deep, yet never seen afiectedby it. He 
was a tall, straight man (of six feet and up- 
wards) in mind as in body; Vendome's "right 
arm" in all campaigns. Vendome once pre- 
sented him to Louis the Great, with compli- 
ments to that effect, which the splenetic Ri- 
quetti quite spoiled. Erecting his killed head 
(which needed the silver stock now to keep it 
straight,) he said : " Yes, Sire ; and had I left 
my fighting, and come up to court, and bribed 
some catin (scarlet-woman !) I might have had 
my promotion and fewer wounds to-day !" 
The Grand King, every inch a king, instan- 
taneously spoke of something else. 

But the reader should have first seen that 
same killing; how twenty-seven of those un- 
profitable wounds were come by in one fell 
lot. The Bafllc of Casano has grown very ob- 
scure to most of us ; and indeed Prince Eu- 
gene and Vendome themselves grow dimmer 
and dimmer, as men and battles must; but, 
curiously enough, this small fraction of it has 
brightened up again to a point of history for 
the lime being : — 

"My grandfather had forseen tnat manoeu- 
vre " (it is Mirabeau, the Count, not the Mar- 
quis, that reports : Prince Eugene has carried 
a certain bridge which the grandfather had 
charge of;) "but he did not, as has since hap- 
2 s2 



486 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



pened at Malplaquet and Fontenoy, commit 
the blunder of attacking right in the teeth a 
column of such weight as that. He lets them 
advance, hurried on b}- their own impetuosity 
and by the pressure of their rearward; and 
now, seeing them pretty well engaged, he 
raised his troop, (it was lying flat on the 
ground.) and rushing on, himself at the head 
of them, takes the enemy in flank, cuts them 
in two, dashes them back, chases them over 
the bridge again, which they had to repass in 
great disorder and haste. Things brought to 
their old state, he resumes his post on the 
crown of the bridge, shelters his troop as be- 
fore, which, having performed all this service 
under the sure deadly fire of the enemy's dou- 
ble lines from over the stream, had suffered a 
good deal. M. de Vendome coming up, full 
gallop, to the attack, finds it already finished, 
the whole line flat on the earth, only the tall 
figure of the colonel standing erect ! He or- 
ders him to do like the rest, not to have him- 
self shot till the time came. His faithful 
servant cries to him, 'Never would I expose 
myself without need ; I am bound to be here, 
but you, Monseigneur, are bound not. I an- 
swer to yoii for the post ; but take yourself 
out of it, or I give it up.' The Prince (Ven- 
dome) then orders him, in the king's name, to 
come down. ' Go to, the king and you : I am 
at my work ; go you and do yours.' The good 
generous Prince yielded. The post was en- 
tirely untenable. 

"A little afterwards my grandfather had his 
yight arm shattered. He formed a sort of sling 
for it of his pocket handkerchief, and kept his 
place; for there was a new attack getting 
ready. The right moment once come, he 
seizes an axe in his left hand ; repeats the 
same manoeuvre as before ; again repulses the 
enemy, again drives him back over the bridge. 
But it was here that ill fortune lay in wait for 
him. At the very moment while he w-as re- 
calling and ranging his troop, a bullet struck 
him in the throat; cut asunder the tendons, 
the jugular vein. He sank on the bridge ; the 
troop broke and fled. M. de Montolieu, Knight 
of Malta, his relative, was wounded beside 
him : he tore up his own shirt, and those of 
several others, to staunch theblood, but fainted 
himself by his own hurt. An old serjeant, 
named l-aprairie, begged the aide-major of the 
regiment, one Guadin, a Gascon, to help and 
carry him off" the bridge. Guadin refused, 
saying he was dead. The good Laprairie 
could only cast a camp-kettle over his colonel's 
head, and then run. The enemy trampled 
over him in torrents to profit by the disorder; 
the cavalry at full speed, close in the rear of 
the foot. M. de Vendome, seeing his line bro- 
ken, the enemy forming on this side the stream, 
and consequently the bridge lost, exclaimed, 
' Ah ! Mirabeau is dead then ;' a eulogy for ever 
dear and memorable to us." 

How nearly, at this moment, it was all over 
with the Mirabeaus; how, but for the cast of 
an insignificant camp-kettle, there had not 
only been no Article Mirabeau in this Review, 
but no French Revolution, or a very different 
one ; and all Europe had found itself in far 



other latitudes at this hour, any one who has 
a turn for such thine:s may easily reflect. 
Nay, without great difliculty, he may reflect 
farther, that not only ihe French Revolution 
and this Article, but all revolutions, articles, 
and achievements whatsoever, the greatest 
and the smallest, which this world ever be- 
held, have not once but often, in their course 
of genesis, depended on the veriest trifles, 
castings of carop-ketlles, turnings of straws; 
except only that we do not see that course of 
theirs. So inscrutable is genetic history ; im- 
practicable the theory of causation, and tran- 
scends all calculus of man's devising! Thou, 
thyself, O Reader, (who art an achievement 
of importance,) over what hair breadth bridges 
of Accident, through yawning perils, and the 
man-devouring gulf of Centuries, hast thou 
got safe hither, — from Adam all the way ! 

Be this as it can. Col d' Ar2,e»t came alive 
again, by "miracle of surgery:" and, holding 
his head up by means of a silver stock, walked 
this earth many long days, with respectabilit}', 
with fiery intrepidity' and spleen ; did many 
notable things : among others, produced, in 
dignified wedlock, Mirabeau the Friend of 
Men ; who, again produced Mirabeau the 
Svvallower of Formulas; from which latter, 
and the wondrous blazing funeral-pyre he 
made for himself, there finally goes forth a 
light, whereby those old Riquetti destinies, 
and many a strange old hidden thing, become 
noticeable. 

But perhaps in the whole Riquetti kindred 
there is not a stranger figure than this very 
Friend of Men ; at whom, in the order of time, 
we have now arrived. That Riquetti who 
chained the mountains together, and hung up 
the star with five rays to sway and bob there, 
was but a type of him. Strong, tough as the 
oak-root, and as gnarled and unwedgeable; no 
fibre of him running straight with the other : 
a block fur Destiny to beat on, for the world to 
gaze at, with ineffectual wonder ! Really a 
most notable, questionable, hateable, loveable 
old Marquis. How little, amid such jingling 
triviality of Literature, Philosophic, and the 
pretentious cackle of innumerable Baron 
Grimms, with their correspondence and self- 
proclamation, one could fancy that France 
held in it such a Nature-product as the Friend 
of Men ! Why, there is substance enough in 
this one Marquis to fit out whole armies of 
Philosophes, were it properly attenuated. So 
many poor Thomases perorate and have eloges, 
poor Morellets speculate, Marmontels moralize 
in rose-pink manner, Diderots become pos- 
sessed of encyclopedical heads, and lean Ba- 
rons de Beaumarchais fly abroad on the wings 
of Figaros: and this brave old Marquis has 
been hid under a bushel ! He was a Writer, 
too ; and had talents for it, (certain of the ta- 
lents,) such as few Frenchmen have had since 
the days of Montaigne. It skilled not: he, 
being unwedgeable, has remained in antiqua- 
rian cabinets ; the others, splitting up so rea 
dily, are the ware you find on all market-stalls, 
much prized (say, as brimstone Lucifers, "light 
bringers," so called) by the generality. Such 
is the world's way. And yet complain not; 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



487 



this rich, unwedgeable old Marquis, have we 
not him too at last, and can keep him all the 
longer than the Thomases ? 

The sreat Mirabeau used to say always that 
his father had the greater gifts of the two; 
■which surely is saying something. Not that 
you can subscribe to it in the full sense, but 
that in a very wide sense you can. So far as 
mere speculative head goes, Mirabeau is pro- 
bably right. Looking at the old Marquis as a 
speculative thinker and utterer of his thought, 
and with what rich colouring of originality he 
gives it forth, you pronounce him to be supe- 
rior, or even say supreme in his time ; for the 
genius of him almost rises to the poetic. Do 
our readers know the German Jeau Paul, and 
his style of thought 1 Singular to say, the 
old Marquis has a quality in him resembling 
afar off that of Paul ; and actually works it 
out in his French manner, far as the French 
manner can. Nevertheless intellect is not of 
the speculative head only ; the great end of 
intellect surely is, that it makes one see some- 
thing : for which latter result the whole man 
must co-operate. In the old Marquis there 
dwells withal a crabbedness, stiff, cross-grained 
humour, a latent fury and fuliginosity, very 
perverting ; which stiff crabbedness, with its 
pride, obstinacy, affectation, what else is it at 
bottom but want of strength 1 The real quan- 
tity of our insight — how justly and how tho- 
roughly we shall comprehend the nature of a 
thing, especially of a human thing — depends 
on our patience, our fairness, lovingn^ss, what 
strength soever we have: intellect comes 
from the whole man, as it is the light that en- 
lightens the Avhole man. In this true sense, 
the younger Mirabeau, with that great flashing 
eyesight of his, that broad, fearless freedom 
of nature he had, was very clearly the supe- 
rior man. 

At bottom, perhaps, the main definition you 
could give of old Marquis Mirabeau is, that he 
Avas of the Pedant species. Stiff as brass, in 
all senses; unsympathizing, uncomplying; of 
an endless, unfathomable pride, which cloaks 
but does nowise extinguish an endless vanity 
and need of shining : stately, euphuistic man- 
nerism enveloping the thought, the moralit)', 
the whole being of the man. A solemn, high- 
stalking man; with such a fund of indignation 
in him, or of latent indignation ; of contumacity, 
irrefragability ; — who (after long experiment) 
accordingly looks forth on mankind and this 
world of theirs with some dull-snuffling word 
of forgiveness, of contemptuous acquittal ; or 
oflenest with clenched lips, (nostrils slightly 
dilated,) in expressive silence. Here is pe- 
dantry; but then pedantry under the most 
interesting new circumstances; and withal 
carried to such a pitch as becomes sublime, 
one might almost say, transcendental. Consi- 
der indeed whether Marquis Mirabeau could 
be a pedant, as your common Scaligers and 
Scioppiuses are! His arena is not a closet 
with Greek manuscripts, but the wide world 
and Friendship to Humanity. Does not the 
blood of all the Mirabeaus circulate in his 
honorable veins'? He too would do somewhat 
to raise higher that high house ; and yet, alas, 
it is plain to him that the house is sinking : 



that much is sinking. The Mirabeaus, and 
above all others, this Mirabeau, are fallen oa 
evil times. It has not escaped the old Marquis 
how nobility is now decayed, nearly ruinous; 
based no longer on heroic nobleness of con- 
duct and effort, but on sycophancy, formality, 
adroitness ; on Parchments, Tailors' trim- 
mings, Prunello, and Coach-leather: on which 
latter basis, unless his whole insight into 
Heaven's ways with Earth have misled him, 
no institution in this God-governed world can 
pretend to continue. Alas, and the priest "has 
now no tongue but for plate-licking;" and the 
tax-gatherer squeezes ; and the strumpetocracy 
sits at its ease, in high-cushioned lordliness, 
under baldachins and cloth of gold: till now 
at last, what with one fiction, what with an- 
other, (and veridical Nature dishonouring all 
manner of fictions and refusing to pay realities 
for them,) it has come so far that the Twenty- 
five millions, long scarce of knowledge, of vir- 
tue, happiness, cash, are now fallen scarce of 
food to eat; and do not, with that natural ferocity 
of theirs which Nature has still left them, feel 
the disposition to die starved ; and all things 
are nodding towards chaos, and no man layeth 
it to heart ! One man exists who might perhaps 
stay or avert the catastrophe, were he called to 
the helm: the Marquis Mirabeau. His high, 
ancient blood, his heroic love of truth, his 
strength of heart, his loyalty and profound in- 
sight, (for you cannot hear him speak without 
detecting the man of genius,) this, with the 
appalling predicament things have come to, 
might give him claims. From time to time, at 
long intervals, such a thought does flit, por- 
tentous, through the brain of the Marquis. 
But ah ! in these scandalous days, how shall 
the proudest of the Mirabeaus fall prostrate 
before a Pompadour? Can the Friend of Men 
hoist, with good hope, as his battle-standard, 
the furbelow of an unmentionable woman 1 
No; not hanging by the apron-strings of such 
a one will this Mirabeau rise to the premier- 
ship ; but summoned by France in her day of 
need, in her day of vision, or else not at all. 
France does not summon ; the else goes its 
road. 

Marquis Mirabeau tried Literature, too, as 
we said; and with no inconsiderable talent; 
nay, with first-rate talents in some sort: but 
neither did this prosper. His Ecre signum, in 
such era of downfall and all-darkening ruin, 
was Political Economy ; and a certain man, 
whom he called " the Master," — that is, Dr. 
Quesnay. Round this master (whom the Mar- 
quis succeeded as master himself) he and 
some other idolaters did idolatrously gather : to 
publish books and tracts, periodical literature, 
proclamation by word and deed — if so were, 
the world's dull ear might be opened to salva- 
tion. The world's dull ear continued shut. 
In vain preached this apostle and that other, 
simultaneously or in Meliboean sequence, in 
literature, periodical and stationary; in vain 
preached the Friend of Men, {V.imides Homines,') 
number after number, through long volumes, — 
though really in a most eloquent manner. 
Marquis Mirabeau had the indisputable^t ideas; 
but then his style ! In very truth, it is the 
strangest of styles, though one of the richest; 



488 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



a style full of originality, picturesqueness, 
sunny vigour ; but all cased and slated over, 
threefold, in metaphor and trope ; distorted 
into tortuosities, dislocations ; starling out 
into crotchets, cramp turns, quaintnesses, and 
hidden satire ; which the French head had no 
ear for. Strong meat, too tough for babes ! The 
Friend of Men found warm partisans, widely 
scattered over this Earth ; and had censer- 
fumes transmitted him from Marquises, nay, 
from Kings and principalities, over seas and 
alpine chains of mountains; whereby the 
pride and latent indignation of the man were 
only fostered ; but at home, with the million all 
jigging each after its suitable scrannel-pipe, 
he could see himself make no way, — if it 
were not way towards being a monstrosity 
and thing men wanted " to see ;" not the right 
thing ! Neither through the press, then, is there 
progress towards the premiership? The stag- 
gering state of French statesmen must even 
stagger whither it is bound. A light public 
froths itself into tempest about Palissot and 
his comedy of "Zfs Philosophes," — about Gliick- 
Piccini Music; neglecting the call of Ruin; 
and hard must come to hard. Thou,0 Friend 
of Men, clench thy lips together; and wait, 
silent as the old rocks. Our Friend of Men 
did so, or better; not wanting to himself, the 
lion-hearted old Marquis ! For his latent in- 
dignation has a certain devoutness in it; is a 
kind of holy indignation. The Marquis, though 
he knows the Encyclopedic, has not forgotten the 
higher Sacred Books, or that there is a God in 
this world, (very different from the French 
JEtre Sufre7ne.) He even professes, or tries to 
profess, a kind of diluted Catholicism, in his 
own way, and thus turns an eye towards 
heaven : very singular in his attitude here too. 
Thus it would appear this world is a mad im- 
broglio which no Friend of Men can set right: 
it shall go wrong then, in God's name : and 
the staggering state of all things stagger whither 
it can. To deep, fearful depths, — not to bot- 
tomless ones ! 

But in the Family Circle T There surely a 
man, and Friend of Men, is supreme ; and 
ruling with wise autocracy, may make some- 
thing of it. Alas, in the family circle it went 
not better, but worse? The Mirabeaus had 
once a talent for choosing wiAJ-es : had it de- 
serted them in this instance, then, when most 
needed? We saj^ not so: we say onl}' that 
Madame la Marquise had human freewill in 
her too; that all the young Mirabeaus were 
likely to have human freewill, (in great plen- 
ty;) that within doors as without, the Devil 
is busy. Most unsuccessful is the Marquis as 
ruler of men : his family kingdom, for the 
most part, little otherwise than in a state of 
mutiny. A sceptre as of Rhadamanthus will 
sway and drill that household into perfection 
of Harrison Clockwork ; and cannot do it. 
The royal ukase goes forth in its calm, irre- 
fragable justice ! meets hesitation, disobedi- 
ence open or concealed. Reprimand is fol- 
lowed by remonstrance ; harsh coming thunder 
mutters, growl answering growl. With unaf- 
fectedly astonished eye the Marquis appeals to 
destiny and Heaven ; explodes, since he needs 
must then, in red lightning of paternal author- 



ity. How it went, or who by forethought might 
be to blame, one knows not; for the Fits 
Moptif, hemmed in by still extant relations, is 
extremely reticent on these points: a certain 
Dame de Pailly," from Switzerland, very beau- 
tiful and very artful," glides half-seen through 
the Mirabeau household, (the Marquis's Ortho- 
doxy, as we said, being but of the diluted kind :) 
there are evesdroppers, confidential servants; 
there are Pride, Anger, Uncharitableness, Sub- 
lime Pedantry and the Devil always busy. 
Such a figure as Pailly, of herself, bodes good 
to no one. Enough, there are Lawsuits, Ld- 
tres de Cachet ; oir all hands, peine forte et dure^ 
Lawsuits, long drawn out, before gaping Parle- 
wicM^s, between man and wife; to the scandal 
of an unrighteous world ; how much more of 
a righteous Marquis, minded once to be an ex- 
ample to it! Lcttres de Cachet, to the number 
(as some count) of fifty-four, first and last, 
for the use of a single Marquis : at times the 
whole Mirabeau fire-side is seen empty, (except 
Pailly and Marquis ;) each individual sitting 
in his separate Strong-house, there to bethink 
himself. Stiff" are your tempers, ye young 
Mirabeaus ; not stiffer than mine the old one's ! 
What pangs it has cost the fond paternal heart 
to go through all this Brutus duty, the Marquis 
knows and Heaven. In a less degree, what 
pangs it may cost the filial heart to go under 
(or undergo) the same ! The former set of 
pangs he crushes down into his soul (aided 
by Heaven) suppressively, as beseems a man 
and Mirabeau : the latter set, — are they not 
self-sought pangs ; medicinal ; that will cease 
of their own accord, when the unparalleled 
filial impiety pleases to cease? For the rest, 
looking at such a world and such a family, at 
these prison-houses, mountains of divorce- 
papers, and the staggering state of French 
statesmen, a Friend of Men may pretty natu- 
rally ask himself. Am not I a strong old Mar- 
quis, then, whom all this has not driven into 
Bedlam. — not into Hypochondria, dyspepsia 
even ? The Heavens are bounteous, and make 
the back equal to the burden. 

Out of all which circumstances, and of such 
struggle against them, there has come forth 
this Marquis de Mirabeau, shaped (it was the 
shape he could arrive at) into one of the most 
singular Sublime Pedants that ever stepped 
the soil of France. Solemn moral rigour, as 
of some antique Presbyterian Ruling Elder: 
heavy breadth, dull heat, choler and pride as 
of an old " Bozzy of Auchinleck;" then a 
high flown euphuistic courtesy, the airiest 
mincing ways, suitable to your French Seig- 
neur ! How the two divine missions (for both 
seem to him divine) of Riquetti and Man of 
Genius (or World-schoolmaster) blend them- 
selves; and philosophism, chivalrous euphu- 
ism, presbyterian ruling-elderism, all in such 
strength, have met, to give the world assur- 
ance of a man! There never entered the 
brain of Hogarth, or of raie old Ben, such a 
piece of Humour (high meeting with low, and 
laughter with tears) as, in this brave old 
Riquetti, Nature has presented us read3'--made. 
For withal there is such genius in him; rich 
depth of character; indestructible cheerful- 
ness and health breaking out (in spite of these 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



483 



divorce-papers) ever and anon, — like strong 
sunlight in thundery weather. We have heard 
of the "strife of Fate with Freewill" produc- 
ing Greek Tragedies, but never heard it till 
now produce such astonishing comico-tragical 
French Farces. Blessed old Marquis, — or 
else accursed! He is there, with his broad 
bull-brow; with the huge cheek bones; those 
deep eyes, glazed as in weariness ; the lower 
visage puckered into a simpering graciosity, 
■which would pass itself oft^ for a kind of smile. 
"What to do with him 1 Welcome, thou tough 
old Marquis, with thy better and thy worse ! 
There is stuff in thee, (very different from 
moonshine and formula;) and stuff is stuff, 
■were it never so crabbed. 

Besides the old Marquis de Mirabeau, there 
is a Brother, the Bailli de Mirabeau: a man 
who, serving as Knight of Malta, governing in 
Guadaloupe, fighting and doing hard sea-duty, 
has sown his wild oats long since ; and settled 
down here, in the old " Castle of Mirabeau on 
its sheer rock," (for the Marquis usually lives 
at Bignon, another estate within reach of 
Paris,) into one of the worthiest quiet uncles 
and house-friends. It is very beautiful, this 
mild strength, mild clearness and justice of 
the brave Bailli, in contrast with his brother's 
nodosity; whom he comforts, defends, ad- 
monishes, even rebukes; and on the whole 
reverences (both as head Riquetti and as 
World-schoolmaster) beyond all living men. 
The frank true love of these two brothers is 
the fairest feature in Mirabeaudom ; indeed 
the only feature which is always fair. Letters 
pass continually : in letter and extract we here, 
from time to time, witness (in these Eight 
chaotic Volumes) the various personages 
speak their dialogue, unfold their farce-tragedy. 
The Ftls Adopiif admits mankind into this 
strange household, though stingily, uncom- 
fortably, and all in darkness, save for his own 
capricious dark-lantern. Seen or half seen, 
it is a stage ; as the whole world is. What 
with personages, what with destinies, no 
stranger house-drama was enacting on the 
Earth at that time. 

Under such auspices, which were not yet 
ripened into events and fatalities, but yet were 
inevitably ripening towards such, did Gabriel 
Honore, at the Mansion of Bignon, between 
Sens and Nemours, on the 9th day of March, 
1749, first see the light. He was the fifth 
child; the second male child; yet born heir, 
the first having died in the cradle. A magni- 
ficent " enormous" fellow, as the gossips had 
to admit, almost with terror: the head espe- 
cially great; "two grinders" in it, already 
shot ! — Rough-hewn, truly, yet with bulk, with 
limbs, vigour bidding fair to do honour to the 
line. The paternal Marquis (to whom they 
said, "N'uyc: pas pew," Don't be frightened) 
gazed joyful, we can fancy, and not fearful, on 
this product of his; the stiff pedant features 
relaxing into a veritable smile. Smile, O pa- 
ternal Marquis: the future indeed "veils sor- 
row and joy," one knows not in what propor- 
tion ; but here is a new Riquetti, whom the 
gods send; with the rudiments in him, thou 
■wouldst guess, of a very Hercules, fit for 
62 



Twelve Labours, which surely are themselves 
the best joys. Look at the oaf, how he sprawls. 
No stranger Riquetti ever sprawled under our 
Sun : it is as if, in this thy man-child. Destiny 
had swept together all the wildnesses and 
strengths of the Riquetti lineage, and flung 
him forth as her finale in that kind. Not 
without a vocation ! He is the last of the 
Riquettis ; and shall do work long memorable 
among mortals. 

Truly, looking now into the matter, we 
might say, in spite of the gossips, that on this 
whole Planet, in those years, there was hardly 
born such a man-child as this same, in the 
" Mansion-house of Bignon, not far from 
Paris," whom they named Gabriel Honore. 
Nowhere, we say, came there a stouter or 
braver into this Earth; whither they come 
marching by the legion and the myriad, out 
of Eternity and Night ! — Except, indeed, what 
is notable enough, one other that arrived some 
few months later, at the town of Frankfort on 
the Maine, and got christened Joliann Wolfgang 
Goethe, 'i'hen, again, in some ten years more, 
there came another still liker Gabriel Honore 
in his brawny ways. It was into a mean hut 
that this one came, an infirm hut, (which the 
wind blew down at the time,) in the shire of 
Ayre, in Scotland: him they named Robert 
Bairns. These, in that epoch, were the Well- 
born of the World ; by whom the world's 
history was to be carried on. Ah! could the 
well-born of the world be always rightly bred, 
rightly entreated there, what a world were if? 
But it is not so ; it is the reverse of so. And 
then few (like that Frankfort one) can peace- 
ably vanquish the world, with its black im- 
broglios ; and shine above it, in serene help 
to it, like a sun! The most can but Titani- 
cally vanquish it, or be vanquished by it: 
hence, instead of light, (stillest and strongest 
of things,) we have but lightning ; red fire, and 
oftentimes conflagrations, which are very 
woful. 

Be that as it might. Marquis Mirabeau de- 
termined to give his son, and heir of all the 
Riquettis, such an education as no Riquetti had 
yet been privileged with. Being a world- 
schoolmaster, (and indeed a Mart inns Scriblei us, 
as we here find, more ways than one,) this was 
not strange in him; but the results were very 
lamentable. Considering the matter now, at 
this impartial distance, you are lost in wonder 
at the good Marquis; know not whether to 
laugh at him, or weep over him ; and on the 
whole are bound to do both. A more sufficient 
product of Nature than this "enormous Ga- 
briel," as we said, need not have been wished 
for: "beating his nurse," but then loving her, 
and loving the whole world ; of large desire, 
truly, but desire towards all things, the highest 
and the lowest: in other words, a large mass 
of life in him, a large man waiting there ! Does 
he not rummage (the rough cub, now tenfold 
rougher by the effect of small-pox) m all 
places, seeking something to know : dive down 
to the most unheard-of recesses for papers tc 
read? Does he not, spontaneously, give his 
hat to a peasant-boy whose head-gear was de- 
fective 1 He writes the most sagacious things, 
in his fifth year, extempore, at table ; setting 



490 



carlyle's miscellaneous writings. 



forth what "Monsieur Moi" (\Tr. Me) is bound 
to do. A rough strong genuine soul, of the 
frankest open temper; full of loving fire and 
strength; looifing out so brisk with his clear 
hazel eyes, with his brisk sturdy bulk, what 
might not fair breeding have done for him ! 
On so many occasions, one feels as if he need- 
ed nothing in the world but to be well let alone. 

But no; the scientific paternal hand must 
interfere, at every turn, to assist Nature: the 
young lion's whelp has to grow up all bestrap- 
ped, bemuzzled in the most extraordinary man- 
ner: shall wax and unfold himself by theory 
of education, by square and rule, — going punc- 
tual, all the way, like Harrison Clockwork, ac- 
cording to the theoretic program; or else — ! O 
Marquis, world-schoolmasler, what theory of 
education is this? No lion's whelp or young 
Mirabeau will go like clockwork, but far other- 
wise. " He that spareth the rod hateth the child ;" 
that on its side is true : and yet Nature, too, is 
strong: " Nature will come running back, though 
thou expel her with a fork!" In one point of view 
there is nothing more Hogarthian comic than 
this long Peter Peeble's ganging plea of "Mar- 
quis Mirabeau verstis Nature and others:" yet 
in a deeper point of view it is but too serious. 
Candid history will say that whatsoever of 
worst it was in the power of art to do, against 
this young Gabriel Honore, was done. Not 
•with unkind intentions ; nay, with intentions 
■which, at least, began in kindness. How much 
better was Burns's education, (though this, too, 
went on under the grimmest pressures,) on the 
wild hill-side, by the brave peasant's hearth, 
with no theory of education at all, but poverty, 
toil, tempest, and the handles of the plough ! 

At bottom, the Marquis's wish and purpose 
was not complex, hut simple. That Gabriel 
Honore de Riquetti siiall become the very 
same man that Victor de Riquetti is; perfect 
as he is perfect: this will satisfy the fond fa- 
ther's heart, and nothing short of this. Better 
exemplar, truly, were hard to find; and yet, O 
Victor de Riquetti, poor Gabriel, on his side, 
wishes to be Gabriel and not Victor! StifTer 
loving Pedant never had a more elastic loving 
Pupil. Offences (of mere elasi icily, mere natural 
springing-up, for most part) accumulaie by 
addition : Madame Pailly and the confidential 
servants, on this as on all matters, are busy. 
The household itself is darkening, the mistress 
of it gone; the Lawsuits (and by-and-by Di- 
vorce-Lawsuits) have begun. Worse will grow 
worse, and ever worse, till Rhadamanthus- 
Scriblerus Marquis de Mirabeau, swaying 
vainly the sceptre of order, see himself envi- 
roned by a waste chaos as of Bedlam. Stiff is 
he; elastic (and yet still loving, reverent) is 
his son and pupil. Thus cruelty, and yearn- 
ings that must be suppressed ; indignant re- 
volt, and hot tears of penitence, alternate, in 
the strangest way, between the two; and for 
long years our young Alcides has (by Destiny, 
his own Demon, and Juno de Pailly) Labours 
enough imposed on him. 

But, to judge what a task was set this poor 
paternal Marquis, let us listen to the following 
successive utterances from him ; which he 
emits, in letter after letter, mostly into the ear 
of his Brother the good Bailli. Cluck, cluck, — 



is it not as the sound of an agitated parent- 
fowl, now in terror, now in anger, at the brood 
it has brought out 1 

" ' This creature promises to be a very pret- 
ty subject.' ' Talent in plenty, and cleverness, 
but more faults still inherent in the substance 
of him.' 'Only just come into life, and the 
extravasation (eitiavasemenf) of the thing al- 
ready visible! A spirit cross-grained, fantas- 
tic, iracund, incompatible, tending towards 
evil before knowing it, or being capable of it.' 
'A high heart under the jacket of a boy; it 
has a strange instinct of pride this creature ; 
noble withal ; the embryo of a shaggy-headed 
bully and killcow, that would swallow all the 
world, and is not twelve years old yet.' 'A 
type, profoundly inconceivable, of baseness, 
sheer dull grossness, (platitude absoluc,) and the 
quality of your dirty, roui^h-crusted caterpillar, 
that will uncrust itself or fly.' 'An intelli- 
gence, a memory, a capacity, that strike you, 
that astcmish, that frighten you.' 'A nothing 
bedizened with crotchets. May fling dust in 
the eyes of silly women, but will never be the 
fourth part a man, if by good luck he be any 
thing.' ' One whom you may call ill-born, 
this elder lad of mine; who bodes, at least 
hitherto, as if he could become nothing but a 
madman : almost invincibly maniac, with all 
the vile qualities of the maternal slock over 
and above. As he has a great many masters, 
and all, from the confessor to the comrade, are 
so many reporters for me, I see the nature of 
the beast, and don't think we shall ever do any 
good with him.'" 

In a word, offences (of elasticity or expan- 
sivity) have accumulated to such height, in 
the lad's fifteenth year, that there is a determi- 
nation taken, on the part of Rhadamanthus- 
Scriblerus, to pack him out of doors, one way 
or the other. After various plannings, the plan 
of one Abbe Choquenard's Boarding-school is 
fallen upon : the rebellious Expansive shall to 
Paris ; there, under ferula and short-commons, 
contract himself and consider. Farther, as the 
name Mirabeau is honourable and right ho- 
nourable, he shall not have the honour of it; 
never again, but be called Pierre Buffiere, till 
his ways decidedly alter. This Pierre BvJJiere 
was the name of an estate of his mother's in 
the Limousin : sad fuel of those smoking law- 
suits which at length blazed out as divorce- 
lawsuits. Wearing this melancholy nick-name 
of Peter Buffiere, as a perpetual badge, had 
poor Gabriel Honore to go about for a number 
of years; like a misbehaved soldier with his 
eyebrows shaven off; alas, only a fifteen- 
years' recruit yet, too young for that ! 

Nevertheless, named or shorn of his name, 
Peter or Gabriel, the youth himself was still 
there. At Choquenard's Boarding-school, as 
always afterwards in life, he carries with him, 
he unfolds and employs, the qualities which 
Nature gave, which no shearing or shaving of 
art and mistreatment could take away. The 
Fils Jlihptif gives a grand list of studies fol- 
lowed, acquisitions made: ancient languages, 
("and we have a thousand proofs of his inde- 
fatigable tenacity in this respect;") modern 
languages, English, Italian, German, Spanish ; 
then "passionate study of mathematics;" de- 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



491 



sign pictorial and geometrical ; music, so as 
to read it at sight, nay, to compose in it ; sing- 
ing, to a high degree; "equitation, fencing, 
dancing, swimming, and tennis:" if only the 
half of which were true, can we say that 
Pierre BnfRere spent his time ill] What is 
more precisely certain, the disgraced Buffiere 
worked his way very soon into the good affec- 
tions of all and sundry, in this Hnuse of Dici- 
pline, who came in contact with him ; school- 
fellows, teachers, the Abbe Choqnenard him- 
self. For, said the paternal Marquis, he has 
the tongue of the old Serpent! In fact, it is 
very notable how poor Buffiere, Comte de Mi- 
rabeau, revolutionary King Riquetti, or what- 
ever else they might call him, let him come, 
under what discommendation he might, into 
any circle of men, was sure to make them his 
ere long. To the last, no man could look into 
him with his owm e5^es, and continue to hate 
him. He could talk men over, then 1 Yes, 
Reader: and he could act men over: for at 
bottom, that was it. The large open soul of 
the man, purposing deliberately no paltry, un- 
kindly, or dishonest thing towards any crea- 
ture, was felt to be withal atro/Aer's soul. De- 
faced by black drossy obscurations very many ; 
but yet shining out, lustrous, warm; in its 
troublous effulgence, great ! That a man be 
loved the better by men the nearer they come 
to him : is not this the fact of all facts 1 To 
know what extent of prudential diplomacy 
(good, indifferent, and even bad) a man has, 
ask public opinion, journalistic rumour, or at 
most the-persons he dines with : to know what 
of real worth is in him, ask infinitely deeper 
and farther; ask, first of all, those who have 
tried by experiment ; who, were they the fool- 
ishest people, can answer pertinently here if 
anywhere. " Those at a distance esteem of 
me a little worse than I ; those near at hand a 
little better than I:" so said the good Sir 
Thomas Browne ; so will all men say who 
have much to say on that. 

The Choquenard Military Boarding-School 
having, if not fulfilled its functions, yet ceased 
to be a house of penance, and failed of its func- 
tion. Marquis Mirabeau determinded to try the 
Army. Nay, it would seem, the wicked mother 
has been privily sending him money; which 
he, the traitor, has accepted ! To the army 
therefore. And so Pierre Buffiere has a basnet 
on his big head ; the shaggy pock-pitted visage 
looks martially from under horse-hair and 
clear metal; he dresses rank, with tight bridle- 
hand and drawn falchion, in the town of 
Saintes, as a bold volunteer dragoon. His age 
was but eighteen as yet, and some months. 

The people of Saintes grew to like him 
amazingly; would even "have lent him money 
to any extent." His Colonel, one De Lambert, 
proved to be a martinet, of sharp sour temper : 
the shaggy visage of Buffiere, radiant through 
its seaminess with several things, had not 
altogether the happiness to content him. 
Furthermore there was an Archer (Bailiff) at 
Saintes, who had a daughter: she, foolish 
minx, liked the Buffiere visage belter even than 
the Colonel's! For one can fancy what a 
pleader Buffiere was, in this great cause ; with 
the tongue of the old serpent. It was liis first 



amourette; plainly triumphant: the beginning 
of a quite unheard-of career in that kind. The 
aggrieved Colonel emitted "satires," through 
the mess-rooms; this bold volunteer dragoon 
was not the man to give him worse than he 
brought : matters fell into a very unsatisfactory 
state between them. To crown the whole, 
Buffiere went one evening (contrary to wont, 
now and always) to the gaming-table, and 
lost four louis. Insubordination, Gambling, 
Archer's daughter: Rhadamanthus thunder 
from Bignon: Buffiere doffs his basnet, flies 
covertly to Paris. Negotiation there now was; 
confidential spy to Saintes; correspondence, 
fulmination : Dupontde Nemours as daysman 
between a Colonel and a Marquis, both in 
high wrath, — Buffiere to pay the piper! Con- 
fidential spy takes evidence ; the whole atrocity 
comes to light : what wilt thou do, O Marquis, 
M'ith this devil's child of thine 1 Send him to 
Surinam ; let the tropical heats and rain tame 
the hot liver of him ! — so whispered paternal 
Brutus-justice and Pailly; but milder thoughts 
prevailed. Leirrc de Cachet and the Isle of 
Rhe shall be tried first. Thither fibres poor 
Buffiere; not with Archers' daughters, but with 
Archers ; amid the dull rustle and autumnal 
brown of the falling leaves of 1768, his nine- 
teenth autumn. It is his second Hercules' La- 
bour ; the Choquenard Boarding-hxase was 
the first. Bemoaned by the loud Atlantic he 
shall sit there, in winter season, under ward 
of a Bailli d'Aulan, governor of the place, and 
said to be a very Cerberus. 

At Rhe the old game is played : in few weeks, 
the Cerberus Bailli is Bufficre's ; baying, out 
of all his throats, in Buffiere's behalf! What 
" sorcery" is this that the rebellious prodigy 
has in him, O Marquis 1 Hypocrisy, cozenage 
which no governor of strong places can resist 1 
Nothing short of the hot swamps of Surinam 
will hold him quiet, then 1 Happily there is 
fighting in Corsica; Paoli fighting on his last 
legs there; and Baron de Vaux wants fresh 
troops against him. Buffiere, though he likes 
not the cause, will go thither gladly; and fight 
his very best : how happy if, by any fighting, 
he can conquer back his baptismal name, and 
some gleam of paternal tolerance! After 
much soliciting, his prayer is acceded to: 
Buffiere, with the rank now of " Sub-lieutenant 
of Foot, in the Legion of Lorraine," gets across 
the country to Toulon, in the month of April; 
and enters "on the plain which furrows itself 
without plough" (euphuistic for ocean:) "God 
grant he may not have to row there one day," 
— in red cap, as convict galley-slave ! Such 
is the paternal benediction and prayer; which 
was realized. Nay, Buffiere, it would seem, 
before quitting Rochelle, indeed "hardly yet 
two hours out of the fortress of Rhe," had 
fallen into a new atrocity, — his first duel; a 
certain quondam messmate (discharged for 
swindling) having claimed acquaintance with 
him on the streets ; which claim Buffiere saw 
good to refuse ; and even to resist, when de- 
manded at the sword's point ! The " Corsican 
Buccaneer" (flibusticr Corse) that he is ! 

The Corsican Buccaneer did, as usual, a 
giant's or two giants' work in Corsica ; fight- 
ing, writing, loving; "eight hours a day of 



492 



CARLYLE'S MISCELI.ANEOUS WRITINGS. 



study;" and gained golden opinions from all 
manner of men and women. It was his own 
notion that Nature had meant him for a soldier; 
h6 felt so equable and at home in that busi- 
ness, — the wreck of discordant death-tumult, 
and r&ar of cannon serving as a fine regulatory 
marching-music for him. Doubtless Nature 
meant him for a Man of Action ; as she means 
all great souls that have a strong body to dwell 
in: but Nature will adjust herself to much. 
In the course of twelve months, (in May, 1770,) 
Buffiere gets back to Toulon ; with much manu- 
script in his pocket; his head full of military 
and all other lore, "like a library turned topsy- 
turvy;" his character much risen, as we said, 
with every one. The brave Bailli Mirabeau, 
though almost against principle, cannot refuse 
to see a chief nephew, as he passes so near 
the old Castle on the Durance: the good uncle 
is charmed with him; finds, "under features 
terribly seamed and altered from what they 
were," (bodily and mentally,) all that is royal 
and strong, nay, an "expression of something 
refined, something gracious;" declares him, 
after several days of incessant talk, to be the 
best fellow on earth, (if well dealt with,) who 
will shape into statesman, generalissimo, pope, 
what thou pleasest to desire ! Or, shall we 
give poor Bufiiere's testimonial in mess-room 
dialect; in its native twanging vociferosity, 
and garnished with old oaths, — which, alas, 
have become for us almost old prayers now, — 
the vociferous Moustachio-figures, whom they 
twanged through, having all vanished so long 
since: ^' Morblcu,, Monsieur, V Abbe; c^cst un gaj-- 
gon, diablement vif, mais c'est un bon gaiQon, 
qui a de rcsprit conune trois cent milk diablcs ; el 
parbleu, un hommo tres brave," 

Moved by all manner of testimonials and 
entreaties from uncle and family, the rigid 
Marquis consents, not without difficulty, to see 
this anomalous Peter Buffiere of his ; and then, 
after solemn deliberation, even to un-Peter 
him, and give him back his name. It was in 
September that they met; at Aiguesperse, in 
the Limousin near the land^ of Pierre Bouffierc. 
Soft ruth comes stealing through the Rhada- 
manihine heart; tremblings of faint hope even, 
which, however, must veil itself in austerity 
and rigidity. The Marquis writes: "I perorate 
him very much;" observe " my man, how he 
droops his nose, and looks fixedly, a sign that 
he is reflecting ; or whirls away his head, hid- 
ing a tear: serious, now mild, now severe, we 
give it him alternately; it is thus I manage 
the mouth of this fiery animal." Had he but 
read the Ephemerides, the Ecoiioniigucs, the 
Precis des Elemcns (" the most laboured book I 
have done, though I wrote it in such health:") 
had he but got grounded in my Political Eco- 
nomy ! Which, however, he does not take to 
with any heart. On the contrary, he unhappily 
finds it hollow, pragmatical, a barren jingle 
of formulas; pedantic even; unnutritive as 
the east wind. Blasphemous words; which 
(or the like of them) any eavesdropper has but 
to report to " the Master !" — And yet, after all, 
is it not a brave Gabriel this rough-built 3'ou ng 
Hercules; and has finished handsomely his 
Second Labour? The head of the fellow is 
"a wind-mill and fire-mill of ideas." The 



War-office makes him captain, and he is pas- 
sionate for following soldiership: but then, 
unluckily, your Alexander needs such tools; — 
a whole world for workshop! "Where are 
the armies and herring-shoals of men to come 
from 1 Does he think I have money," snuffles 
the old Marquis, "to get him up battles like 
Harlequin and Scaramouch ]" The fool ! he 
shall settle down into rurality; first, however, 
though it is a risk, see a little of Paris, 

At Paris, through winter, the brave Gabriel 
carries all before him ; shines in saloons, in 
the Versailles (Eil-de-Boeuf ; dines with your 
Duke of Orleans, (young Chartres, not yet be- 
come Egalile, hob-nobbing with him;) dines 
with your Guemenes, Broglies, and mere 
Grandeurs ; and is invited to hunt. Even the 
old women are charmed with him, and rustle 
in their satins : such a light has not risen in the 
CEil-de-Boeuf for some while. Grant, O Mar- 
quis, that there are worse sad-dogs than this. 
The Marquis grants partially; and yet, and 
yet ! Few things are notabler than these suc- 
cessive surveys by the old Marquis, critically 
scanning his young Count: — 

"'I am on my guard; remembering how 
vivacity of head may deceive you as to a cha- 
racter of morass (de tourbe .) but, all considered 
one must give him store of exercise; what the 
devil else to do with such exuberance, intel- 
lectual and sanguineous? I know no woman 
but the Empress of Russia with whom this 
man were good to marry yet.' ' Hard to find 
a dog (drole) that had more talent and action 
in the head of him than this ; he would reduce 
the devil to terms.' ' Thy nephew Whirlwind 
(I'Owagnn) assists me; yesterday the valet 
Luce, who is a sort of privileged simpleton, 
said pleasantly, "Confess, M. le Comte, a man's 
body is very unhappy to carry a head like 
that." ' ' The terrible gift of /(uniliarity (as Pope 
Gregory called it!) He turns the great people 
here round his finger.' Or again, though all 
this is some years afterwards: 'They have 
never done telling me that he is easy to set 
a-rearing; that you cannot speak to him re- 
proachfully but his eyes, his lips, his colour 
testify that all is giving way : on the other hand, 
the smallest word of tenderness will make him 
burst into tears, and he would tling himself 
into the fire for you.' 'I pass my life in 
cramming him (a le bourrer) with principles, 
with all that I know ; for this man, ever the 
same as to his fundamental properties, has done 
nothing by these long and solid studies but aug- 
ment the rubbish-heap in his head, which is a 
library turned topsy-turvy; and then his talent 
for dazzling by superficials, for he has swal- 
Iniced all formulas, and cannot substantiate any 
thing.' ' A wicker-basket, that lets all through ; 
disorder born; credulous as a nurse; indiscreet; 
a liar' (kind of white liar) 'by exaggeration, 
affirmation, effrontery, without need, and merely 
to tell histories; a confidence that dazzles you 
on everything; cleverness and talent without 
limit. For the rest, the vices have infinitely 
less root in him than the virtues ; all is facility, 
impetuosity, ineffectuality, (not for want of 
fire, but of plan;) wrong-spun, ravelled (rfe- 
faufile) in character: a mind that meditates in 
the vague, and builds of soap-bells.' 'Spite 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



493 



of the bitter iigliness, the intercadent step, the 
trenchant breathless blown-up precipitation, 
and the look, or, to say better, the atrocious 
eyebrow of this man when he listens and re- 
flects, something told me that it was all but a 
scarecrow of old cloth, this ferocious outward 
garniture of his ; that, at bottom, here was per- 
haps the man in all France least capable of 
deliberate wickedness.' ' Pie and jay by in- 
stinct.' 'Wholly reflex and reverberance (tout. 
de reflet et de reverbcre) ; drawn to the right by 
his heart, to the left by his head, which he 
carries four paces from hinn.' ' May become 
the Coryphaeus of the Time.' 'A blinkard 
ijnyope) precipitancy, born with him, which 
makes htm take the quagmire for firm earth — ' " 

Cluck, cluck, — in the name of all the gods, 
•what prodigy is this I have hatched? Web- 
footed, broad-billed; which will run and drown 
itself, if Mercy and the parent-fowl prevent 
not! 

How inexpressibly true, meanwhile, is this 
that the old Marquis says: "He has swal- 
lowed all formulas" (il a Immcjoules les formules) 
and made away with them ! Formulas, indeed, 
if we think of it. Formulas and Gabriel Honore 
had been, and were to be, at death-feud from 
first to last. What formulas of this formalized 
(established) world had been a kind one to 
Gabriell His soul could find no shelter in 
them, they were unbelievable; his body no 
solacement, they were tyrannical, unfair. If 
there were not pabtdum and substance be- 
yond formulas, and in spite of them, then 
wo to him ! To this man formulas would 
yield no existence or habitation, if it were not 
in the Isle of Rhe and such places; but threat- 
ened to choke the life out of him : either 
formulas or he must go the wall; and so, after 
a tough fight, theij, as it proves, will go. So 
cunningly thrifty is Destiny; and is quietly 
shaping her tools for the work they are to do, 
while she seems but spoiling and breaking 
them ! For, consider, Marquis, whether 
France herself will not, by-and-by, have to 
swallow a formula or twol This sight thou 
lookesi on from the baths of Mount d'Or, does 
it not bode something of that kind] A sum- 
mer day in the year 1777: — 

'"O Madame! the narrations I would give 
you if I had not a score of letters to answer, 
on dull sad business! I would paint to you 
the votive feast of this town, which took place 
on th" 14th. The savages descending in tor- 
rents from the Mountains, — our people ordered 
not to stir out. The curate with surplice and 
stole; public justice in periwig; Marerhiusne, 
sabre in hand, guarding the place, before the 
bagpipes were permitted to begin. The dance 
interrupted, a quarter of an hour after, by 
battle; the cries and fierce hissings of the 
children, of the infirm, and other onlookers, 
ogling it, tarring it on, as the mob does when 
dogs fight. Frightful men, or rather wild crea- 
tures of the forest, in coarse woollen jupes and 
broad girths of leather, studded with copper 
nails; of gigantic stature, heightened by the 
high sabots; rising still higher on tip-toe, to 
look at the battle; beating time to il; rubbing 
their sides with their elbows: their face hag- 
gard, covered with their long greasy hair; top 



of the visage waxing pale, bottom of it twisting 
itself into the rudiments of a cruel laugh, a 
ferocious impatience. — And these people pay 
the taille! And you want to take from them 
their salt too! And you know not what you 
strip bare, or, as you call it, govern; what, 
with the heedless, cowardly squirt of your pen, 
you will think you can continue stripping with 
impunity for ever, till the Catastrophe come! 
Such sights recall deep thoughts to one. 'Poor 
Jean-Jacques!' I said to myself; 'they that 
sent thee, and thy System, to copy music among 
such a People as these same, have confuted 
thy System but ill !' But, on the other hand, 
these thoughts were consolatory for a man who 
has all his life preached the necessity of solac- 
ing thepoor, of universal instruction ; who has 
tried to show what such instruction and such 
solacement ought to be, if it would form a 
barrier (the sole possible barrier) between op- 
pression and revolt; the sole but the infallible 
treaty of peace between the high and the low! 
Ah, Madame ! this government by blind-man's- 
buff, stumbling along too far, will end by the 

GKNEHAL OVEnTm>-.' " 

Prophetic Marquis ! — Might other nations 
listen to thee better than France did: for it 
concerns them (dl! But now is it not curious 
to think how the whole world might have gone 
so differently, but for this very prophet ] Had 
the young Mirabeau had a father as other men 
have ; or even no father at all ! Consider him, 
in that case, rising by natural gradation, by 
the rank, the opportunity, the irrepressible 
buoyant faculties he had, step after step, to 
official place, — to the chief official place; as in 
a time when Turgots, Neckers, 'and men of 
ability, were grown indispensable, he was sure 
to have done. By natural witchery he be- 
witches Marie Antoinette; her most of all, with 
her quick susceptive instincts, her quick sense 
for whatever was great and noble, her quick 
hatred for whatever was pedantic, Neckerish, 
Fayettish, and pretending to be great. King 
Louis is a nullity; happily thpn reduced to be 
one: there would then have been at the summit 
of France the one French man who could have 
grappled with that great question ; who, yield- 
ing and refusing, managing, guiding, and, in 
short, seeing and daring what was to be done, 
had perhaps saved France her Revolution; 
remaking her by peaceabler methods ! But 
to the Supreme Powers it seemed not so. 
Once after a thousand years all nations were 
to see the great Confl.igration and Self-com- 
bustion of a Nation,— and learn from it if they 
could. And now, for a Swallower of Formulas, 
was there a better schoolmaster on earth than 
this very Friend of Men ; a better education 
conceivable than this which Alcides-Mirabeaa 
hadl Trust in heaven, good reader, for the 
fate of nations, for the fall of a sparrow. 

Gabriel Hnnor^ has acquitted himself so well 
in Paris, turning the great people round his 
thumb, with that "fnnd gaillard," (basis of 
gayety,) with that terrible don de la fundliardi; 
with those ways he has. Neither, in the quite 
opposite Man-of-business department, when 
summer comes and rurality with it, is he found 
wanting. In the summer of the year, the ola 
2T 



494 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Friend of Men despatches him to the Limousin, 
to his own estate of Pierre ButRere, or his 
wife's own estate, (under the law-balance about 
this time;) to see whether any thing can be 
done for men there. Much is to be done there ; 
the Peasants, short of all things, even of 
victuals, here as everywhere, wear " a settled 
soiiffre-douleur (pain-stricken) look, as if they 
reckoned that the pillage of men was an inevi- 
table ordinance of Heaven, to be put up with 
like the wind and the hail." Here, in the 
Solitude of the Limousin, Gabriel is still 
Gabriel: he rides, he writes, and runs; eats 
out of the poor people's pots ; speaks to 
them, redresses them; institutes a court of 
Villager Praudhommes (good men and true), — 
once more carries all before him. Confess, O 
Rhadamanthine Marquis, we say again, that 
there are worse sad-dogs than this! "He is," 
confesses the Marquis, " the Demon of the Im- 
possible," (le demon dc la chose inipossible.') 
Most true this also : impossible is a word not in 
his dictionary. Thus the same Gabriel Honore, 
long afterwards, (as Dumont will witness,) 
orders his secretary to do some miracle or 
other, miraculous within the time. The secre- 
tary answers, " Monsieur, it is impossible," 
"Impossible?" answers Gabriel : " Nc me ditcs 
jamais ce bete de mot" (Never name to me that 
blockhead of a word!) Really, one would say, 
a good fellow, were he well dealt with, — though 
still broad-billed, and with latent tendencies to 
take the water. The following otherwise in- 
significant Letter, addressed to the Baiili, seems 
to us worth copying, Is not his young Lord- 
ship, if still in the dandy-slate and style-of- 
mockery, very handsome in it ; standing there 
in the snow? It is of date December, 1771, 
and far onwards on the road towards Mirabeau 
Castle : 

" Fradi hello satisque repulsi diictorcs Danaum : 
here, dear uncle, is a beginning in good Latin, 
which means that I am broken with fatigue, 
not having, this whole week, slept more than 
sentinels do; and sounding, at the same time, 
with the wheels of my vehicle, most of the ruts 
and jolts that lie between Paris and Marseilles. 
Ruts deep and numerous. Moreover, my axle 
broke between Mucreau, Romane, Chambertin, 
and Beaune ; the centre of four wine districts ; 
what a geographical point, if I had had the wit 
to be a drunkard! The mischief happened 
towards five in the evening ; my lackey had 
gone on before. There fell nothing at the time 
but melted snow; happily it afterwards took 
some consistency. The neighbourhood of 
Beaune made me hope to find genius in the 
natives of the country: I had need of good 
counsel; the devil counselled me at first to 
swear, but that whim passed, and I fell by pre- 
ference into the temptation of laughing; for a 
holy priest came jogging up, wrapt to the chin ; 
against the blessed visage of whom the sleet 
was beating, which made him cut so singular 
a face, that I think this was the thing drove me 
from swearing. The holy man inquired, 
seeing my chaise on its beam- ends, and one of 
the wheels wanting, whether any thing had be- 
fallen me? I answered, 'there was nothing 
falling here but snow.' ' Ah,' said he, in- 
geniously, ' it is your chaise, then, that is 



broken.' I admired the sagacity of the man, 
and begged him to double his pace, with his 
horse's permission, (who was also making a 
pleasant expression of countenance, as the 
snow beat on his nose,) and to be so good as 
give notice at Chaigny that I was there. He 
assured me he would tell it to the post-mistress 
herself, she being his cousin ; that she was a 
very amiable woman, married three years ago 
to one of the honestest men of the place, 

nephew to the king's procureur at : in 

fine, after giving me all the outs and ins of 
himself, the curate, of his cousin, his cousin's 
husband, and I know not whom more, he was 
pleased to give his spurs to his horse, which 
thereupon gave a grunt, and went on. I forgot 
to tell you that I had sent the postilion off to 
Mucreau, which he knew the road to, for he 
went thiiher daily, he said, to have a glass; a 
tiling I c uld well believe, or even two glasses. 
The man was but tipsified when he went ; happi- 
ly when he returned, v/hich was very late, he was 
drunk. I walked sentry : several Beaune men 
passed, all of whom asked me, if any thing had 
befallen ? I answered one of them, that it was 
an experiment ; that I had been sent from Paris 
to see whether a chaise would run with one 
wheel ; mine had come so far, but I was going 
to write that two wheels were preferable. At 
this moment my worthy friend struck his shin 
against the other wheel; clapped his hand on 
the hurt place ; swore, as I had near done ; and 
then said, smiling, ' Ah, Monsieur, there is the 
other Avheel !' ' The devil there is !' said I, as 
if Bstonished. Another, after examining long, 
with a very capable air, informed me, ' Mafoi, 
Monsieur ! it is your cssi' (meaning essieu, or 
axle) ' that is broken.' " 

Mirabeau's errand to Provence, in this 
winter season, was several-fold. To look after 
the Mirabeau estates; to domesticate himself 
among his people and peers in that region ; — 
perhaps to choose a wife. Lately, as we saw, 
the old Marquis could think of none suitable, 
if it were not the Empress Catharine. But 
Gabriel has ripened astonishingly since that, 
under this sunshine of paternal favour, — the 
first gleam of such weather he has ever had. 
Short of the Empress, it were very well to 
marry, the Marquis now thinks, provided your 
bride had money. A bride, not with money, 
yet with connections, expectations, is found; 
and by stormy eloquence (Marquis seconding) 
is carried: wo worth the hour! Her portrait, 
by the seconding Marquis himself, is not very 
captivating: " Marie-Emilie de Covet, only 
daughter of the Marquis de Marignane, in her 
eighteenth year then; she had a very ordinary 
face, even a vulgar one at the first glance; 
brown, nay, almost tawny {mnuricaud); fine 
eyes, fine hair; teeth not good, but a prettyish 
continual smile; figure small, but agreeable, 
though leaning a little to one side: showed 
great sprightliness of mind, ingenuous, adroit, 
delicate, lively, sportful; one of the most 
essentially pretty characters." This brown, 
almost tawny, little woman (much of a fool 
too) Mirabeau gets to wife (on the '^2d of June, 
1772:) with her, and with a pension of 3,000 
francs from his fathei-in-law, and one of 6.000 
from his own father, (.lay 500/, in all,) and rich- 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



495 



expectancies, he shall sit down, in the bottom | 
of Provence, by his own hired hearth, in the | 
town of Aix, and bless Heaven. 

Candour will admit that this young Alex- 
ander (just beginning his twenty-fourth year) 
might grumble a little, seeing only one such 
world to conquer. However, he had his books, 
he had his hopes ; health, faculty; a Universe 
(whereof even the town of Aix formed part) 
all rich with fruit and forbidden-fruit round 
him ; the unspeakable " seed-field of Time" 
wherein to sow: he said to himself, "Go to, I 
will be wise." And yet human nature is frail. 
One can judge, too, whether the old Marquis, 
now coming into decided lawsuit with his 
wife, was of a humour to forgive peccadilloes. 
The terrible, hoarsely calm, Rhadamanthine 
way in which he expresses himself on this 
matter of the lawsuit to his Brother, and 
enjoins silence from all mortals but him, might 
affect weak nerves; wherefore, contrary to 
purpose, we omit it. O, just Marquis? In 
fact, the Riquetti household, at this time, can 
do little for frail human nature; except, per- 
haps, make it fall faster. The Riquetti house- 
hold is getting scattered ; not always led 
asunder, but driven and hurled asunder: the 
tornado times for it have begun. One daugh- 
ter is Madame du Saillant, (still living,) a 
judicious sister: another is Madame de Cabris, 
not so judicious ; for, indeed, her husband has 
lawsuits, (owing to "defamatory couplets" 
proceeding from him;) she gets "insuhed on 
the public promenade of Grasse," by a certain 
Baron de Villeneuve-Moans, whom some de- 
famatory couplet had touched upon ; — all the 
parties in the business being fools. Nay, poor 
woman, she, by-and-by, we find, takes up with 
preternuptial persons ; with a certain Brainson 
in epaulettes, described candidly, by the Fds 
Adoptif, as " a man who" — is not fit to be de- 
scribed. 

A young heir-apparent of all the Mirabeaus 
is required to make some figure; especially in 
marrying himself. The present young heir- 
apparent has nothing to make a figure with 
but bare 500/. a year, and very considerable 
debts. Old Mirabeau is hard as the Mosaic 
rock, and no wand proves miraculous on him ; 
for trousseaus, cadcaus, foot-washings, festivities, 
and house-heatings, he does simply not yield 
one sous. The heir must himself yield them. 
He does so, and handsomely : but, alas, the 
500/. a year, and very considerable debts ? 
Quit Aix and dinner-giving ; retire to the old 
Chateau in the gorge of two valleys ! Devised 
and done. But now, a young wife used to the 
delicacies of life, ought she not to have some 
suite of rooms done up for her ] Upholsterers 
hammer and furbish; with effect; not without 
bills. Then the very considerable Jew-debts ! 
Poor Mirabeau sees nothing for it, hut to run 
to the father-in-law with tears in his eyes ; and 
conjure him to make those "rich expectations" 
in some measure fruitions. Forty thousand 
francs; to such length will the father-in-law, 
moved by these tears, by this fire-eloquence, 
table ready money ; provided old Marquis 
Mirabeau, who has some provisional rever- 
sionary interest in the thing, will grant quit- 
lance. Old Marquis Mirabeau, written to iu 



the most impassioned, persuasive manner, 
answers by a letter, of the sort they call Sealed 
Letter, (^leilre de cache!,) ordering the impas- 
siimed Persuasive, under his Majesty's hand 
and seal, to bundle into Coventry, as we should 
say; into Manosque.as the Sealed Letter says ! 
— Farewell, thou old Chateau, with thy uphol- 
stered rooms, on thy sheer rock, by the angry- 
flowing Durance: welcome, thou miserable 
little borough of Manosque, since hither Fate 
drives us! In Manosque, too, a man can live, 
and read; can write an Essai sur le Despotisme, 
(and have it printed in Switzerland, 1774;) 
full of fire and rough vigour, and still worth 
reading. 

The Essay on Despo/ism, with so little of the 
Efhenicrides and Quesnay in it, could find but 
a hard critic in the old Marquis; snuffling out 
something (one fancies) about "Reflex and 
reverberance ;" formulas getting swallowed; 
rash hairbrain treating matters that require 
age and gravity; — however, let it pass. Un- 
happily there came other offences. A certain 
gawk, named Chevalier de Gassaud, accus- 
tomed to visit in the house at Manosque, sees 
good to commence a kind of theoretic flirtation 
with the little brown Wife, which she theoreti- 
cally sees good to return. Billet meets billet^ 
glance follows glance, c7-iscendo alle2,ro ; — till 
the husband opens his lips, volcano-like, with 
a proposal to kick Chevalier de Gassaud out 
of doors. Chevalier de Gassaud goes unkick- 
ed, but not without some explosion or eclat. 
there is like to be a duel; only that Gassaud, 
knowing what a sword this Riquetti wears, 
will not fight; and his father has to plead and 
beg. Generous Count, kill not my poor son : 
alas, already this most lamentable explosion 
itself has broken off the finest marriage settle- 
ment, and now the family will not hear of him ! 
The generous Count, so pleaded with, not only 
flings the duel to the winds, but gallops off, 
(forgeiful of the lei re de cachet,) half desperate, 
to plead with the marriage-family ; to preach 
with them, and pray, till they have taken poor 
Gassaud into favour again. Prosperous in 
this, (for what can resist such pleading?) he 
may now ride home more leisurely, with the 
consciousness of a right aciion for cmce. 

As we said, this ride of his lies beyond the 
limits fixed in the royal Sealed Letter; but no 
one surely will mind it, no one will report it. 
A beautiful summer evening: O, poor Gabriel, 
it is the last peaceably prosperous ride thou 
shalt have for long, — perhaps almost ever in 
the world ! For lo! who is this that comes 
curricling through the level yellow sun-light; 
like one of Respectability, keeping his gig? 
By Day and Night! it is that base Baron, de 
Villeneuve-Moans, who insulted sister Cabris 
in the Promenade of Grasse! Human nature, 
without time for reflection, is liable to err. 
The swift-rolling gig is already in contact with 
one, the horse rearing against your horse ; and 
you dismount, almost without knowing. Katis- 
faciion which gentlemen expect, Monsieur! 
No? Do I hear rightly No? In that case. 
Monsieur, — and this wild Gabriel, (horresco 
referens!) clutches the respectadle Villeneuve 
Moans; and horsewhips him there, not em- 
blomalically only, but practically, on the king's 



496 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



highway: seen of some peasants ! Here is a 
message for Rumour to blow abroad. 

Rumour blows, — to Paris as elsewhither: 
for answer, (on the 26th of Jane, 1774,) there 
arrives a fresh Sealed Letter, of more em- 
phasis; there arrive with it grim catchpoles 
and their chaise : the Swallower of Formulas, 
snatched away from wife, child, (then dying,) 
and last shadow of a home even in exile, is 
trundling towards Marseilles ; towards the 
Caslle of If, which frowns out among the 
waters in the roadstead there! Girt with the 
blue Mediterranean; within iron stanchions; 
cut off from pen, paper, and friends, and men, 
except the Cerberus of the place, who is 
charged to be very sharp with him, there shall 
he sit: such virtue is in a Sealed Letter; so 
has the grim old Marquis ordered it. Our 
gleam of sunshine, then, is darkening mise- 
rably down 1 Down, O thou poor Mirabeau, 
to thick midnight ! Surely Formulas are all 
too cruel on thee: thou art getting really into 
war with formulas, (terriblest of wars;) and 
thou, by God's help and the devil's, wilt make 
away with them, — in the terriblest manner! 
From this hour, we say, thick and thicker 
darkness settles round poor Gabriel; his life- 
path growing evf;i painfuller; alas, growing 
ever more devious, beset by ignes fatui, and 
lights not of heaven. Such Alcides' Labours 
have seldom been allotted to any man. 

Check thy hot frenzy, thy hot tears, poor 
Mirabeau; adjust thyself as it may be; for 
there is no help. Autumn becomes loud win- 
ter, revives into gentle spring : the waves beat 
round this Castle of If, at the mouih of Mar- 
seilles harbour; girdling in the unhappiest 
man. No, not the unhappiest: poor Gabriel 
has such a " fond gcnllard," (basis of joy and 
gayety;) there is a deep fiery life in him, 
which no blackness of destiny can quench. 
The Cerberus of If M. Dallegre, relents, as all 
Cerberuses do with him; gives paper; gives 
sympathy and counsel. Nay, letters have al- 
ready been introduced; "buttoned in some 
scoundrel's gaiters," the old Marquis says ! 
On Sister du Saillant's kind letter there fall 
" tears ;" nevertheless you do not always weep. 
You do better; write a brave Col de JJrgent's 
Memoirs (quoted from above;) occupy your- 
self with projects and efforts. Sometimes, 
alas, you do worse, though in the other direc- 
tion, — where Canteen-keepers have pretty 
wives! A mere peccadillo this of the frail 
fair Cantiiiiere, (acciirding to the Fils Mopfif ;) 
of which too much was made at the time. — 
Nor are juster consolations wanting; sisiers 
and brothers bidding you be of hope. Our 
readers have heard Count Mirabeau designated 
"as the elder of my lads:" what if we now 
exhibited the younger for one moment? The 
Maltese Chevalier de Mirabeau, a rough son 
of the sea in those days: he also is a sad dog, 
but has the advantage of not being the elder. 
He has started from Malta, from a sick bed. 
and got hither to Marseilles, in the dead of 
winter; the link of Nature drawing him, shag- 
gy sea-monster as he is. 

"It was a rough wind; none of the boatmen 
would leave the quay with me; I induced two 
of them, more by bullying than by money ; for 



thou knowest I have no money, and am well 
furnished, thank God, with the giA of speak- 
ing or stuttering. I reach the Castle of le- 
gates closed ; and the Lieutenant, as M. Dalle- 
gre was not there, tells me quite sweetly that 
I must return as I came. 'Not, if you please, 
till I have seen Gabriel.' — 'It is not allowed.' 
— 'I will write to him.' — 'Not that either.' — 
'Then I will wait for M. Dallpgre.' — 'Just 
so; but for four-aod-twenty hours, not more.' 
Whereupon I take my resolution; go to la 
Mouret," (canteen-keeper's pretty wife;) "we 
agree that so soon as the tattoo is beat, I shall 
see this poor devil. I get to him., in fact; not 
like a paladin, but like a pickpocket or a gal- 
lant, which thou wilt; and we unbosom our- 
selves. They had been afraid that he would 
heat my head to the temperature of his own: 
Sister Cabris, they do him little justice; I can 
assure thee that while he was telling me his 
story, and when my rage broke out in these 
words : ' Though still weakly, I have two 
arms, strong enough to break M. Villeneuve- 
Moans's, or his cowardly persecuting brother's 
at least,' he said to me, ' Mon ami, thou wilt 
ruin us both.' And, I confess, this considera- 
tion alone, perhaps, hindered the execution of 
a project, which could not have profited, 
which nothing but the fermentation of a head 
such as mine could excuse." — Vol. ii. p. 43. 

Reader, this tarry young Maltese chevalier 
is the Vicomte de Mirabeau, or Younger Mira- 
beau ; whom all men heard of in the Revolu- 
tion time, — oftenest by the more familiar name 
of Mirabeav-Tonneau, or Barrel Mirabeau, from 
his bulk, and the quantity of drink he usually 
held. It is the same Barrel Mirabeau who, ia 
the States-General, broke his sword, because 
the Noblesse gave in, and chivalry was now 
ended: for in politics he was directly the op- 
posite of his elder brother; and spoke consi- 
derably as a public man, making men laugh, 
(for he was a wild surly fellow, with much 
wit in him and much liquor;) — then went in- 
dignantly across the Rhine, and drilled Emi- 
grant Regiments; but as he sat one morning 
in his tent, sour of stomach doubtless and of 
heart, meditating in Tartarean humour on the 
turn things took, a certain captain or subaltern 
demands admittance on business; is refused; 
again demands, and then again, till the Colo- 
nel Viscount Barrel Mirabeau, blazing up into 
a mere burning brandy-barrel, clutches his 
sword, and tumbles out on this canaille of an 
intruder, — alas, on the canaille of an intruder's 
sword's point, (who drew with swift dexterity,) 
and dies, and it is all done with him! That 
was the fifth act of Barrel Mirabeau's life- 
tragedy, (unlike, and yet like, this first act in 
the Castle of If;) and so the curtain fell, the 
Newspapers calling it " apoplexy" and " alarm- 
ing accident." 

Brother and sisters, the little brown Wife, 
the Cerberus of If, all solicit for a penitent un- 
fortunate sinner. The old Marquis's ear is 
deaf as that of Destiny. Solely, by way of 
variation, not of alleviation, (especiallv as the 
If Cerberus too has been bewitched,) he has 
this sinner removed, in May next, after some 
nine months' space, to the Castle of Joux; an 
"old Owl's nest, with a few invalids," among 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



497 



the Jura Mountains. Instead of melancholy 
main, let him now try the melancholy granites, 
(still capped with snow at this season,) with 
their mists and owlets ; and on the whole ad- 
just himself as if for permanence or continu- 
ance there; on a pension of 1,200 francs, fifty 
pounds a year, since he could not do with five 
hundred ! Poor Mirabeau ; — and poor Mira- 
beau's Wife ] Reader, the foolish little brown 
.woman tires of soliciting; her child being 
buried, her husband buried alive, and her little 
brown self being still above ground and under 
twenty, she takes to recreation, theoretic flirta- 
tion ; ceases soliciting, begins successful for- 
getting. The marriage, cut asunder that day 
the catchpole chaise drew up at Manosque, 
will never come together again, in spite of ef- 
forts ; but flow onwards in two separate 
streams, to lose itself in the frightfullest sand- 
deserls. Husband and wife never more saw 
each other with eyes. 

Not far from the melancholy Castle of Joux 
lies the little melancholy borough of Pontar- 
lier; whither our Prisoner has leave, on his 
parole, to walk when he chooses. A melan- 
choly little borough ; yet in it is a certain Mon- 
nier Household ; whereby hangs, and will hang, 
a tale. Of old M. Monnier, respectable legal 
President, now in his seventy-fifth year, we 
shall say less than of his wife, Sophie Mon- 
nier, (once de Ruffey, from Dijon, sprung from 
legal Presidents there,) who is still but short 
way out of her teens. Yet she has been mar- 
ried (or seemed to be married) four years: 
one of the loveliest sad-heroic women of this 
or any district of country. What accursed 
freak of Fate brought January and May to- 
gether here once again ? Alas, it is a custom 
there, good reader! Thus the old Naturalist 
Bufl^on, who, at the age of sixt3-three, (what is 
called "the St. Martin's summer of incipient 
dotage and new myrtle garlands," which visits 
some men,) went ransacking the country for a 
young wife, had very nearly got this identical 
Sophie ; but did get another, known as Madame 
de Buffbn, well known to Philip Egalite, having 
turned out ill. Sophie de Ruffey loved wise 
men, but not at that extremely advanced pe- 
riod of life. However, the question for her 
is: Does she love a Convent better"! Her 
mother and father are rigidly devout, and 
rigidly vain and poor: the poor girl, sad- 
heroic, is probably a kind of freethinker. And 
now, old President Monnier " quarrelling with 
his daughter; and then coming over to Pontar- 
lier with gold-bags, marriage-settlements, and 
the prospect of dying soon?" It is that same 
miserable tale, often sung against, often 
spoken against; very miserable indeed. — But 
fancy what an effect the fiery eloquence of a 
Mirabeau produced in this sombre Household: 
one's young girl-dreams incarnated, most un- 
expectedly, in this wild glowing mass of man- 
hood, (though rather ugly;) old Monnier him- 
self gleaming up into a kind of vitality to hear 
him ! Or fancy whether a sad-heroic face, 
glancing on you with a thankfulness like to be- 
come glad-heroic, were not ? Mirabeau 

felt, by known symptoms, that the sweetest, 
fatalest incantation was stealing over him, 
S3 



which could lead only to the devil, for all par- 
ties interested. He wrote to his wife, entreat- 
ing, in the name of Heaven, that she would 
come to him : thereby might the "sight of his 
duties" fortify him ; he meanwhile would at 
least forbear Pontarlier. The wife " answered 
by a few icy lines, indicating, in a covert way, 
that she thought me not- in my wits." He 
ceases forbearing Pontarlier; sweeter is it 
than the Owl's nest: he returns thither, with 

sweeter and ever sweeter welcome ; and so i 

Old Monnier saw nothing, or winked hard; 
— not so our old foolish Commandant of the 
Castle of Joux. He, though kind to his pri- 
soner formerly, "had been making some pre- 
tensions to Sophie himself; he was but forty or 
five-and-forty years older than I; my ugliness 
was not greater than his ; and I had the ad- 
vantage of being an honest man." Green-eyed 
Jealousy, in the shape of this old ugly Com- 
mandant, warns Monnier by letter; also, on 
some thin pretext, restricts Mirabeau hence- 
forth to the four walls of Joux. Mirabeau flings 
back such restriction in an indignant Letter 
to this green-eyed Commandant; indignantly 
steps over into Switzerland, which is but a few 
miles off; — returns, however, in a day or two, 
(it is dark January, 1776,) covertly to Pontar- 
lier. There is an explosion, what they call 
eclat. Sophie Monnier, sharply dealt with, 
resists; avows her love for Gabriel Honore; 
asserts her right to love him, her purpose to 
continue doing it. She is sent home to Dijon ; 
Gabriel Honore covertly follows her thither. 
Explosions : what a continued series of ex- 
plosions, — through winter, spring, summer ! 
There are tears, devotional exercises, threaten- 
ings to commit suicide; there are stolen in- 
terviews, perils, proud avowals, and lowly con- 
cealments. He on his part, "voluntarily 
constitutes himself prisoner;" and does other 
haughty, vehement things; some Command- 
ants behaving honourably, and some not : one 
Commandant (old Marquis Mirabeau of the 
Chateau of Bignon) getting ready his thunder- 
bolts in the distance ! " I have been lucky 
enough to obtain Mont St. Michel, in Norman- 
dy," says the old Marquis :" I think that pri- 
son good, because there is first the castle itself, 
then a ring-work all round the mountain; and, 
after that, a pretty long passage among the 
sands, where you need guides, to avoid bein[; 
drowned in the quicksands." Yes, it rises there, 
that Mountain of St. Michel, and Mountain of 
Misery ; towering sheer up, like a bleak Pisgah 
with outlooks only into Desolation, sand, salt- 
water, and Despair.* Fly, thou poor Gabriel 
Honore ! Thou poor Sophie, return to Pontar- 
lier; for Convent-walls too are cruel ! 

Gabriel flies; and indeed there fly with him 
sister Cabris and her preternuptial epauletted 
Brianson, who are already in flight for their 
own behoof: into deep thickets and covered 
ways, wide over the South-west of France. 
Marquis Mirabeau, thinking with a fond sor- 
row of Mont St. Michel and its quicksands, 
chooses the two best bloodhounds the Police of 
Paris has, (Inspector Brugniere and another) ; 
and, unmuzzling them, cries: Hunt! — "Mon- 
sieur, we have done all that the human mind 
* See Memoires de Madame de Genlis, iii. 201. 
2 t2 



498 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



\Vesprit humain) can imagine, and this when 
the heats are so excessiv^e, and we are worn 
out with fatigue, and our legs swoln." 

No: all that the human mind can imagine 
is ineffectual. On the twenty-third night of 
August, (1776,) Sophie de Monnier, in man's 
clothes, is scaling the Monnier garden-wall at 
Pontarlier; is crossing the Swiss marches, 
■wrapped in a cloak of darkness, borne on the 
wings of love and despair. Gabriel Honore, 
wrapped in the like cloak, borne on the like 
vehicle, is gone with her to Holland, — thence- 
forth a broken man. 

" Crime for ever lamentable," ejaculates the 
Fils ^doptif ; " of which the world has so 
spoken, and must for ever speak!" There 
are, indeed, many things easy to be spoken 
of it; and also some things not easy to be 
spoken. Why, for example, thou virtuous Fils 
Adoptif, was that of the Canteen-keeper's wife 
at If such a peccadillo, and this of the legal 
President's wife such a crime, lamentable to 
that late date of "for ever?" The present re- 
viewer fancies them to be the same crime. 
Again, might not the first grand criminal and 
sinner in this business be legal President Mon- 
nier, the distracted, spleen-stricken, moon- 
stricken old man ; — liable to trial, with non- 
acquittal or difficult acquittal, at the great Bar 
of Nature herself? And then the second sin- 
ner in it? and the third and the fourth 1 "He 
that is tvithout sin among you !" — One thing, 
therefore, the present reviewer Mali speak, in 
the words of old Samuel .Johnson : My dear 
Fils Adoptif, my dear brethren of Mankind, 
" endeavour to clear your mind of Cant !" It 
is positively the prime necessity for all men, 
and all women and children, in these days, 
who would have their souls live, (were it even 
feebly,) and not die of the detestablest as- 
phyxia ; as in carbonic vapour, the more hor- 
rible (for breathing of) the more clean it looks. 

That the Parlement oi^esan^on indicted Mi- 
rabeau for rapt et vol, abduction and robbery ; 
that they condemned him "in contumacious 
absence," and went the length of beheading a 
Paper Effigy of him, was perhaps extremely 
suitable ; — but not to be dwelt on here. Neither 
do we pry curiously into the garret-life in Hol- 
land and Amsterdam; being straitened for room. 
The wild man and his beautiful sad-heroic 
woman lived out their romance of reality, as 
well as was expected. Hot tempers go not al- 
ways softly together; neither did the course of 
true love, either in wedlock or in elopement, 
ever run smooth. Yet it did run, in this in- 
stance, copious, if not smooth ; with quarrel 
and reconcilement, tears and heart-effusion; 
sharp tropical squalls, and also the gorgeous 
effulgence and exuberance of general tropical 
weather. It was like a little Paphos islet in 
the middle of blackness ; the very danger and 
despair that environed it made the islet bliss- 
ful ; — even as in virtue of death, life to the 
fretfullest becomes tolerable, becomes sweet, 
dea'li being so nigh. At any hour, might not 
kinus exempt or other dread alguazil knock at 
our garret establishment, (here " in the Kalbes- 
trand, at Lequesne the tailor's,") and dissolve 
itl Gabriel toils for Dutch booksellers ; bear- 
ing their heavy load ; translating Watson's 



Philip Second; doing endless Gibeonite work: 
earning, however, his gold louis a day. Sophie 
sews and scours beside him, with her soft fin- 
gers, not grudging it: in hard toils, in trem- 
bling joys begirt with terrors, with one terror, 
that of being parted, — their days roll swiftly on. 
For eight tropical months ! — Ah, at the end of 
some eight months, (14th May, 1777,) enter the 
alguazil ! He is in the shape of Brugniere, our 
old slot-hound of the South-west ; the swelling 
of his legs is fallen now; this time the human 
mind has been able to manage it. He carries 
Kings orders. High Mightiness' sanctions; 
sealed parchments. Gabriel Honore shall 
be carried this way, Sophie that; Sophie, like 
to be a mother, shall behold him no more. 
Desperation, even in the female character, can 
go no farther: she will kill herself that hour, 
as even the slot-hound believes, — had not the 
very slot-hound, in merc)^, undertaken that 
they should have some means of correspond- 
ence ; that hope should not utterly be cut away. 
With embracings and interjections, sobbings 
that cannot be uttered, they tear themselves 
asunder, stony Paris now nigh : Mirabeau to- 
wards his prison of Vincennes ; Sophie to some 
milder Convent-parlour relegation, there to 
await what Fate, very minatory at this time, 
will see good to bring. 

Conceive the giant Mirabeau locked fast, 
then, in Doubting-castle of Vincennes ; his hot 
soul surging up, wildly breaking itself against 
cold obstruction ; the voice of his despair re- 
verberated on him by dead stone walls. Fallen 
in the eyes of the world, the ambitious haughty 
man ; his fair life-hopes from without all 
spoiled and become foul ashes: and from 
within, — what he has done, what he has parted 
with and «»idone ! Deaf as Destiny is a Rha- 
damanthine father; inaccessible even to the at- 
tempt at pleading. Heavy doors have slammed 
to; their bolts growling Wo to thee! Great 
Paris sends eastward its daily multitudinous 
hum ; in the evening sun thou seest its 
weathercocks glitter, its old grim towers and 
fuliginous life-breath all gilded: and thoul — 
Neither evening nor morning, nor change of 
day nor season, brings deliverance. For- 
gotten of Earth; not too hopefully remem- 
bered of Heaven ! No passionate Pater-Pec- 
rnvi can move an old Marquis ; deaf he as 
Destiny. Thou must sit there. — For forty-two 
months, by the great Zodiacal Horologe ! The 
heir of the Riquettis, sinful, and yet more 
sinned against, has worn out his wardrobe; 
complaints that his clothes get looped and 
windowed, insufficient against the weather. 
His eyesight is failing; the family disorder, 
nephritis, afflicts him ; the doctors declare 
horse-exercise essential to preserve life. 
Within the walls then ! answers the old 
Marquis. Count de Mirabeau "rides in the 
garden of forty paces;" with quick turns, 
hamperedly, overlooked by donjons and high 
stone barriers. 

And yet fancy not Mirabeau spent his time 
in mere wailing and raging. Far from that! — 

To whine, put finger i" tlie eye, and sob. 

Because he had ne'er another tub, 
was in no case Mirabeau's method, more than 
Diogenes's. Other such wild-glowing Mass 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



499 



of Life, which you might beat with Cyclops' 
hammers, (and, alas, not beat the dross out of,) 
was not in Europe at that time. Call him not 
the strongest man then living; for light, as we 
said, and not fire, is the strong thing; yet call 
him strong loo, very strong ; and for tough- 
ness, tenacity, vivaeiousness, and a fond gail- 
lard, call him toughest of all. Raging pas- 
sions, ill-governed; reckless tumult from 
within, merciless oppression from without; 
ten men might have died of what this Gabriel 
Honore did not yet die of. Police-captain 
Lenoir allowed him, in mercy and according 
to engagement, to correspond with Sophie ; 
the condition was that the letters should be 
seen by Lenoir, and be returned into his keep- 
ing. Mirabeau corresponded ; in fire and tears, 
copiously, not Werter-like, but Mirabeau-like. 
Then he had penitential petitions, Paler-Per- 
cavis to write, to get presented and enforced; 
for which end all manner of friends must be 
urged: correspondence enough. Besides, he 
could read, though very limitedly : he could 
even compose or compile; extracting, «of in 
the manner of the bee, from the very Bible 
and Dom Calmet, a Biblion Erolicon, which can 
be recommended to no woman or man. The 
pious Fih Adoptif drops a veil over his face 
at this scandal ; and sa3's lamentably that there 
is nothing to be said. As for Correspondence 
with Sophie, it lay in Lenoir's desk forgotten ; 
but was found there by Manuel, Procureur of 
the Commune in 1792, when so many desks 
flew open; and by him given to the world. A 
book which fair sensibility (rather in a private 
way) loves to weep over: not this reviewer, 
to any considerable extent; not at all here, in 
his present strait for room. Good love-letters 
of their kind notwithstanding. But if any 
thing can swell farther the tears of fair sensi- 
bility over Mirabeau's " Correspondence of Vin- 
cenncs," it must be this: the issue it ended in. 
After a space of years these two lovers, 
wrenched asunder in Holland, and allowed to 
correspond that they might not poison them- 
selves, met again : it was under cloud of 
night; in Sophie's apartment, in the country ; 
Mirabeau, " disguised as a porter," had come 
thither from a considerable distance. And 
they flew into each other's arms; to weep 
their child dead, their long unspeakable woes? 
Not at all. They stood, arms stretched ora- 
torically, calling one another to account for 
causes of jealousy; grew always louder, arms 
set a-kimbo; and parted quite loud, never to 
meet more on earth. In September, 1789, 
Mirabeau had risen to be a world's wonder: 
and Sophie, far from him, had sunk out of the 
world's sight, respected only in the little town 
of Gien. On the 9th night of September, Mira- 
beau might be thundering in the Versailles 
Salle des Menvs, to be reported of all Journals 
on the morrow; and Sophie, twice disap- 
pointed of new marriage, the sad-heroic tem- 
per darkened now into perfect black, was re- 
clining, self-tied to her sofa, Avith a pan of 
charcoal burning near; to die as the unhappy 
die. Said we not, " the course of true love 
never did run smooth ?" 

However, after two-and-forty months, and 
negotiations, and more intercessions than in 



Catholic countries will free a soul out of pur- 
gatory, Mirabeau is once more delivered from 
the strong place: not into his own home, 
(home, wife, and the whole Past are far parted 
from him ;) not into his father's home ; but 
forth ; — hurled forth, to seek his fortune Ish- 
mael-like in the wide hunting-field of the world. 
Consider him, O Reader; thou wilt find him 
very notable. A disgraced man, not a broken 
one; ruined outwardly, not ruined inwardly; 
not yet, for there is no ruining of him on that 
side. Such a buoyancy of radical fire and 
fond gaillard he has ; with his dignity and 
vanity, levity, solidity, with his virtues and his 
vices, — what a front he shows ! You would 
say, he bates not a jot, in these sad circum- 
stances, of what he claimed from Fortune, but 
rather enlarges it: his proud soul, so galled, 
deformed by manacles and bondage, flings 
away its prison-gear, bounds forth to the fight 
again, as if victory, after all, were certain. 
Post-horses to Pontarlier and the Besan§on 
Parlement; that that "sentence by contu- 
macy" be annulled, and the Paper Effigy have 
its Head stuck on again ! The wild giant, 
said to be "absent by contumacy," sits volun- 
tarily in the Pontarlier Jail ; thunders in plead- 
ings which make Parlementeers quake, and 
all France listen; and the Head reunites it- 
self to the Paper Effigy with apologies. Mon- 
nier and the De Rufleys know who is the most 
impudent man alive : the world with astonish- 
ment, who is one of the ablest. Even the old 
Marquis snuffles approval, though with quali- 
fication. Tough old Man, he has lost his own 
world-famous Lawsuit and other lawsuits, with 
ruinous expenses; has seen his fortune and 
projects fail, and even lettres de cachet turn out 
not always satisfactory or sanatory; where- 
fore he summons his children about him ; and, 
really in a very serene way, declares himself 
invalided, fit only for the chimney-nook now; 
to sit patching his old mind together again, 
(a rchoutcr sa lele, a se recoudrc piece d ^lece :) 
advice and countenance they, the deserving 
part of them, shall always enjoy; but lettres de 
racket, or other the like benefit and guidance, 
not any more. Right so, thou best of old 
Marquises ! There he rests then, like the still 
evening of a thundery day ; thunders no more; 
but rays forth many a curiously-tinted light- 
beam and remark on life ; serene to the last. 
Among Mirabeau's small catalogue of virtues, 
(very small of formulary and conventional 
virtues,) let it not be forgotten ll>Tt he loved 
this old father warmly to the end ; and forgave 
his cruelties, or forgot them in kind interpre- 
tation of them. 

For the Pontarlier paper effigy, therefore, it 
is well: and yet a man lives not comfortably 
without money. Ah, were one's marriage not 
disrupted; for the old father-in-law will soon 
die ; those rich expectations were then fruitions ! 
The ablest, not the most shame-faced man in 
France, is off", next spring (1783,) to Aix ; stir- 
ring Parlement and Heaven and Earth there, 
to have his wife back. How he worked; with 
what nobleness and courage, (according to 
the Fih Adoplif ;) giant's work! The sound 
of him is spread over France and over the 
world; English travellers (high foreign lord- 



500 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



ships) turning aside to Aix; and "multitudes 
galheri'd even on the roof's" to hear him, the 
Oouri-liousc being crammed to bursting! De- 
mostbi'iiic fire and pathos; penitent husband 
calling lor forgiveness and restitution: — "re 
n'esl (ju'un cUujuc-deiilscl. vn fol," rays forth the old 
Manjuis from the chimney-nook : "a chatter- 
teeth an<l madman V 'i'he world and Parle- 
ment thought not that; knew not wluit to thinl<, 
if not that this was the (luestioiiablest able man 
they had ever heard; and, alas, still farther, — 
that iiis cause was unicnabk. No wife then ; 
and no money ! From this second attack on 
Fortune, Mirabeau returns foiled, and worse 
than before ; resourceJess, for now the old 
Marquis, too, again eyes him askance. He 
must hunt Ishmael-like, as we said. Whatso- 
ever of wit or strength he has within himself 
will stand true to him; on that he can count; 
unfortunately on almost nothing but that. 

Mira beau's life for the next five years, which 
creeps trcjublous, obscure, through several of 
these Eight Volumes, will probably, in the 
One right Volume which they hold imprisoned, 
be delineated brielly. It is the long-drawn 
practical improvement of the sermon already 
preached in Khe, in If, in .loux, in Holland, in 
Vincennes, and elsewhere. A giant man in 
the flower of his years, in the winter of his 
prospects, has to see how he will reconcile 
these two contradictions. With giant energies 
and talents, with giant virtues even, he, burn- 
ing to unfold himself, has got put into his 
hands, for implemiMits and )neans to do it with, 
disgrace, eoiitunudy, obstruction; character 
elevated only as Hanian was; purse full iinly 
of debt-summonses; household, home, and 
possessions, as it were, sown with sail; Huin's 
plough-share furrowing too deeply himself and 
all that was his. Under these, and not under 
other conditions, shall this man now live and 
struggle. Well might he "weep" long after- 
wards, (though not given to the melting mood,) 
thinlcing over, with Dumont, how his life had 
been blasted, l)y himself, by others; anil was 
now so defaced and thunder-riven, no glory 
could make it whole again. Truly, as we 
often say, a wcakei? ami yet very strong man, 
might have died, — by hypochondria, by brandy, 
or by arsenic: but Mirabeau did nt)t die. The 
world is not his friend, nor the world's law 
and formula '! It will be his enemy then ; his 
conqueror and master not altogether. There 
are strong men who can, in case of necessity, 
make way with formulas, {liuincr Ics forinules,) 
and yet find a habitation behind them: these 
are the very strong; and Mirabeau was of 
these. The world's esteem having gone quite 
against him, and most circles of society, with 
their codes and regulations, pronouncing little 
but anathema on him, he is nevertheless not 
lost; he does not sink to desperation ; not to dis- 
honesty, or })usillanimity, or splenetic aridity. 
Nowise! In spile of the worlil, he is a living 
strong mau there : the world cannot take from 
him his just consciousness of himself, his warm 
open-hearted feeling towards others; there 
are still limits, on all sides, to which the world 
and the devil cannot drive him. The giant, 
we say! How he stands, like a mountain; 



thunder-riven, but broad-based, rooted in the 
Earth's (in Nature's) own rocks; and will not 
tumble i)rostrate ! So true is it what a moralist 
has said: "One could not wish any man to 
fall into a fault; yet is it often precisely after 
a fault, or a crime even, that the morality 
which is in a man first unfolds itself, and what 
of strength he as a man possesses, now when 
all else is gone from him." 

Mirabeau, through these dim years, is seen 
wandering from place to place ; in France, 
Ciermany, Holland, England; finding no rest 
for the sole of his foot. It is a life of shifts 
and expedients, au jour le jour. Extravagant 
in his expenses, thriftless, swimming in a 
welter of debts and difficulties ; for which he 
has to provide by fierce industry; by skill in 
financiership. The man's revenue is his wits ; 
he has a pen and a head; and, happily for 
him, "is the demon of the impossible." At no 
time is he without some blazing project or 
other, which shall warm and illuminate far 
and wide; which too often blazes out ineflec- 
lual ; which in that case he replaces and re- 
news, for his hope is inexhaustible. He writes 
pamphlets unvveariedly as a steam-engine: 
Uii Ihc Opening nf the Sihelill, and Kaiser Josej)h: 
Uii lite Order of Cincinvtilvs and Washington: 
on Count Cdis^lioslro, and the Diamond Necklace. 
Innumerabk are the helpers and journeymen 
(respectable Mauvillons, respectable Dumonts)t 
whom he can set working for him on such 
matters ; it is a gift he has. He writes Books, 
in as many as eight volumes, which are pro- 
perly only a larger kind of Pamphlets. He 
has polemics with (Jaron Beaumarchais on 
the water-company of Paris; lean Caron shoot- 
ing sharp arrows into him, which he responds 
to demoniacally, "flinging hills with all their 
woods." He is intimate with many men; his 
"terrible giftof familiarty," his joyous courtier- 
ship and faculty of pleasing, do not forsake 
him : but it is a questionable intimacy, granted 
to the man's talents, in spite of his character: 
a relation which the proud Kiquetti, not the 
humbler that he is poor and ruined, correctly 
feels. With still more women is he intimate; 
girt with a whole system of intrigues, in that 
sort, wherever he abide; seldom travelling 
without a — wife (let us call her) engaged by 
the year, or during mutual satisfaction. On 
this large department of Mirabeau's history, 
whatcan you say, except that his incontinence 
was great, enormous, entirely indefensible? 
If any one please (which we do not) to be pre- 
sent, with the Fils Jldoplif, at "the niittrjim'," 
and /)t)si-)iiorte)ii examination, he will see curious 
documents on this head; and to what depths 
of |)enally Nature, in her just self-vindication, 
can sometimes doom men. The Fils ./Idoplif 
is very sorry. To the kind called unfortunate- 
feniales, it would seem, nevertheless, this un- 
fortunate-male had an aversion amounting 
to complete indo-Utiigere. ^ 

'i'he old Maripiis sits apart in the chimney- 
nook, observant: what this roaming, unresting, 
rebellious Titan .of a Count may ever prove of 
use for? If it be not, O Marquis, for the 
general Overturn, Cidbvte (idneride/ He is 
swallowing Formulas; getting endless ac- 
quaintance with the Realities of things ana 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



501 



men: in audacity, in recklessness, he will not, 
it is like, be wanting. The old Marquis rays 
out curious observations on life; — yields no 
effectual assistance of money. 

Ministries change and shift; but never, in 
the new deal, does there turn up a good card 
for Mirabeau. Necker he does not love, nor 
is love lost between them. Plausible Calonne 
hears him Stentor-like denouncing stock-job- 
bing, (/Jmoncia/ion de r./}giol<ige :) communes 
with him, corresponds with him ; is glad to 
get him sent, in some semi-ostensible or spy- 
diplomatist character, to Berlin; in any way 
to have him sopped and quieted. The Great 
Frederic was still on the scene, though now 
very near the side-scenes : the wiry thin Drill- 
serjcant of the World, and the broad burly 
Mutineer of the World, glanced into one another 
with amazement ; the one making entrance, 
the other making exit. To this Berlin busi- 
ness we owe pamphlets ; we owe Correspond- 
ences, (" surreptitiously published" — with con- 
sent;) we owe (brave Major Mauvillon serving 
as hodman) the Moiiarchie Prussicniie, a Pam- 
phlet in some eight octavo Volumes, portions 
of which are still well worth reading. 

Generally, on first making personal ac- 
quaintance with Mirabeau as a writer or 
speaker, one is not a little surprised. Instead 
of Irish oratory, with tropes and declamatory 
fervid feeling, such as the rumour one has 
heard gives prospect of, you are astonished to 
meet a certain hard angular distinctness, a 
totally unornamentcd force and massiveness: 
clear perspicuity, strong perspicacity, C(mvic- 
tion that wishes to convince, — this beyond all 
things, and instead of all things. You would 
say the primary character of those utterances, 
nay, of the man himself, is sincerity and in- 
sight; strength, and the honest use of strength. 
Which, indeed, it is, O Reader! Mirabeau's 
spiritual gift will be found on examination to 
be verily an honest and a great one; far the 
strongest, best practical intellect of that time; 
entitled to rank among the strong of all times. 
These books of his ought to be riddled, like 
this book of the Fib Jtloptif. There is pre- 
cious matter in them; too good to lie hidden 
among shot rubbish. Hear this man on any 
subject, you will find him worth considering. 
He has words in him, rough deliverances; 
such as men do not forget. As thus : " I know 
but three ways of living in this world: by 
wages for work ; by begging ; thirdly, by 
stealing, (so named, or not so named.)" Again : 
" Malebranche saw all things in God ; and M. 
Necker sees all things in Necker!" There 
are nicknames of Mirabeau's worth whole 
treatises. "Grandison-Cromwell Lafayette:" 
write a volume on the man, as many volumes 
have been written, and try to say more ! It is 
the best likeness yet drawn of him, — by a 
flourish and two dots. Of such inexpressible 
advantage is it that a man have " an eye, in- 
stead of a pair of spectacles merely ;" that, 
seeing through the formulas of things, and 
even " making away" with many a An'inula, 
he sees into the thing itself, and so know it 
and be master of it! 

As the years roll on, and that portentous 
-ilecade of the Eighties (or "Era of Hope") 



draws towards completion, and it becomes 
ever more evident to Mirabeau that great 
things are in the wind, we find his wanderings, 
as it were, quicken. Suddenly emerging out 
of Night and Cimmeria, he dashes down on 
the Paris world, time after time; Hashes into 
it with that fire-glance of his; discerns that 
the time is not yet come; and then merges 
back again. Occasionally his pamphlets pro- 
voke a fulmination and order of arrest, where- 
fore he must merge the faster. Nay, your 
Calonne is good enough to signify it before- 
hand : On such and such a day I shall order 
you to be arrested ; pray make speed there- 
fore. When the Notables meet, in the spring 
of 1787, Mirabeau spreads his pinions, alights 
on Paris and Versailles ; it seems to him he 
ought to be secretary of those Notables. No! 
friend Dupont de Nemours gets it: the time 
is not yet come. It is still but the time of 
" Crispin-Catiline" d'Espromenil, and other 
such animal-magnetic persons. Nevertheless, 
the Reverend Talleyrand, judicious Dukes, 
liberal noble friends not a few, are sure that 
the time will come. Abide thy lime. 

Hark! On the 27th of December, 1788, here 
finally is the long-expected announcing itself: 
royal Proclamation definitively convoking the 
States-General for May next! Need we ask 
whether Mirabeau bestirs himself now; whe- 
ther or not he is off to Provence, to the As- 
sembly of Noblesse there, with all his faculties 
screwed to the sticking-place 1 One strong 
dead-lift pull, thou Titan ; and perhaps thou 
carries! it ! How Mirabeau wrestled and 
strove under these auspices; speaking and 
contending all day, writing pamphlets, para- 
graphs, all night; also suffering much, gather- 
ing his wild soul together, motionless under 
reproaches, under drawn swords even, lest his 
enemies throw him off his guard; how he 
agitates and represses, unerringly dexterous, 
sleeplessly unwearied, and is a " demcni of the 
impossible," let all readers fancj'. With " a 
body of Noblesse more ignorant, greedier, 
more insolent than any I have ever seen," the 
Swallower of Formulas was like to have rough 
work. We must give his celebrated Hinging 
up of the handful of dust, when they drove 
him out by overwhelming majority: — 

"What have I done that was/so criminal^ 
I have wished that my Order were wise enough 
to give to-day what will infallibly be wrested 
from it to-morrow; that it should receive the 
merits and glory of sanctioning the assemblage 
of the Three Orders, which all Provence loudly 
demands. This is the crime of your ' enemy 
of peace!' Or rather I have ventured to be- 
lieve that the people might be in the right. 
Ah, doubtless, a patrician soiled with such a 
thought deserves vengeance ! But I am still 
guiltier than you think ; for it is my belief that 
the people which complains is always in the 
right; that its indefatigable patience invariably 
waits the uttermost excesses of oppression, 
before it can determine on resisting; that it 
never resists long enough to obtain complete 
redress ; and does not sufliciently know that to 
strike its enemies into terror and submission, 
it has only to stand still, that the most inno- 
cent as the most invincible of all powers is 



502 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



the power of refusing to do. I believe after 
this manner: punish the enemy of peace ! 

" But you, ministers of a God of peace, who 
are ordained to bless and not to curse, and yet 
have launched your anathema on me, without 
even the attempt at enlightening me, at rea- 
soning with me! And you, 'friends of peace,' 
who denounce to the people, with all vehe- 
mence of hatred, the one defender it has yet 
found, out of its own ranks; — who, to bring 
about concord, are filling capital and province 
with placards calculated to arm the rural dis- 
tricts against the towns, if your deeds did not 
refute your writings; — who, to prepare ways 
of conciliation, protest against the royal Re- 
gulation for convoking the States-General, 
because it grants the people as many deputies 
as both the other orders, and against all that 
the coming National Assembly shall do, unless 
its laws secure the triumph of your preten- 
sions, the eternity of your privileges ! Disin- 
terested ' friends of peace !' I have appealed 
to your honour, and summon you to state what 
expressions of mine have offended against 
either the respect we owe to the royal authority 
or to the nation's right? Nobles of Provence, 
Europe is attentive; weigh well your answer. 
Men of God, beware ; God hears you ! 

" And if you do not answer, but keep silence, 
shutting yourselves up in the vague declama- 
tions you have hurled at me, then allow me to 
add one word. 

"In all countries, in all times, aristocrats 
have implacably persecuted the people's 
friends ; and if, by some singular combination 
of fortune, there chanced to arise such a one 
in their own circle, it waS' he above all whom 
they struck at, eager to inspire wider terror by 
the elevation of their victim. Thus perished 
the last of the Gracchi by the hands of the 
patricians; but, being struck with the mortal 
stab, he flung dust towards Heaven, and called 
on the Avenging Deities ; and from this dust 
sprang Marius, — Marius not so illustrious for 
exterminating the Cirnbri as for overturning 
in Rome the tyranny of the Noblesse!" 

There goes some foolish story of Mirabeau 
having now opened a cloth-shop in Marseilles, 
to ingratiate himself with the Third Estate ; 
whereat we have often laughed. The image 
of Mirabeau measuring out drapery to man- 
kind, and deftly snipping at tailors' measures, 
has something pleasant for the mind. So, that 
though there is not a shadow of truth in this 
story, the very lie may justly sustain itself for 
a while, in the character of lie. Far other- 
wise was the reality there : "voluntary guard 
of a hundred men ;" Provence crowding by 
the ten thousand round his chariot wheels ; 
explosions of rejoicing musketry, heaven- 
rending acclamation ; " people paying two 
louis for a place at the window !" Hunger 
itself (very considerable in those days) he 
can pacify by speech. Violent meal mobs 
at Marseilles and at Aix, unmanageable by 
fire-arms and governors, he smooths down 
by the word of his mouth ; the governor soli- 
citing him, though unloved. It is as a Roman 
Triumph, and more. He is chosen deputy for 
two places ; has to decline Marseilles, and 
honour Aix. Let his enemies look and won- 



der, and sigh forgotten by him. For this Mira- 
beau too the career at last opens. 

At last! Does not the benevolent Reader, 
though never so unambitious, sympathize a 
little with this poor brother mortal in such a 
case 1 Victory is always joyful ; but to think 
of such a man, in the hour when, after twelve 
Hercules' Labours, he does finally triumph ! 
So long he fought with the many-headed coil 
of Lernean serpents; and, panting, wrestled 
and wrang with it for life or death, — forty long 
stern years; and now he has it under his 
heel ! The mountain tops are scaled, are 
scaled ; where the man climbed, on sharp 
flinty precipices, slipperv, abysmal; in dark- 
ness, seen by no kind eye, — amid the brood 
of dragons ; and the heart, many times, was 
like to fail within him, in his loneliness, in his 
extreme need : yet he climbed, and climbed, 
glueing his footsteps in his blood; and now, 
behold, Hyperion-like he has scaled it, and on 
the summit shakes his glittering shafts of war ! 
W^hat a scene and new kingdom for him: all 
bathed in auroral radiance of Hope ; far- 
stretching, solemn, joyful : what wild Mem- 
non's music, from the ilepths of Nature, comes 
toning through the soul raised suddenly out 
of strangling death into victory and hfe! The 
ver}' bystander, we think, might weep, with 
this Mirabeau, tears of joy. 

Which, alas, will become tears of sorrow ! 
For know, O Son of Adam, (and Son of Lu- 
cifer, with that accursed ambition of thine,) 
that they are all a delusion and piece of de- 
monic necromancy, these same auroral splen- 
dours, enchantments and Memnon's tones ! 
The thing thou as mortal wantest is equili- 
brium, (tthat is called rest or peace:) which, 
God knows, thou wilt never get so. Happy 
they that find it without such searching. But 
in some twenty-three months more, of blazing 
solar splendour and conflagration, this Mira- 
beau will be ashes ; and lie opaque, in the 
Pantheon of great men (or say, French-Pan- 
theon of considerable, or even of considered, 
and small-noisy men,) — at rest nowhere, save 
on the lap of his mother earth. There are to 
whom the gods, in their bounty, give glory: 
but far oftener it is given in wrath, as a curse 
and a poison; disturbing the whole inner 
health and industry of the man ; leading on- 
ward through dizzy staggerings and tarantula 
jiggings, — towards no saint's shrine. Truly, 
if Death did not intervene ; or still more hap- 
pily, if Life and the Public were not a block- 
head, and sudden unreasonable oblivion were 
not to follow that sudden unreasonable glory, 
and beneficently, though most painfully, damp 
it down, — one sees not where many a poor 
glorious man, still more many a poor glorious 
woman, (for it falls harder on the distin- 
guished-female,) could terminate, — far short 
of Bedlam. 

On the 4th day of May, 1789, Madame de 
Stacl, looking from a window in the main 
street of Versailles, amid an assembled world, 
as the Deputies walked in procession from the 
church of Notre-Dame to that of Saint Louis, 
to hear High Mass, and be constituted Slater- 
Genera!, saw this: "Among these Nobles who- 



MEMOIRS OF MIRABEAU. 



5oa 



had been deputed to the Third Estate, above 
all others, the Comte de Mirabeau. The opi- 
nion men had of his genius was singularly 
augmented by the fear entertained of his im- 
morality; and yet it was this very immorality 
which straitened the influence his astonishing 
faculties were to secure him. You could not 
but look long at this man, when once you had 
noticed him : his immense black head of hair 
distinguished him among them ail ; you would 
have said his force depended on it, like that 
of Samson : his face borrowed new expression 
from its very ugliness; his whole person gave 
you the idea of an irregular power, but a 
power such as you would figure in a Tribune 
of the People." Mirabeau's history through 
the first twenty-three m-onths of the Revolution 
falls not to be written here: yet it is well 
worth writing somewhere. The Constituent 
Assembly, when his name was first read out, 
received it with murmurs; not knowing what 
they murmured at ! This honourable member 
they were murmuring over was the member 
of all members; the august Constituent, with- 
out him, were no Constituent at all. Very 
notable, truly, is his procedure in this section 
of world-history : by far the notablest single 
element there : none like to him, or second to 
him. Once he is seen visibly to have saved, 
as with his own force, the existence of the 
Constituent Assembly; to have turned the 
whole tide of things: in one of those moments 
which are cardinal ; decisive for centuries. 
The royal Declaration of the Twenty-lhird of 
June is promulgated : there is military force 
enough ; there is then the king's express order 
to disperse, to meet as separate Third Estate 
on the morrow. Bastilles and scaffolds may 
be the penalty for disobeying. Mirabeau dis- 
obeys ; lifts his voice to encourage others, all 
pallid, panic-stricken, to disobey. Supreme 
Usher De Breze enters, with the king's re- 
newed order to depart. "Messieurs," said De 
Breze, "you heard the king's order?" The 
Swallower of Formulas bellows out these 
words, that have become memorable: "Yes, 
Monsieur, we heard what the king was advised 
to say; and you, who cannot be interpreter of 
his meaning to the States-Genera! ; you, who 
have neither vote nor seat, nor right of speech 
here, you are not the man to remind us of it. 
Go, Monsieur, tell those who sent you that we 
are here by will of the Nation ; and that no- 
thing but the force of bayonets can drive us 
hence !" And poor De Breze vanishes, — 
back foremost, the Fits Jlclopt if says. 

But this, cardinal moment though it be, is 
perhaps intrinsically among his smaller feats. 
In general, we would say once more with em- 
phasis, He has " hu?iie toutcs les formules." He 
goes through the Revolution like a substance 
and a force, not like a formula of one. While 
innumerable barren Sieyeses and Constitution- 
pedants are building, with such hammering 
and troweling, their august paper constitution, 
(which endured eleven months,) this man 
looks not at cobwebs and Sodal-('o7iii-acts, but 
at things and men; discerning what is to be 
done, — proceeding straight to do it. He shi- 
vers out Usher De Breze, back foremost, when 
that is the problem. "Marie Antoinette is 



charmed with him," when it comes to that.. 
He is the man of the Revolution, while he 
lives; king of it; and only with life, as we 
compute, would have quilted his kingship of 
it. Alone of all these Twelve Hundred, there 
is in him the faculty of a king. For, indeed, 
have we not seen how assiduously Destiny 
had shaped him all along, as with an express 
eye to the work now in hand 1 O crabbed old 
Frietid of Men, whilst thou wert bolting this 
man into Isles of Rhe, Castles of If, and train- 
ing him so sharply to be thi/se\f, not /«»(self,— 
how little knewest thou what thou wert doing! 
Let us add, that the brave old Marquis lived 
to see his son's victory over Fate and men,, 
and rejoiced in it ; and rebuked Barrel Mira- 
beau for controverting such a Brother Gabriel. 
In the invalid chimney-nook at Argenteuil, 
near Paris, he sat raying out curious observ^a- 
tions to the last ; and died three days before 
the Bastille fell, precisely when the CulbuU 
Gcnerale was bursting out. 

But finally, the twenty-three allotted months 
are over. Madame de Stael,on the 4th of May, 
1789, saw the Roman Tribune of the People, 
and Samson with his long black hair: and on 
the 4th of April, 1791, there is a Funeral Pro- 
cession extending four miles: king's ministers, 
senators, national guards, and all Paris, — 
torchlight, wail of trombones and music, and 
the tears of men ; mourning of a whole people, 
— such mourning as no modern people ever 
saw for one man. This Mirabeau's work then 
is done. He sleeps with the primeval giants. 
He has gone over to the majority: Miit aa 
plures. 

In the way of eulogy and dyslogy, and sum- 
ming up of character, there many doubtless be 
a great many things set forth concerning this 
Mirabeau; as already there has been much 
discussion and arguing about him, belter and 
worse : which is proper surely ; as about all 
manner of new things, were they much less 
questionable than this new giant is. The pre- 
sent reviewer, meanwhile, finds it suitabler to 
restrict himself and his exhausted readers to 
the three following moral reflections. 

Moral reflection/rs(, — that, in these centuries 
men are not born demi-gods and perfect cha- 
racters, but imperfect ones, and mere blamable 
men, namely, environed with such short-com- 
ing and confusion of their own, and then with 
such adscitilious scandal and misjudgment, 
(got in the work they did,) that they resemble 
less demi-gods than a sort of god-devils, — very 
imperfect characters indeed. The demi-god 
arrangement were the one which, at first sight, 
this reviewer might be inclined to prefer. 

Moral reflection second, — however, that pro- 
bably men were never born demi-gods in an}'' 
century, but precisely god-devils as we see; 
certain of whom do become a kind of demi- 
gods ! How many are the men, not censured, 
misjudged, calumniated only, but tortured, 
crucified, hung on gibbets, — not as god-devils 
even, but as devils proper ; who have never- 
theless grown to seem respectable, or infinitely 
respectable! For the thing which was not 
they, which was not any thing, has fallen away 
piecemeal; and become avowedly babble and 



504 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



confusedshadow, and no-thing: the thing, which 
was they, remains. Depend on it, Harmodius 
and Aristogiton, as clear as they now look, 
liad illegal plottings, conclaves at the Jacobins' 
Church (of Athens) ; and very intemperate 
things were spoken, and also done. Thus too, 
Marcus Brutus and the elder Junius, are they 
not palpable Heroes 7 Their praise is in all 
Debating Societies ; but didst thou read what 
the Morning Papers said of those transactions 
of theirs, the week after 1 Nay, Old Noll, 
whose bones were dug up and hung in chains, 
here at home, as the just emblem of himself 
and his deserts, (the oflTal of Creation, at that 
time,) has not he too got to be a very respect- 



able grim bronze-figure, though it is yet only 
a century and half since; of whom England 
seems proud rather than otherwise 1 

Moral reflection tliird, and last, — that neither 
thou nor we, good Reader, had any hand in 
the making of this Mirabeau ; — else who knows 
but we had objected, in our wisdom 1 But it 
was the Upper Powers that made him, without 
once consultmg us; they and not we, so and 
not otherwise ! To endeavour to understand 
a little what manner of Mirabeau he, so made, 
might be: this we, according to opportunity, 
have done; and therefore do now, with a lively 
satisfaction, take farewell of him, and leav« 
him to fare as he can. 



PAHLIAMENTAM HISTOHY OF THE FRENCH 
REVOLUTION.* 

[London and Westminster Review, 1837.] 



It appears to be, if not stated in words, yet 
tacitly felt and understood everywhere, that 
the event of these modern ages is the French 
Revolution. A huge explosion bursting through 
all formulas and customs ; confounding into 
wreck and chaos the ordered arrangements of 
earthly life; blotting out, one may say, the 
very firmament and skyey load-stars, — though 
only for a season. Once in tlie fifteen hundred 
years such a thing was ordained to come. To 
those who stood present in the actual midst 
of that smoke and thunder, the efi'ect might 
well be too violent: blinding and deafening, 
into confused exasperation, almost into mad- 
ness. These on-lookers have played their part, 
were it with the printing-press or with the 
battle-cannon, and are departed : their work, 
such as it was, remaining behind them; — 
where the French Revolution also remains. 
And now, for us who have receded to the dis- 
tance of some half-century, the explosion be- 
comes a thing visible, surveyable: we see its 
flame and sulphur-smoke blend with the clear 
air, (far under the stars ;) and hear its uproar 
as part of the sick noise of life, — loud indeed, 
yet imbosomed too, as all noise is, in the in- 
finite of silence. It is an event which can be 
looked on ; which may still be execrated, still 

* Histoire Parlevientaire de la Revolution Frangaise, ou 
Journal des Jlssemblees JVationales depuis 1789 jusqu'en 
1815 ; contenant la M'arration des Eveneme-ns, les Debats, 
S^c. S^c. (Parliamentary History of the French Revo- 
lution, or Journal of the National Assemblies from 1789 
to 1815: containing a Narrative of the Occurrences; 
Debates of the Assemblies; Discussions in the chief 
Popular Societies, especially in that of the Jacobins ; 
Records of the Commune of Paris ; Sessions of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal ; Reports of the leading Politi- 
cal Trials ; Detail of the Annual Budgets ; Picture of 
the Moral Movement, extracted from the Newspapers, 
Pamphlets, &c., of each Period ; preceded by an In- 
troduction on the History of France till the Convocation 
of the Slates-General.) By P. J. B. Buchez and P. C. 
Roux. (Tomes 1"— 23rae et seq.— Pans, 1833—1836.) 



be celebrated and psalmodied ; but which.it 
were better now to begin understanding. 
Really there are innumerable reasons why we 
ought to know this same French Revolution as 
it was : of which reasons (apart altogether 
from that of "Philosophy teaching by Experi- 
ence," and so forth) is there not the best sum- 
mary in this one reason, that we so uiah to 
know itl Considering the qualities of the 
matter, one may perhaps reasonably feel that 
since the time of the Crusades, or earlier, there 
is no chapter of history so well worth study- 
ing. 

Stated or not, Ave say, this persuasion is 
tacitly admitted, and acted upon. In these 
days everywhere you find it one of the most 
pressing duties for the writing guild, to pro- 
duce history on history of the French Revolu- 
tion. In France it would almost seem as if 
the young author felt that he must make this 
his proof-shot, and evidence of craftsmanship: 
accordingly they do fire off Histoires, Preds of 
Histoires, jnnales, Pastes, (to say nothing of 
Historical Novels, Gil Blasses, Dantons, Bar- 
naves, Grangeneuves,) in rapid succession, with 
or without efl^ect. At all events it is curious 
to look upon : curious to contrast the picturing 
of the same fact by the men of this generation 
and position with the picturing of it by the 
men of the last. From Barruel and Fantin 
Desodoards to Thiers and Mignet there is a 
distance ! Each individual takes up the Phe- 
nomenon according to his own point of vision, 
to the structure of his optic organs ; — gives, 
consciously, some poor crotchetty picture of 
several things; unconsciously some picture 
of himself at least. And the Phenomenon, for 
its part, subsists there, all the while, unal- 
tered; waiting to be pictured as often as you 
like, its entire meaning not to be compressed 
into any picture drawn by man. 



HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



505 



Thiers's History, in ten volumes foolscap- 
octavo, contains, if we remember rightly, one 
reference ; and that to a book, not the page or 
chapter of a book. It has, for these last seven 
or eight years, a wide or even high reputa- 
tion ; which latter it is as far as possible from 
meriting. A superficial air of order, of clear- 
ness, calm candour, is spread over the work ; 
but inwardly, it is waste, inorganic: no human 
head that honestly tries can conceive the 
French Revolution so. A critic of our ac- 
quaintance undertook, by way of bet, to find 
four errors per hour in Thiers : he won amply 
on the first trial or two.* And yet, readers 
(we must add) taking all this along with them, 
may peruse Thiers with comfort in certain 
circumstances, nay, even with profit; for he 
is a brisk man of his sort ; and does tell you 
much, if you knew nothing. 

Mignet's, again, is a much more honestly 
written book; yet also an eminently unsatis- 
factory one. His two volumes contain far 
more meditation and investigation in them 
than Thiers's ten: their degree of preferability 
therefore is very high ; for it has been said, 
" Call a book difll'use, and you call it in all 
senses bad; the writer could not find the right 
word to say, and so said many more or less 
wrong ones; did not hit the nail on the head, 
only smote and bungled about it and about it." 
Mignet's book has a compactness, a rigour, as 
if rivetted with iron rods : this also is an image 
of what symmetry it has; — symmetry, if not 
of a living earth-born Tree, yet of a firm well- 
manufactured Gridiron. Without life, with- 
out colour or verdure : that is to say, Mignet's 
genius is heartily prosaic ; you are too happy 
that he is not a quack as well ! It is very mor- 
tifying also to study his philosophical reflec- 
tions: how he jingles and rumbles a quantity 
of mere abstractions and dead logical formu- 
las, and calls it Thinking; — rumbles and rum- 
bles, till he judges there may be enough ; then 
begins again narrating. As thus: — 

"The Constitution of 1791 was made on 
such principles as had resulted from the ideas 
and the situation of France. It was the work 
of the middle class, which chanced to be the 
strongest then; for, as is well known, what- 
ever force has the lead will fashion the insti- 
tutions according to its own aims. Now this 
force, when it belongs to one, is despotism ; 
when to several, it is privilege; when to all, it 
is right: which latter state is the ultimatum of 
society, as it was its beginning. France had 
finally arrived thither, after passing through 
feudalism, which is the aristocratic institu- 
tion ; and then through absolutism, which is 
the monarchic one. 

"The work of the Constituent Assembly 
perished not so much by its own defects as by 
the assaults of factions. Standing between 
the aristocracy and the multitude, it was at- 
tacked by the former, and stormed and won 

* " 'Notables consented with eagerness,' (Vol. I., p. 
10;) whereas they properly did not consent at all; 
'Parliament recalled on the lOth of September,' (for the 
15th ;) and then ' Seance Royale took place on the 20th 
of the same month, (19th of quite a different month, not 
the same, nor next to the same;) 'D'Esprenienil, a 
young Counsellor' (of forty and odd ;) ' Duport, a young 
man.' (turned of sixty,) &c., &c. 
64 



by the latter. The multitude would never 
have become supreme, had not civil war and 
the coalition of foreign states rendered its in- 
tervention and help indispensable. To defend 
the country the multitude required to have the 
governing of it: thereupon (alois) it made its 
revolution, as the middle class had made its. 
The multitude too had its Fourteenth of July, 
which was the Tenth of Jlugust ; its Constitu- 
ent, which was the Convention ; its Govern- 
ment, which was the Committee of Sdlut Pub- 
lic : but, as we shall see," &c. (Chap, iv., 
vol. I., p. 271.) 

Or thus ; for there is the like at the end of 
every chapter; — 

" But royalty had virtually fallen, on the 
Tenth of August; that day was the insurrec- 
tion of the multitude against the middle class 
and constitutional throne, as the Fourteenth 
of July had been the insurrection of the mid- 
dle classes against the privileged classes and 
an absolute throne. The Tenth of August 
witnessed the commencement of the dictato- 
rial and arbitrary epoch of the Revolution. 
Circumstances becoming more and more diffi- 
cult, there arose a vast war, which required 
increased energy; and this energy, unregu- 
lated, inasmuch as it was popular, rendered 
the sway of the lower class an unquiet, oppres- 
sive, and cruel sway." "It was not any way 
possible that the Bourgeoisie, (middle class,) 
which had been strong enough to strike down 
the old government and the privileged classes, 
but which had taken to repose after this vic- 
tory, could repulse the Emigration and united 
Europe. There was needed for that a new 
shock, a new faith ; there was needed for that 
a new Class, numerous, ardent, not yet fa- 
tigued, and which loved its Tenth of August, 
as the Burgherhood loved its Fourteenth of," 
&c., &c. (Ch. v., vol. I., p. 371.) 

So uncommonly lively are these Abstractions 
(at bottom only occurrences, similitudes, days 
of the months, and such like) as rumble here 
in the historical head ! Abstractions really 
of the most lively, insurrectionary character; 
nay, which produce oflTspring, and indeed are 
oftenest parricidally devoured thereby: such 
is the jingling and rumbling which calls itself 
Thinking. Nearly so, though with greater 
effect, might algebraical x's go rumbling in 
some Pascal's or Babbage's mill. Just so, in- 
deed, do the Kalmuck people pray: quantities 
of written prayers are put in some rotary pip- 
kin or calabash, (hung on a tree, or going like 
the small barrel-churn of agricultural dis- 
tricts;) this the devotee has only to whiri and 
churn; so long as he whirls, it is prayer; 
when he ceases whiriing, the prayer is done. 
Alas! this is a sore error, very generally, 
among French thinkers of the present time. 
One o\ight to add that Mignet takes his place 
at the head of that brotherhood of his ; that his 
little bonk, though abounding too in errors of 
detail, better deserves what place it has than 
any other of recent date. 

The older Desodoards, Barruels, Lacretelles, 

and such like, exist, but will hardly profit 

much. Toulongeou, a man of talent and in 

tegrity, is very vague; often incorrect for aa 

'eyewitness: his military details used to be 

au 



606 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



reckoned valuable; but, we suppose, Jomini 
has eclipsed them now. The Abbe Mont- 
gaillard has shrewdness, decision, insight; 
abounds in anecdotes, strange facts and re- 
ports of facts : his book, being written in the 
form of Annals, is convenient for consulting. 
For the rest, he is acrid, exaggerated, occa- 
sional!)' altogether perverse ; and, with his 
hastes and his hatreds, falls into the strangest 
hallucination ; — as, for example, when he 
coolly records that "Madame de Siael, Neck- 
er's daughter, was seen (on vit) distributing 
brandy to the Gardes FravgaisKs in their bar- 
racks ;" that D'Orleans Egalite had " a pair of 
»nan-skin breeches," — leather breeches, of 
human skin, such as they did prepare in the 
tannery of Meudon, but ioo late for D'Orleans. 
The history by Deux Ar.ds de Liberie (if the 
reader secure the original edition) is, perhaps, 
worth all the others, and offers (at least till 
1792, after which it becomes convulsive, semi- 
fatuous, in the remaining dozen volumes) the 
best, correctest, most picturesque narrative 
yet published. It is very correct, very pic- 
turesque; wants on\Y fore-shortening, shadow, 
and compression; a work of decided merit: 
the authors of it, what is singular, appear not 
to be known. 

Finally, our English histories do likewise 
abound: copious if not in facts, yet in reflec- 
tions on facts. They will prove to the most 
incredulous that this French Revolution was, 
as Chamfort said, no "rose-water Revolu- 
tion ;" that the universal insurrectionary ab- 
rogation of law and custom was managed in a 
most unlawful, uncustomary manner. He who 
wishes to know how a solid Gustos rohdorum, 
speculating over his port after dinner, inter- 
prets the phenomena of contemporary univer- 
sal history, may look in these books : he who 
does not wish that, need not look. 

On the whole, after all these writings and 
printings, the weight of which would sink an 
Indiaman, there are, perhaps, only some three 
publications hitherto that can be considered 
as forwarding essentially a right knowledge 
of this matter. The first of these is the 
" Analyse du Moniteur," (complete expository 
Index, and Syllabus of the Moniteur news- 
paper from 1789 to 1799;) a work carrying 
its significance in its title; — provided it be 
faithfully executed; which it is well known to 
be. Along with this we may mention the 
series of portraits, a hundred in number, pub- 
lished with the original edition of it: many 
of them understood to be accurate likenesses. 
The natural face of a man is often worth more 
than several biographies of him, as biogra- 
phies are written. These hundred portraits 
have been copied into a book called " Scenes 
de la Revolution," (which contains other pic- 
tures, of small value, and some not useless 
■writing by Chamfort;) and are often to be 
found in libraries. A republication of Vernet's 
Caricatures* would be a most acceptable ser- 
vice, but has not been thought of hitherto. 
The second work to be counted here is the 
"Choix des Rapports, Opinions, et Discours," 
in some twenty volumes, with an excellent 

♦ See Mercier's Nouveau Paris, vol. iv. p. 254. 



index : parliamentary speeches, reports, &c., 
are furnished in abundance ; complete, illus- 
tration of all that this Senatorial province 
(rather a wearisome one) can illustrate. 
Thirdly, we have to name the " Collection of 
Memoirs," completed several years ago, in 
above a hundred volumes. Booksellers Bau- 
douin. Editors Berville and Barriere, have 
done their utmost ; adding notes, explanations, 
rectifications, with portraits also if you like : 
Louvet, RioufTe, and the two volumes of " Me- 
moirs on the Prisons" are the most attractive 
pieces. This Baudouin Collection, therefore, 
joins itself to thatofPetitot, as a natural sequel. 
And now a fourth work, which follows in 
the train of these, and deserves to be reckoned 
along with them, is this " Histoire Parle- 
mentaire" of Messieurs Buchez and Roux. 
The authors are men of ability and repute : 
Buchez, if we mistake not, is Dr. Buchez, and 
practises medicine with acceptance; Roux is 
known as an essayist and journalist: they 
once listened a little to Saint Simon, but it 
was before Saint Simonism called itself " a 
religion," and vanished in Bedlam. We have 
understood there is a certain bibliomaniac 
military gentleman in Paris, who in the course 
of years has amassed the most astonishing 
collection of revolutionary ware : books, pam- 
phlets, newspapers, even sheets and handbills, 
ephemeral printings and paintings, such as 
the day brought them forth, lie there without 
end.* Into this warehouse (as into all man- 
ner of other repositories) Mes'^rs. Buchez 
and Roux have happily found access: the 
" Histoire Parlementaire" is the fruit of their 
labours there. A number (two forming a 
volume) is published every fortnight: we 
have the first twenty-two volumes before us, 
Avhich bring down the narrative to January, 
1793; there must be several other volumes 
out, which we have not yet seen. Conceive 
a judicious compilation with such resources. 
Parliamentary Debates, in summary, or (where 
the occasion warrants it) given at large; this 
is by no means the most interesting part of 
the matter • we have excerpts, notices, hints 
of all imaginaole sorts ; of newspapers, of 
pamphlets, of Sectionary and Municipal re- 
cords, of the Jacobins' club, of placard-jour- 
nals, nay, of placards and caricatures. No 
livelier emblem of the time, in its actual move- 
ment and tumult, could be presented. The 
editors connect these fragments by expositions 
such as are needful; so that a reader coming 
unprepared to the work can still know what 
he is about. Their expositions, as we can 
testify, are handsomely done: but altogether 
apart from these, the excerpts themselves are 
the valuable thing. The scissors, in such a 



*It is generally known that a similar collection, per- 
haps still larger and more curious, lies (huried) in the 
British Museum here — inaccessible for want of a proper 
catalogue. Some eighteen months ago, the respectable 
sub-librarian seemed to be working at such a thing : by 
respectful application to him, you could gain access to 
his room, and have the satisfaction of mounting on lad- 
ders, and reading the outside titles of his books, which 
was a great help. Otherwise you could not in many 
weeks ascertain so much as the table of contents of 
this repository ; and, after days of weary wailing, dusty 
rummaging, and sickness of hope deferred, gave up thfr 
enterprise as a "game not worth the candle." 



HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, 



507 



case, are independent of the pen. One of the 
most interesting English biographies we have 
is that long thin folio on Oliver Cromwell, 
published some five-and-twenty years ago, 
where the editor has merely dipt out from the 
contemporary newspapers -whatsoever article, 
paragraph, or sentence he found to contain the 
name of Old Noll, and printed them in the 
order of their dates. It is surprising that the 
like has not been attempted in other cases. 
Had seven of the eight translators of Faust, 
and seventy times seven of the four hundred 
four-score and ten Imaginative Authors, but 
thrown down the writing instrument, and 
turned to the old newspaper files judiciously 
with the cutting one ! 

We can testify, after not a little examina- 
tion, that the editors of the " Histoire Parle- 
mentaire" are men of fidelity, of diligence ; 
that their accuracy in regard to facts, dates, 
and so forth, is far beyond the average. Of 
course they have their own opinions, prepos- 
sessions even : but these are honest prepos- 
sessions, which they do not hide ; which one 
can estimate the force of, allow for the result 
of. Wilful falsification, did the possibility of 
it lie in their character, is otherwise out of 
the question. But, indeed, our editors are 
men of earnestness, of strict principle; of a 
faith, were it only in the republican Tricolor. 
Their democratic faith, truly, is palpable, 
thorough-going ; as it has a right to be, in 
these days, since it likes. The thing you have 
to praise, however, is that it is a quiet faith, 
never an hysterical one; never expresses it- 
self otherwise than with a becoming calm- 
ness, especially with a becoming brevity. 
The hoarse deep croak of Marat, the brilliant 
sharp-cutting gayety of Desmoulins, the dull 
bluster of Prudhomme, the cackling garrulity 
of Brissot, all is welcomed with a cold gravity 
and brevity ; all is illustrative, if not of one 
thing then of another. Nor are the Royalists 
Royous, Suleaus, Peltiers, forgotten ; " Acts of 
the Apostles," "King's Friend," nor "Crow- 
ing of the Cock :" these, indeed, are more 
sparingly administered; but at the right time, 
as is promised, we shall have more. In a 
word, it may be said of this "Histoire Parle- 
mentaire," that the wide promise held out in 
its title page is really, in some respectable 
measure, fulfilled. With a fit index to wind 
it up, (which index ought to be not good only 
but excellent, so much depends on it here.) 
this work bids fair to be one of the most im- 
portant yet published on the History of the 
Revolution. No library, that professes to have 
a collection in this sort, can dispense with it. 

A " Histoire Parlementaire" is precisely the 
house, or say, rather, the unbuilt city, of which 
the single brick can form a specimen. In so 
rich a variety the only difficulty is where 
to choose. We have scenes of tragedy, of 
comedy, of farce, of farce-tragedy, oftenest of 
all; there is eloquence, gravity; there is blus- 
ter, bombast, and absurdity: scenes tender, 
scenes barbarous, spirit-stirring, and then 
flatly wearisome: a thing waste, incoherent, 
■wild to look upon; but great with the great- 
ness of reality; for the thing exhibited is no 
vision but a fact. Let us, as the first excerpt, 



give this tragedy of old Foulon, which all the 
world has heard of, perhaps not very accu- 
rately. Foulon's life-drama, with its hasty 
cruel sayings and mean doings, with its 
thousandfold intrigues, and " the people eating 
grass if they like," ends in this miserable man- 
ner. It is the editors themselves who speak ; 
compiling from various resources : — 

" Towards five in the morning, (Paris, 22d 
July, 1789,) M. Foulon was brought in ; he had 
been arrested at Vitry, near Fountainbleau, by 
the peasants of the place. Doubtless this man 
thought himself very guilty towards the people," 
(say, very hateful ;) " for he had spread abroad 
a report of his death ; and had even buried one 
of his servants, who happened to die then, 
under his own name. He had afterwards hid- 
den himself in an estate of M. de Sartines ;'" 
where he was detected and seized. 

" M. Foulon was taken to the Hotel de Ville, 
where they made him wait. Towards nine 
o'clock the assembled Committee had decided 
that he should be sent to the Abbaye prison. 
M. de Lafayette was sent for, that he might 
execute this order; he was abroad over the 
Districts : he could not be found. During 
this time a crowd collected in the square ; and 
required to see Foulon. It was noon : M. 
Bailly came down ; the people listened to him ; 
but still persisted. In the end they penetrated 
into the great hall of the Hotel de Ville ; would 
see Foulon, * whom,' say, they, ' you are want- 
ing to smuggle off from justice.' Foulon was 
presented to them. Then began this remarka- 
ble dialogue. M. de la Poize, an Elector: — 
' Messieurs, every guilty person should be 
judged.' 'Yes, judged directly, and then 
hanged.' M. Osselin : — 'To judge, one must 
have judges ; let us send M. Foulon to the 
tribunals.' ' No, no,' replied the people, 'judge 
him just now.' 'Since you will not have the 
common judges,' said M. Osselin, 'it is indis- 
pensable to appoint othei's.' 'Well, judge 
him yourselves.' 'We have no right either 
to judge or to create judges; name them your- 
selves.' ' Well,' cried the people, 'M. le Cure 
of Saint Etienne then, and M. le Cure of 
Saint-Andre.' Osselin : — ' Two judges are not 
enough ; there needs seven.' Thereupon the 
people named Messrs. Quatremere, Varangue, 
&c. ' Here are seven judges indeed,' said Os- 
selin, 'but we still want a clerk.' 'Be you 
clerk.' 'A king's Attorney.' 'Let it be M. 
Duveyrier.' ' Of what crime is M. Foulon ac- 
cused ]' asked Duveyrier. ' He wished to 
harass the people ; he said he would make 
them eat grass; he was in the plot; he was 
for national bankruptcy; he bought up corn.' 
The two curates then rose, and declared that 
they refused to judge ; the laws of the church not 
permitting them. 'They are right,' said some;. 
' they are cozening us,' said others, 'and the 
prisoner all the while is making his escape.' At 
these words there rose a frightful tumult in the 
Hall. ' Messieurs,' said an Elector, 'name four 
of yourselves to guard him.' Four men accord- 
ingly were chosen ; sent into the neighbouiing 
apartment, where Foulon was. 'But will yoU' 
judge then?' cried the crowd. 'Messieurs, 
you see there are two judges wanting.' 'We 
name M. Bailly and M. Lafayette.' 'But ML- 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Lafayette is absent ; one must either wait for 
him, or name some other.' ' Well, then, name 
directly, and do it yourself.' 

" At length the Electors agreed to proceed to 
judgment ; Foulon was again brought in. The 
foremost part of the crowd joined hands, and 
formed a chain several ranks deep, in the mid- 
dle of which he was received. At this moment 
M. Lafayette came in ; went and took his place 
at the board among the electors, and then ad- 
dressed to the people a discourse, of which the 
^mi du Roi and the Records of the Town-hall, 
the two authorities we borrow from here, give 
different reports." 

Lafayette's speech, according to both ver- 
sions, is to the effect that Foulon is guilt)': but 
that he doubtless has accomplices ; that he 
must be taken to the Abbaye prison, and in- 
Testigated there. " Yes, yes, to prison ! Off 
with him, off!" cried the crowd. The Deux 
Amis add another not insignificant circum- 
stance, that poor Foulon himself, hearing this 
conclusion of Lafayette's, clapped hands ; 
whereupon the crowd said, " See ! they are 
both in a story !" Our editors continue and 
conclude : — 

"At this moment there rose a great clamour 
in the square. ' It is the Palais Royal coming,' 
said one; 'It is the Faubourg Saint Antoine,' 
said another. Then a well dressed person 
{homme bien mis) advanced towards the board, 
and said, ' Vouz vous moquez : what is the use of 
judging a man who has been judged these thirty 
years?' At this word, Foulon was clutched; 
hurled out to the square; and finally tied to the 
fatal rope, which hung from the Lanlcme at the 
corner of the Rue de la Vannerie. The rope 
was afterwards cut; the 'head was put on a 
pike, and paraded," — with " grass" in the mouth 
of it, they might have added ! — Vol. ii. p. 148. 

From the " Revolution de Fiance et de 
Brabant," Camille Desmoulin's newspaper 
furnishes numerous extracts, in the earlier 
volumes; always of a remarkable kind. This 
Procureur General de la Lanterne has a place of 
his own in the history of the Revolution ; 
there are not many notabler persons in it than 
he. A light, harmless creature, as he says of 
himself; " a man born to write verses," but 
whom destiny had directed to overthrow bas- 
tilles, and go to the guillotine for doing that. 
How such a man will comport himself in a 
French Revolution, as he from time to time 
turns up there, is worth seeing. Of loose, head- 
long character; a man stuttering in speech; 
stuttering, infirm, in conduct too, till one huge 
idea laid hold of him : a man for whom art, 
fortune, or himself, would never do much, but 
to whom Nature had been very kind ! One 
meets him always with a sort of forgiveness, 
almost of underhand love, as for a prodigal 
son. He has good gifts, and even acquire- 
ments: elegant law-scholarship, quick sense, 
the freest joyful heart: a fellow of endless wit, 
clearness, soft lambent brilliancy ; on any 
subject you can listen to him, if without ap- 
proving, yet without yawning. x\s a writer, in 
fact, there is nothing French that we have 
heard of superior or equal to him for these 
fifty years. Probably some French editor, 
some day or other, will sift that journalistic 



rubbish and produce out of it, in small neat 
compass, a "Life and Remains" of this poor 
Camille. AVe pick up three light fractions, 
illustrative of him and of the things he moved 
in ; they relate to the famous Fifth of October, 
(1789,) when the women rose in insurrection 
The Palais Royal and Marquis Saint-Huruge 
have been busy on the King's veto, and Lally 
Tollendall's proposal of an upper house : — 

" Was the Palais Royal so far wrong," says 
Camille, " to cry out against such things] I 
know that the Palais Royal promenade is 
strangel)- miscellaneous; that pickpockets fre- 
querirly employ the hherly of the press there, and 
many a zealous patriot has lost his handker- 
chief in the fire of debate. But for all that I 
must bear honourable testimony to the pro- 
menaders in this Lyceum and Stoa. The 
Palais Royal garden is the focus of patriotism : 
there do the chosen patriots rendezvous, who 
have left their hearths and their provinces to 
witness this magnificent spectacle of the Re- 
volution of 1789, and not to witness without 
aiding in it. They are Frenchmen; they have 
an interest in the Constitution, and a right to 
concur in it. How many Parisians too, in- 
stead of going to their Districts, find it shorter 
to come at once to the Palais Royal. Here 
you have no need to ask a President if you 
may speak, and wait two hours till your turn 
comes. You propose your motion; if it find 
supporters, they set you on a chair: if you are 
applauded, you proceed to the redaction: if 
you are hissed, you go your ways. It is very 
much the mode the Romans followed ; their 
Forum and our Palais Royal resemble one 
another." — Vol. ii. p. 414. 

Then a few days l^urther on — the celebrated 
military dinner at Versailles, with the white 
cockades, black cockades, and " O Richard! O 
mon Roi /" having been transacted : — 

"Paris, Sunday, 4:th October. The king's wife 
had been so gratified with it, that this brotherly 
repast of Thursday must needs be repeated. It 
was so on the Saturday, and with aggrava- 
tions. Our patience was worn out: you may 
suppose whatever patriot observers there were 
at Versailles hastened to Paris with the news, 
or at least sent off despatches containing them. 
That same day (Saturday evening) all Paris 
set itself astir. It was a lady, first, who, 
seeing that her husband was not listened to at 
his District, came to the bar of the Cafe de 
Foi, to denounce the anti-national cockades. 
M. Marat flies to Versailles ; returns like 
lightning; makes a noise like the four blasts 
of doom, crying to us — Awake, ye Dead ! 
Danton, on his side, sounds the alarm in the 
Cordeliers. On Sunday this immortal Corde- 
liers' District posts its manifesto; and that 
very day they would have gone to Versailles, 
had not M. Crevecoeur, their commandant, 
stood in the way. People seek out their arms 
however; sally out to the streets in chase of 
anti-national cockades. The law of reprisals 
is in force ; these cockades are torn off, trampled 
under foot, with menace of the Lanterne in case 
of relapse. A military gentleman, picking up 
his cockade, is for fastening it on again ; a 
hundred canes start into the air, saying veto. 
The whole Sunday passes in hunting down 



HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. 



509 



the white and the black cockades; in holding 
council at the Palais Royal, over the Faubourg 
Saint Antoine, at the end of bridges, on the 
quais. At the doors of the coffee houses there 
arise free conferences between the Upper 
House, of the coats that are within, and the 
Lower House, of jackets and wool-caps, as- 
sembled extra muros. It is agreed upon that 
the audacity of the aristocrats increases ra- 
pidly ; that Madame Villepatour and the queen's 
women are distributing enormous white cock- 
ades to all comers in the CEil-de-BcEuf ; that 
M. Lecointre, having refused to take one from 
their hands, has all but been assassinated. It 
is agreed upon that we have not a moment to 
lose; that the boat which used to bring us 
fiour from Corbeil, morning and evening, now 
comes only once in two days: — do they plan 
to make their attack at the moment when they 
have kept us for eight-and-forty hours in a 
fasting state ! It is agreed upon," &c. — Vol. 
iii. p. 63. 

We hasten to the catastrophe, which arrives 
on the morrow. It is related elsewhere, in 
another leading article : — 

" At break of day the women rush towards 
the Hotel de Ville. All the way, they recruit 
fresh hands, among their own sex, to march 
with them ; as sailors are recruited at London : 
there is an active press of women. The Quai 
de la Ferraille is covered with female crimps. 
The robust kitchen-maid, the slim mantua- 
maker, all must go to swell the phalanx; the 
ancient devotee, tripping to mass in the dawn, 
sees herself for the first time carried off, and 
shrieks Itelp .' whilst more than one of the 
younger sort secretly is not so sorry at going 
without mother or mistress to Versailles to 
pay her respects to the august Assembly. At 
the same lime, for the accuracy of this narra- 
tive, I must remark that these women, at least 
the battalion of them M'hich encamped that 
night in the Assembly Hall, and had marched 
under the flag of M. Maillard, had among 
themselves a Presidentess and Staff; and that 
every woman, on being borrowed from her 
mother or husband, was presented to the Pre- 
sidentess or some of her aids-de-camp, who 
engaged to watch over her morality, and in- 
sure her honour for this day. 

'• Once arrived on the Place de Greve, these 
women piously begin letting down the Lan- 
tcrnc; as, in great calamities, you let down the 
shrine of Saint Genevieve. Next they are for 
mounting into the Hotel de Ville. The Com- 
mandant had been forewarned of this move- 
ment; he knew that all insurrections have 
begun by women, whose maternal bosom the 
bayonet of the satellites of despotism respects. 
Four thousand soldiers presented a front 
bristling with bayonets ; kept them back from 
the step: but behind these women there rose 
and grew every moment a nucleus of men, 
armed with pikes, axes, bills ; blood is about 
to flow on the place; the, presence of these 
Sabine women hindered it. The National 
Guard, which is not purely a machine, as the 
Minister of War would have the soldier be, 
makes use of its reason. It discerns that 
these women, now for Versailles, are going to 
;he root of the mischief. The four thousand 



Guards, already getting saluted with stones, 
think it reasonablest to open a passage ; and, 
like waters through a broken dike, the floods 
of the multitude inundate the Hotel de Ville. 

" It is a picture interesting to paint, and one 
of the greatest in the Revolution, this same 
army of ten thousand Judiths setting forth to 
cut off the head of Holofernes; forcing the 
Hotel de Ville; arming themselves with what- 
ever they can lay hands on ; some tying ropes 
to the cannon-trains, arresting carts, loading 
them with artillery, with powder arid balls for 
the Versailles National Guard, which is left 
without ammunition ; others driving on the 
horses, or seated on cannon, holding the re- 
doubtable match ; seeking for their generalis- 
simo, not aristocrats with epaulettes, but Con- 
querors of the Bastille!" — Vol. iii. p. 110. 

So far Camille on veto, scarcity, and the 
Insurrection of Women, in the end of 1789. 

We terminate with a scene of a very dif- 
ferent complexion, being some three years 
farther on, that is to say, in September, 1792 ! 
Feleinhcsi, (anagram for Meliee Fils,) in his 
" Verite toute enticre," a pamphlet really more 
veracious than most, thus testifies, after a good 
deal of-preambling : — 

"I was going to my post about half past 
two," (Sunday, the 2d of September, tocsins 
all ringing, and Brunswick just at hand;) "I 
was passing along the Rue Dauphine ; sud- 
denly I hear hisses. I look, I observe four 
hackney-coaches, coming in a train, escorted 
by the Federe's of the departments. 

"Each of these coaches contained four per- 
sons: they were individuals" (priests) "ar- 
rested in the preceding domiciliary visits. 
Billaud-Varennes, Procureur-Substitute of the 
Commune, had just been interrogating them 
at the Hotel de Ville ; and now they were pro- 
ceeding towards the Abbaye, to be provision- 
ally detained there. A crowd is gathering; 
the cries and hisses redouble: one of the pri- 
soners, doubtless out of his senses, takes fire 
at these murmurs, puts his arm over the coach- 
door, gives one of the Federe's a stroke over 
the head with his cane. The Federe, in a 
rage, draws his sabre, springs on the carriage- 
steps, and plunges it thrice over into the heart 
o'f his aggressor. I saw the blood come out in 
great jets. ' Kill every one of them ; they are 
scoundrels, aristocrats!' cry the people. The 
Federe's all draw their sabres, and instantlj^ 
kill the three companions of the one who had 
just perished. I saw, at this moment, a young 
man in a white nightgown stretch himself out 
of that same carriage: his countenance, ex- 
pressive, but pale and worn, indicated that he 
was very sick; he had gathered his staggering 
strength, and, though already wounded, was 
crying still, '■Grace, grace, pardon l' but in vain 
— a mortal stroke united him to the lot of the 
others. 

" This coach, which was the hindmost, now 
held nothing but corses ; it had not stopped 
during the carnage, which lasted about the 
space of two minutes. The crowd increases, 
crcscit eundo : the yells redouble. The coaches 
are at the Abbaye. The corpses are hurled 
into the court ; the twelve living prisoners 
dismount to enter the committee-room. Tir*.- 
2 u 2 



510 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



•are sacrificed on alighting; ten succeed in en- 
tering. The committee had not had time to 
put the slightest question, when a multitude, 
armed with pikes, sabres, swords, and bayonets, 
dashes in ; seizes the accused, and kills them. 
One prisoner, already much wounded, kept 
hanging by the skirts of a Committee-member, 
■and still struggled against death. 

"Three yet remained; one of whom was the 
Abbe Sicard, teacher of the deaf and dumb. The 
sabres were already over his head, when Mon- 
not, the watchmaker, flung himself before 
them, crying, 'Kill me rather, and not this 
man, who is useful to our country!' These 
words, uttered with the fire and impetuosity 
-of a generous soul, suspended death. Profit- 
ing by this moment of calm. Abbe Sicard and 
the other two were got conveyed into the back 
part of the room." 

Abbe Sicard, as is well known, survived ; 
and the narrative which he also published ex- 
ists — sufficient to prove, among other things, 
■that "Felemhesi" had but two eyes, and his 
own share of sagacity and heart; that he has 
wis-seen, miscounted, and, knowingly or un- 
knowingly, misstated not a little, — as one poor 
man, in these circumstances, might. Felemhe- 
si continues, — we only inverting his arrange- 
ment somewhat : — 

"Twelve scoundrels, presided by Maillard, 
with whom they had probably combined this 
project beforehand, find themselves ' by chance' 
among the crowd; and now, being well-known 
one to another, they unite themselves ' in the 
name of the sovereign people,' whether it were 
of their own private audacity, or that they had 
secretly received superior orders. They lay 
hold of the prison registers, and turn them 
over; the turnkeys fall a-trembling ; the jail- 
er's wife and the jailer faint; the prison is 
surrounded by furious men; there is shouting, 
clamouring : the door is assaulted, like to be 
forced ; when one of the Committee-members 
presents himself at ihe outer gate, and begs 
audience : his signs obtain a moment's silence ; 
the doors open, he advances, gets a chair, 
mounts on it, and speaks: — ' Comrades, friends,' 
said he, 'you arc good patriots ; your resent- 
ment is just. Open war to the enemies of the 
common good ; neither truce nor mercy ; it is 
a war to the death ! I feel like you that they 
must all perish ; and yet, if you are good citi- 
zens, you must love justice. There is not one 
of you but would shudder at the notion of 
shedding innocent blood.' 'Yes, yes!' reply 
the people. ' Well, then, I ask of you if, with- 
out inquiry or investigation, you iiing your- 
selves like mad tigers on your fellow-men V 

Here the speaker was interrupted by one of 
the crowd, who, with a bloody sabre in his 
hand, his eyes glancing with rage, cleaves the 
press, and refutes him in these terms : 'Tell us. 
Monsieur le Citoyen, explain to us then, would 
the sacres gueiix of Prussians and Austrians, if 
they were at Paris, investigate for the guilty ? 
Would they not cut right and left, as the Swiss 
on the Tenth cf August did 1 Well, I am no 
speaker, I can stuflT the ears of no one ; but 
I tell you I have a wife and five children, whom 
I leave with my section here while I go and 
*Hght the enemy : but it is not my bargain that 



the villains in this prison, whom other villains 
outside will open the doors to, shall go and 
kill my wife and children in the meanwhile! 
I have three boys, who I hope will be usefuller 
to their country one day than these rascals you 
want to save. Any way you have butto-send 
them out ; we will give them arms, and fight 
them number for number. Die here or die on 
the frontiers, I am sure enough to be killed by 
these villains, but I mean to sell them my life ; 
and, be it I, be it others, the prison shall be 
purged of these sacres gueux la.' 'He is right!' 
responds the general cry." — And so the fright- 
ful "purgation" proceeds. 

"At five in the afternoon, Billaud Varennes, 
Procureur-Substitut, arrives ; he had on his 
sash^ and the small puce coat and black wig 
we are used to see on him : walking over car- 
casses, he makes a short harangue to the peo- 
ple, and ends thus : 'People, thou art sacrific- 
ing thy enemies; thou art in thy duty.' This 
cannibal speech lends them new animation. 
The killers blaze up, cry louder than ever for 
new victims : — how to staunch this new thirst 
of blood 1 A voice speaks from beside Billaud ; 
it was Maillard's voice : ' There is nothing 
more to do here ; let us to the Carmes !' They 
run thither: in five minutes more I saw them 
trailing corpses by the heels. A killer, (I can- 
not say a man,) in very coarse clothes, had, as 
it would seem, been specially commissioned 
to dispatch the Abbe Lenfant; for, apprehen- 
sive lest the prey might be missed, he takes 
water, flings it on the corpses, washes their 
blood-smeared faces, turns them over, and 
seems at last to ascertain that the Abbe Len- 
fant is among them." — Vol. xviii. p. 169. 

This is the September massacre, the last 
scene we can give as a specimen. Thus, in 
these curious records of the "Histoire Parle- 
mentaire," as in some Ezekiel vision become 
real, does scene after scene disclose itself, now 
in rose-light, now in sulphurous black, and 
grow ever more fitful, dream-like, — till %e 
Vendemiaire scene come, and Napoleon blow 
forth his grape-shot, and Sansculoltism be no 
more ! 

Touching the political and metaphysical 
speculations of our two editors, we shall say 
little. They are of the sort we lamented in 
Mignet, and generally in Frenchmen of this 
day — a jingling of formulas; unfruitful as 
that Kalmuck prayer ! Perhaps the strangest- 
looking particular doctrine we have noticed is 
this : that the French Revolution was at bot- 
tom an attempt to realize Christianity, and 
fairly put it in action, in our world. For eigh- 
teen centuries (it is not denied) men had been 
doing more or less that way ; but they set 
their shoulder rightly to the wheel, and gave 
a dead-lift, for the first time then. Good M. 
Roux! and yet the good Roux does mean 
something by this ; and even something true. 
But a marginal annotator has written on our 
copy — "For the love of Heaven, Messieurs, 
huinez vos fornmlcs ;" make away with your 
formulas ; take oflT your facetted spectacles ; 
open your eyes a little and look! There is, 
indeed, here and there, considerable rumbling 
ofthe rotatory calabash, which rattles and rum- 
bles concerning Progress of the Species, Doc- 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



511 



trine du Progres, Exploitations, le Clrist, the 
Verbe, and what not ; written in a vein of deep, 
even of intense seriousness ; but profitable, 
one would think, to no man or woman. In this 
style M. Roux (for it is he, we understand) 
painfully composes a preface to each volume, 
and has even given a whole introductory his- 
tory of France: we read some seven or eight 
of his first prefaces, hoping always to get some 
nourishment; but seldom or never cut him 
open now. Fighting in that way, behind cover, 
he is comparatively harmless; merely wasting 
you so many pence per number : happily the 



space he takes is small. Whoever wants to 
form for himself an image of the actual state 
of French Meditation, and under what sur- 
prising shackles a French thinking man of 
these days finds himself gyved, and mechan- 
ized, and reduced to the verge of zero, may 
open M. Roux's Prefaces, and see it as in aa 
expressive summary. 

We wish our two French friends all speed 
in their business; and do again honestly re- 
commend this "Histoire Parlementaire"' toany 
and all of our English friends who take inte- 
rest in that subject. 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT; 

[London and Westminster Review, 1838.] 



American Cooper asserts, in one of his 
books, that there is " an instinctive tendency 
in men to look at any man who has become 
distinguished." True, surely; as all observa- 
tion and survey of mankind, from China to 
Peru, from Nebuchadnezzar to Old Hickory, 
■will testify ! Why do men crowd towards the 
improved drop at Newgate, eager to catch a 
sight? The man about to be hanged is in a 
distinguished situation. Men crowd to such 
extent, that Greenacre's is not the only life 
choked out there. Again, ask of these leathern 
vehicles, cabriolets, neat-flies, with blue men 
and women in them, that scour all thorough- 
fares, Whither so fasti To see dear Mrs. 
Rigmarole, the distinguished female ! Great 
Mr. Rigmarole, the distinguished male. Or, 
consider the crov/ning phenomenon, and sum- 
mary of modern civilization, a soiree of lions. 
Glittering are the rooms, well-lighted, thronged ; 
bright flows their undulatory flood of blonde 
gowns and dress-coats, a soft smile dwelling 
on all faces; for behold there also flow the 
lions, hovering distinguished: oracles of the 
age, of one sort or another. Oracles really 
pleasant to see; whom it is worth while to go 
and see: look at them, but inquire not of them, 
depart rather and be thankful. For your lion- 
soiree admits not of speech; there lies the spe- 
ciality of it. A meeting together of human 
creatures; and yet (so high has civilization 
gone) the primary aim of human meeting, that 
soul might in some articulate utterance unfold 
itself to soul, can be dispensed with in it. 
Utterance there is not: nay, there is a certain 
grinning play of tongue-fence, and make-believe 
of utterance, considerably worse than none. 
For which reason it has been suggested, with an 
eye to sincerity and silence in such hon-ioirces. 
Might not each lion be, for example, ticketed, 
as wine-decanters are 1 Let him carry, slung 
round him, in such ornamental manner as 
seemed good, his silver label with name en- 
graved; you lift his label, and read it, with 



• Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scutt, Baronet. 
"Vol. i.— vi. Cadell. Edinburgh, 1837. 



what farther ocular survey you find useful, and 
speech is not needed at all. O Fenimore 
Cooper, it is most true there is "an instinctive 
tendency in men to look at at any man that has 
become distinguished;" and, moreover, an in- 
stinctive desire in men to become distinguished 
and be looked at ! 

For the rest, we will call it a most valua- 
ble tendency this ; indispensable to mankind. 
Without it where were stai--and-garter, and 
significance of rank; where were all ambition, 
money-getting, respectability of gig or no gig; 
and, in a word, the main impetus by which 
society moves, the main force by which it 
hangs together 1 A tendency, we say, of mani- 
fold results: of manifold origin, not ridiculous 
only, but sublime; — which some incline to 
deduce from the mere gregarious purblind 
nature of man, prompting him to run, " as dim- 
eyed animals do, towards any glittering object, 
were it but a scoured tankard, and mistake it 
for a solar luminary," or even, " sheep-like, to 
run and crowd because many have already 
run !" It is, indeed, curious to consider how 
men do make the gods that themselves worship. 
For the most famed man, round whom all the 
world rapturously huzzahs, and venerates as 
if his like were not, is the same man whom all 
the world was wont to jostle into the kennels; 
not a changed man, but in every fibre of him 
the same man. Foolish world, what went ye 
out to see 1 A tankard scoured bright; and do 
there not lie, of the self-same pewter, whole 
barrowfuls of tankards, though by worse fortune 
all still in the dim state 1 

And yet, at bottom, it is not merely our gre- 
garious sheep-like quality, but something better, 
and indeed best; what has been called "the 
perpetual fact of hero-worship;" our inborn 
sincere love of great men ! Not the gilt 
farthing, for its own sake, do even fools covet; 
but the gold guinea which they mistake it for. 
Veneration of great men is perennial in the 
nature of man ; this, in all times, especially in 
these, is one of the blessedest facts predicable 
of him. In all times, even in these seemingly 
so disobedient times, " it remains a blessed 



512 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



fact, so cunningly has nature ordered it, that 
whatsoever man ought to obey he cannot but cbey. 
Show the dullest clodpole, show the haughtiest 
featherhead, that a soul higher than himself is 
actually here; were his knees stiffened into 
brass, he must down and worship." So it has 
been written; and may be cited and repealed 
till known to all. Understand it well, this of 
" hero-worship" was the primary creed, and has 
intrinsically been the secondary and ternary, 
and will be the ultimate and final creed of man- 
kind; indestructible, changing in shape, but in 
essence unchangeable ; whereon politics, re- 
ligions, loyalties, and all highest human inte- 
rests have been and can be built, as on a rock 
that will endure while man endures. Such is 
hero-worship ; so much lies in that our inborn 
sincere love of great men ! — In favour of which 
unspeakable benefits of the reality, what can 
we do but cheerfully pardon the multiplex 
ineptitudes of the semblance, — cheerfully wish 
even lion-soiVeV.s, with labels for their lions or 
without that improvement, all manner of pros- 
perity] Let hero-worship flourish, say we; 
and the more and more assiduous chase after 
gilt farthings while guineas are not yet forth- 
coming. Herein, at lowest, is proof that 
guineas exist, that they are believed to exist, 
and valued. Find great men if you can ; if you 
cannot, still quit not the search; in defect of 
great men, let there be noted men, men, in 
such number, to such degree of intensity as the 
public appetite can tolerate. 

Whether Sir Walter Scott was a great man, 
is still a question with some; but there can be 
no question with any one that he was a most 
noted and even notable man. In this gene- 
ration there was no literary man with such a 
popularit}' in any country ; there have only 
been a few with such, taking in all generations 
and all countries. Nay, it is farther to be ad- 
mitted that Sir Walter Scott's popularity was 
of a select sort rather; not a popularity of the 
populace. His admirers were at one time 
almost all the intelligent of civilised countries ; 
and to the last, included and do still include a 
great portion of that sort. Such fortune he had, 
and has continued to maintain for a space of 
some twenty or thirty years. So long the 
observed of all observers ; a great man, or only 
a considerable man ; here surely, if ever, is a 
singularly circumstanced, is a " distinguished" 
man ! In regard to whom, therefore, the "in- 
stinctive tendency" on other men's part can- 
not be wanting. Let men look, where the 
world has already so long looked. And now, 
while the new, earnestly expected " Life by his 
Son-in-law and literary executor" again sum- 
mons the whole world's attention round him, 
probably for the last time it will ever be so 
summoned; and men are in some sort taking 
leave of a notability, and about to go their way, 
and commit him to his fortune on the flood of 
things, — why should not this periodical publi- 
cation likewise publish its thought about him 1 
Readers of miscellaneous aspect, of unknown 
quantity and quality, are waiting to hear it 
done. With small inward vocation, but cheer- 
fully obedient to destiny and necessity, the 
present reviewer will follow a multitude to do 



evil or to do no evil ; will depend not on the 
multitude, but on himself. One thing he did 
decidedly wish; at least to wait till the 
work were finished: for the six premised 
volumes, as the world knows, have flowed 
over into a seventh, which will not for some 
weeks yet see the light. But the editorial 
powers, wearied with waiting, have become 
peremptory; and declare that, finished or not 
finished, they will have their hands washed of 
it at this opening of the year. Perhaps it is 
best. The physiognomy of Scott will not be 
much altered for us by the seventh volume; 
the prior six have altered it but little; — as, in- 
deed, a man who has written some two hundred 
volumes of his own, and lived for thirty years 
amid the universal speech of friends, must have 
already left some likeness of himself. Be it 
j as the peremptory editorial powers require. 

First, therefore, a word on the " Life" itself.. 
Mr. Lockhart's known powers justify strict 
requisition in his case. Our verdict in general 
would be, that he has accomplished the work 
he schemed for himself in a creditable work- 
manlike manner. It is true, his notion of 
what the work was does not seem to have been 
very elevated. To picture forth the life of Scott 
according to any rules of art or composition,, 
so that a read«r, on adequately examining it, 
might say to himself, " There is Scott, there- 
is the physiognomy and meaning of Scott's ap- 
pearance and transit on this earth; such was 
he by nature, so did the world act on him, so 
he on the world, with such result and signifi- 
cance for himself and us :" this was by no 
manner of means Mr. Lockhart's plan. A plan 
which, it is rashly said, should preside over 
every biography ! It might have been fulfilled 
with all degrees of perfection from that of 
the "Odyssey" down to "Thomas Ell wood" or 
lower. For there is no heroic poem in the 
world but is at bottom a biograph}^ the life of 
a man : also, it may be said, there is no life 
of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a heroic 
poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymed. It is a 
plan one would prefer, did it otherwise suit; 
which it does not in these days. Seven volumes 
sell so much dearer than one ; are so much 
easier to write than one. The " Odyssey," for 
instance, what were the value of the " Odys- 
se)''," sold per sheet? One paper of "Pick- 
wick ;" or say, the inconsiderable fraction of 
one. This, in commercial algebra, were the 
equation : " Odyssey" equal to " Pickwick" di- 
vided by an unknown integer. 

There is a great discovery still to be made 
in literature, that of paying literary men by 
the quantity they rfo not write. Nay, in sober 
truth, is not this actually the rule in all writing; 
and, moreover, in all conduct and acting 1 Not 
what stands above ground, but what lies un- 
seen under it, as the root and subterrene element 
it sprang from and emblemed forth, determines 
value. Under all speech that is good for any 
thing there lies a silence that is better. Silence 
is deep as eternity; speech is shallow as time. 
i Paradoxical does it seem 1 Wo for the age, 
j wo for the mail, quack-ridden, bespeeched, be- 
I spouted, blown about like barren Sahara, to 
j whom this world-old truth were altogether 
I strange ! — Such we say is the rule, acted on or 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



513 



not, recognised or not; and he who departs 
from it, what can he do but spread himself 
into breadth and length, into superficiality and 
saleability ; and, except as filigree, become 
comparatively useless 1 One thinks, had but 
the hogshead of thin wash, which sours in a 
■week ready for the kennels, been distille/i,heen 
concentrated ! Our dear Fenimore Cooper, 
whom we started with, might, in that way, 
have given us one Nutty Leatherstocking, one 
melodious synopsis of man and nature in the 
West, (for it lay in him to do it,) almost as a 
Saint Pierre did for the islands of the East ; 
and the hundred incoherences, cobbled hastily 
together by order of Colburn and Company, 
had slumbered in Chaos, as all incoherences 
ought if possible to do. Verily this same ge- 
nius of diffuse-writing, of diffuse-acting, is a 
Moloch ; and souls pass through the fire to 
him more than enough. Surely if ever disco- 
very was valuable and needful, it were that 
above indicated, of paymg by the work not vi- 
sibly done ! — Which needful discovery we will 
give the whole projecting, railwaying, know- 
ledge-diffusing, march-of-intellect, and other- 
wise promotive and locomotive societies in the 
Old and New World, any required length of 
centuries to make. Once made, such disco- 
very once made, we too will fling cap into the 
air, and shout lo Paan, the Devil is conquered ; 
and in the »(ea»(while study to think it nothing 
miraculous that seven biographical volumes 
are given where one had been better ; and that 
several other things happen, very much as 
they from of old were known to do, and are 
like to continue doing. 

Mr. Lockhart's aim, we take it, was not that 
of producing any such highflown work of art 
as we hint at : or indeed to do much other than 
to print, intelligibly bound together by order of 
time, and some requisite intercalary exposition, 
all such letters, documents, and notices about 
Scott as he found lying suitable, and as it 
seemed likely the world would undertake to 
read. His work, accordingly, is not so much 
a composition, as what we may call a compila- 
tion well done. Neither is this a task of no dif- 
ficulty ; this too is a task that may be performed 
with extremely various degrees of talent: from 
the " Life and Correspondence of Hannah 
More," for instance, up to this " Life of Scott," 
there is a wide range indeed ! Let us take the 
seven volumes, and be thankful that they are 
•genuine in their kind. Nay, as to that of their 
being seven and not one, it is right to say that 
the public so required it. To have done other 
would have shown little policy in an author. 
Had Mr. Lockhart laboriously compressed 
himself, and instead of well-done compilation, 
brought out the well-done composition in one 
volume instead of seven, which not many men 
in England are better qualified to do, there can 
be no doubt that his readers for the time had 
been immeasurably fewer. If the praise of 
magnanimity be denied him, that of prudence 
must be conceded, which perhaps he values 
more. 

The truth is, the work, done in this manner, 

too, was good to have : Scott's Biography, if 

uncomposed, lies printed and indestructible 

here, in the elementary state, and can at any 

65 



time be composed, if necessary, by whosoever 
has call to that. As it is, as it was meant to 
be, we repeat, the work is vigorously done. 
Sagacity, decision, candour, diligence, good 
sense: these qualities are throughout observa- 
ble. The dales, calculations, siatements, we 
suppose to be accurate ; much laborious in- 
quiry, some of it impossible for another 
man, has been gone into, the results of which 
are imparted with due brevit}'. Scott's letters, 
not interesting generally, yet never absolutely 
M'ithout interest, are copiously given ; copiously, 
but with selection ; the answers to them still 
more select. Narrative, delineation, and at 
length personal reminiscences, occasionly of 
much merit, of a certain rough force, sincerity, 
and picturesqueness, duly intervene. The 
scattered members of Scott's Life do lie here, 
and could be disentangled. In a word, this 
compilation is the work of a manful, clear- 
seeing, conclusive man, and has been executed 
with the faculty and combination of faculties 
the public had a right to expect from the name 
attached to it. 

One thing we hear greatly blamed in Mr. 
Lockhart: that he has been too communica- 
tive, indiscreet, and has recorded much that 
ought to have lain suppressed. Persons are 
mentioned, and circumstances, not always of 
an ornamental sort. It would appear there is 
far less reticence than was looked for! Vari- 
ous persons, name and surname, have "re- 
ceived pain:" nay, the very hero of the bio- 
graphy is rendered unheroic; unornamental 
facts of him, and of those he had to do with, 
being set forth in plain English : hence " per- 
sonality," "indiscretion," or worse, " sanctities 
of private life," &c. &c. How delicate, decent 
is English biography, bless its mealy mouth! 
A Damocles' sword of Ue^pcctabili'y hangs for 
ever over the poor English life-writer, (as it 
does over poor English life in general,) and 
reduces him to the verge of paralysis. Thus 
it has been said, " there are no English lives 
worth reading except those of Players, who by 
the nature of the case have bidden Respectabi- 
lity good day." The English biographer has 
long felt that if in writing his Man's Biography, 
he wrote down any thing that could by possi- 
bility offend any man, he had written wrong. 
The plain consequence was that, properly 
speaking, no biography whatever could be pro- 
duced. The poor biographer, having the fear 
not of God before his eyes, was obliged to retire 
as it were into vacuum ; and write in the most 
melancholy, straitened manner, with only 
vacuum for a result. Vain that he wrote, and 
jhat we kept reading volume on volume ; there 
was no biography, but some vague ghost of a 
biography, white, stainless; without feature 
or substance ; vacuum, as we say, and wind and 
shadow, — which indeed the material of it was. 

No man lives without jostling and being 
joslled ; in all ways he has to elbow himself 
through the world, giving and receiving of- 
fence. His life is a battle, in so far as it is an 
entity at all. The very oyster, we suppose, 
comes in collision with oysters: undoubtedly 
enough it does come in collision with Neces- 
sity and Difficulty; and helps itself through, 
not as a perfect ideal oyster, but as an imper- 



514 



CARLYLE'S MISCET-LANEOUS WRITINGS. 



feet real one. Some kind of remorse must be 
known to the oyster; certain hatreds, certain 
pusillanimities. But as for man, his conflict 
is continual with the spirit of contradiction, 
that is without and within; with the evil spirit, 
(or call it with the weak, most necessitous, 
pitiable spirit,) that is in others and in him- 
self. His walk, like all walking, (say the me- 
chanicians,) is a series of fulls. To paint 
man's life is to represent these things. Let 
them be represented, fitly, with dignity and 
measure; but above all, let them be repre- 
sented. No tragedy of Hamlet, with the part 
of Hamlet omitted by particular desire ! No 
ghost of a Biography, let the Damocles' sword 
of Respectability (which after all is but a 
pasteboard one) threaten as it will I One 
hopes that the public taste is much mended in 
this matter ! that vacuum-biographies, with a 
good many other vacuities related to them, are 
withdrawn or withdrawing into vacuum. Pro- 
bably it was Mr. Lockhart'.s feeling of what 
the great public would approve that led him, 
open-eyed, into this offence against the small 
criticising public; we joyfully accept the 
omen. 

Perh-aps then, of all the praises copiously 
bestowed on his work, there is none in reality 
so creditable to him as this same censure, 
which has also been pretty copious. It is a 
censure better than a good many praises. He 
is found guilty of having said this and that, 
calculated not to be entirely pleasant to this 
man and that; in other words, calculated to 
give him the thing he worked in a living set 
of features, not leave him vague, in the white 
beatified ghost condition. Several men, as 
we hear, cry out, "See, there is something 
written not entirely pleasant to me ! Good 
friend, it is pity : but who can help it 1 They 
that will crowd about bonfires may, sometimes 
very fairly, get their beards singed; it is the 
price they pay for such illumination; natural 
twilight is safe and free to all. For our part, 
we hope all manner of biographies that are 
written in England will henceforth be written 
so. If it is fit that they be written otherwise, 
then it is still fitter that they be not written at 
all: to produce not things, but ghosts of things, 
can never be the duty of man. The biogra- 
pher has this problem set before him : to de- 
lineate a likeness of the earthly pilgrimage of 
a man. He will compute well what profit is 
in it, and what disprofit; under which latter 
head this of oifending any of his fellow-crea- 
tures will surely not be forgotten. Nay, this 
may so swell the disprofit side of his account, 
that many an enterprise of biography, other- 
wise promising, shall require to be renounced". 
But once taken up, the rule above all rules is 
to do it, not to do the ghost of it. In speaking 
of the man and men he has to deal with, he 
will of course keep all his charities about 
him, but also all his eyes open. Far be it 
from him to set down aught wn/rite ,- nay, not 
to abstain from, and leave in oblivion, much 
that is true. But having found a thing or 
things essential for his subject, and well com- 
puted the for and against, he will in very deed 
set down such thing or things, nothing doubt- 
ing, — having, we may say, the fear of God be- 



fore his eyes, and no other fear whatever. 
Censure the biographer's prudence; dissent 
from the computation he made, or agree with 
it; be all malice of his, he all falsehood, nay, 
be all offensive avoidable inaccuracy, con- 
demned and consumed ; but know that by this 
plan only, executed as was possible, cpuld the 
biographer hope to make a biography : and 
blame him not that he did what it had been 
the worst fault not to do. 

As to the accuracy or error of these state- 
ments about the Ballantynes and other persons 
aggrieved, which are questions much mooted 
at present in some places, we know nothing 
at all. If they are inaccurate, let them be 
corrected; if the inaccuracy was avoidable, 
let the author bear rebuke and punishment 
for it. We can onl}^ say, these things carry 
no look of inaccuracy on the face of them ; 
neither is anywhere the sinallest trace of ill- 
will or unjust feeling discernible. Decidedly 
the probabilities are, and till better evidence 
arise, the fair conclusion is, that the matter 
stands very much as it ought to do. Let the 
clatter of censure, therefore, propagate itself 
as far as it can. For Mr. Lockhart it virtu- 
ally amounts to this very considerable praise, 
that, standing full in the face of the public, he 
has set at naught, and been among the first to 
do it, a public piece of cant ; one of the com- 
monest we have, and closely allied to many 
others of the fellest sort, as smooth as it looks. 

The other censure, of Scott being made un- 
heroic, springs from the same stem ; and is, 
perhaps, a still more wonderful flower of it. 
Your true hero must have no features, but be 
white, stainless, an impersonal ghost-hero! 
But connected with this, there is a hypothesis 
now current, due probably to some man of 
name, for its own force would not carry it far; 
That Mr. Lockhart at heart has a dislike to 
Scott, and has done his best in an underhand 
treacherous manner to dishero him ! Such 
hypothesis is actually current: he that has 
ears may hear it now and then. On which 
aslienishing hypothesis, if a word must be 
said, it can only be an apology for silence, 
"that there are things at which one stands 
struck silent, as at first sight of the Infinite." 
For if Mr. Lockhart is fairly chargeable with 
any radical defect, if on any side his insight 
entirely fails him, it seems even to be in this, 
that Scott is altogether lovely to him ; that 
Scott's greatness spreads out for him on all 
hands beyond reach of eye; that his very 
faults become beautiful, his vulgar worldli- 
nesses are solid prudences, proprieties ; and 
of his worth there is no measure. Does not 
the patient biographer dwell on his Mbots, Pi- 
rates, and hasty theatrical scerre-paintings ; 
afl^ectionately analyzing them, as if they were 
Raphael pictures, time-defying Hamlets, Othellos? 
The novel-manufactory, with his £15,000 a 
year, is sacred to him as creation of a genius, 
which carries the noble victor up to heaven. 
Scott is to Lockhart the unparalleled of the 
time; an object spreading out before him like 
a sea without shore. Of that astonishing hypo- 
thesis, let expressive silence be the only an- 
swer. 
And so in sum, with regard to "Lockhact's 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



515 



Life of Scott," readers that believe in us shall 
read it with the feeling that a man of talent, 
decision, and insight wrote it; wrote it in 
seven volumes, not in one, because the public 
would pay for it better in that state ; but wrote 
it with courage, with frankness, sincerity; on 
the whole, in a very readable, recommenda- 
ble manner, as things go. Whosoever needs 
it can purchase it, or the loan of it, with as- 
surance more than usual that he has ware for 
his money. And now enough of the written 
life ; we will glance a little at the man and his 
acted life. 

Into the question whether Scott was a great 
man or not, we do not propose to enter deeply. 
It is, as too usual, a question about words. 
There can be no doubt but many men have 
been named and printed great who were vastly 
smaller than he: as little doubt moreover that 
of the specially good a very large portion, ac- 
cording to any genuine standard of man's 
worth, were worthless in comparison to him. 
He for whom Scott is great may most inno- 
cently name him so; may with advantage ad- 
mire his great qualities, and ought with sin- 
cere heart to emulate them. At the same 
time, it is good that there be a certain degree 
of precision in our epithets. It is good to un- 
derstand, for one thing, that no popularity, and 
open-mouthed wonder of all the world, con- 
tinued even for a long series of years, can 
make a man great. Such popularity is a re- 
markable fortune ; indicates a great adaptation 
of the maj to his element of circumstances; 
but may or may not indicate any thing great in 
the man. To our imagination, as above 
hinted, there is a certain apotheosis in it; but 
in the reality no apotheosis at all. Popularity 
is as a blaze of illumination, or alas, of con- 
flagration kindled round a man; showing what 
is in him; not putting the smallest item more 
into him ; often abstracting much from him ; 
conflagrating the poor man himself into ashes 
and caput mortuiim! And then, by the nature 
of it, such popularity is transient ; your " series 
of years," quite unexpectedly, sometimes al- 
most all on a sudden, terminates ! For the 
stupidity of men, especially of men congre- 
gated in masses round any object, is extreme. 
What illuminations and conflagrations have 
kindled themselves, as if new heavenly suns 
had risen, which proved only to be tar-barrels, 
and terrestrial locks of straw ! Profane 
princesses cried out, " One God, one Fari- 
nelli !" — and whither now have they and Fari- 
nelli danced? In literature, too, there have 
been seen popularities greater even than 
Scott's, and nothing perennial in the interior 
of them. Lope de Vega, whom all the world 
swore by, and made a proverb of; who could 
make an acceptable five-act tragedy in almost 
as many hours; the greatest of all popularities 
past or present, and perhaps one of the great- 
est men that ever ranked among popularities : 
Lope himself, so radiant, far-shining, has not 
proved to be a sun or star of the firmament ; 
but is as good as lost and gone out, or plays at 
best, in the e3^es of some few, as a vague 
aurora-borealis, and brilliant inefl^ectuality. 
The great mau of Spain sat obscure at the 



time, all dark and poor, a maimed soldier; 
writing his Don Quixote in prison. And 
Lope's fate withal was sad, his popularity per- 
haps a curse to him; for in this man there 
was something ethereal too, a divine particle 
traceable in few other popular men; and such 
far shining diff'usion of himself, though all the 
world swore by it, would do nothing for the 
true life of him even while he lived : he had 
to creep into a convent, into a monk's cowl, 
and learn, with infinite sorrow, that his bless- 
edness had lain elsewhere; that when a man's 
life feels itself to be sick and an error, no 
voting of by-standers can make it well and a 
truth again. Or coming down to our own 
times, was not August Kotzebue popular "? 
Kotzebue, not so many years since, saw him- 
self, if rumour and hand-clapping could be 
credited, the greatest man going; saw visibly 
his Thoughts, dressed out in plush and paste- 
board, permeating and perambulating civilized 
Europe; the most iron visages weeping with 
him, in all theatres from Cadiz to Kamschat- 
ka; his own '"astonishing genius," mean- 
while, producing two tragedies or so per 
month: he on the whole blazed high enough : 
he too has gone out into Night and Orcus, and 
already is not. We will omit this of populari- 
ty altogether, and account it as making simply 
nothing towards Scott's greatness or non- 
greatness, as an accident, not a quality. 

Shorn of this falsifying nimbtis, and reduced 
to his own natural dimensions, there remains 
the realit}', Walter Scott, and what we can find 
in him : to be accounted great, or not great, 
according to the dialects of men. Friends to 
precision of epithet will probably deny his title 
to the name "great." It seems to us there 
goes other stulf to the making of great men 
than can be detected here. One knows not 
what idea worthy of the name of great, what 
purpose, instinct, or tendency, that could be 
called great, Scott ever was inspired with. 
His life was worldly ; his ambitions were 
worldly. There is nothing spiritual in him ; 
all is economical,material, of the earth earthy. 
A love of picturesque, of beautiful, vigorous, 
and graceful things ; a genuine love, yet not 
more genuine than has dwelt in hundreds of 
men named minor poets: this is the highest 
quality to be discerned in him. His power 
of representing these things too, his poetic 
power, like his moral power, was a genius ia 
extenso, as we may say, not in inlenso. In ac- 
tion, in speculation, broad as he was, he rose 
nowhere high; productive without measure as 
to quantity, in quality he for the most part 
transcended but a little way the region of 
commonplace. It has been said, "no man has 
written as many volumes with so few sen- 
tences that can be quoted." Winged words 
were not his vocation ; nothing urged him 'hat 
way: the great mystery of existence was not 
great to him ; did not drive him into rocky 
solitudes to wrestle with it for an answer, to 
be answered or to perish. He had nothing of 
the martyr; into no "dark region to slay 
monsters for us," did he, either led or driven^ 
venture down : his conquests were for his owii 
behoof mainly, conquests over common mar 
ket labour, and reckonable in good metallic 



516 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



coin of the realm. The thing he had faith in, 
except power, power of what sort soever, and 
even of the rudest sort, would be difficult to 
point out. One sees not that he believed in 
any thirrg; nay, he did not even disbelieve ; but 
quietly acquiesced, and made himself at home 
in a world of conventionalities: the false, the 
' semi-false, and the true were alike true in 
(' this, that they were there, and had power in 
their hands more or less. It was well to feel 
so; and yet not well! We find it written, 
*' Wo to them that are at ease in Zion ;" but 
surely it is a double wo to them that are at 
ease in Babel, in Domdaniel. On the other 
hand he wrote many volumes, amusing many 
thousands of men. Shall we call this great] 
It seems to us there dwells and struggles 
another sort of spirit in the inward parts of 
great men ! 

Brother Ringletub, the missionary, inquired 
•of Ram-Dass, a Hindoo man-god, who had set 
up for godhood lately. What he meant to do, 
then, with the sins of mankind 1 To which 
Ram-Dass at once answered, he had fire enough 
in his belly to burn up all the sins in the world. 
Ram-Dass was right so far, and had a spice 
of sense in him; for surely it is the test of 
every divine man this same, and without it he 
is not divine or great, — that he have fire in him 
to burn up somewhat of the sins of the world, 
of the miseries and errors of the world : why 
f else is he there 1 Far be it from us to say 
that a great man must needs, with benevolence 
prepense, become a " friend of humanity;" 
nay, that such professional self-conscious 
friends of humanity are not the fatalest kind 
of persons to be met with in our day. All 
greatness is unconscious, or it is little and 
naught. And yet a great man without s}(ch 
fire in him, burning dim or developed as a di- 
vine behest in his heart of hearts, never rest- 
ing till it be fulfilled, were a solecism in na- 
ture. A great man is ever, as the Transcen- 
dentalists speak, possessed with an idea. Na- 
poleon himself, not the superfinest of great 
men, and ballasted sufficiently with prudences 
and egoisms, had nevertheless, as is clear 
enough, an idea to start with : the idea thai 
Democracy was the Cause of Man, the right 
and infinite Cause. Accordingly he made 
ihimself "the armed soldier of Democracy;" 
and did vindicate it in a rather great manner. 
Nay, to the very last, he had a kind of idea, 
that, name!}', of "la carriere ouvcrle aux talens, 
the tools to him that can handle them ;" really 
one of the best ideas yet promulgated on that 
matter, or rather the one true central idea, to- 
wards which all the others, if they tend any- 
whither, must tend. Unhappily it was in the 
military province only that Napoleon could 
realize this idea of his, being forced to fight 
for himself the while : before he got it tried to 
any extent in the civil province of things, his 
head by much victory grew light, (no head can 
stand more than its quantity;) and he lost 
head, as they say, and became a selfish ambi- 
tionist and quack, and was hurled out, leaving 
his idea to be realized, in the civil province of 
things, by others ! Thus was Napo'eon; thu-; 
are all great men: children of the idea; or, in 
Rara-Dass's phraseology, furnished with fire 



to burn up the miseries of men. Conscious or 
unconscious, latent or unfolded, there is small 
vestige of any such fire being extant in the 
inner-man of Scott. 

Yet on the other hand, the surliest critic 
must allow that Scott was a genuine man, 
which itself is a great matter. No affectation, 
fantasticality, or distortion, dwelt in him ; no 
shadow of cant. Nay, withal, was he not a 
right brave and strong man, according to his 
kind ? What a load of toil, what a measure 
of felicity, he quietly bore along with him; 
with what quiet strength he both worked on 
this earth, and enjoyed in it; invincible to 
evil fortune and to good ! A most composed 
invincible man; in difficulty and distress, know- 
ing no discouragement, Samson-like, carrying 
off on his strong Samson-shoulders the gates 
that would imprison him; in danger and 
menace, laughing at the whisper of fear. And 
then, with such a sunny current of true humour 
and humanity, a free joyful sympathy with so 
many things; what of fire he had, all lying 
so beautifully Intent, as radical latent heat, as 
fruitful internal warmth of life ; a most robust, 
healthy man ! The truth is, our best defini- 
tion of Scott were perhaps even this, that he 
was, if no great man, then something much plea- 
santer to be, a robust, thoroughly healthy, and 
withal, very prosperous and victorious man. 
An eminently well-conditioned man, healthy 
in body, healthy in soul ; we will call him one 
of the healthiest of men. Neither is this a small 
matter: health is a great matter, both to the 
possessor of it and to others. On the whole, 
that humourist in the Moral Essay was not so 
far out, who determined on honouring health 
only; and so instead of humbling himself to 
the highborn, to the rich and well-dressed, in- 
sisted on doffing hat to the healthy : coronetted 
carriages with pale faces in them passed by as 
failures miserable and lamentable ; trucks with 
ruddy-cheeked strength dragging at them were 
greeted as successful and venerable. Fordoes 
not health mean harmony, the synonym of all 
that is true, justly-ordered, good; is it not, in 
some sense, the net-total, as shown by experi- 
ment, of whatever worth is in us 1 The healthy 
man is a most meritorious product of nature, 
so far as he goes. A healthy body is good; 
but a soul in right health, — it is the thing be- 
yond all others to be prayed for ; the blessed- 
est thing this earth receives of Heaven. With- 
out artificial medicament of philosophy, or 
tight-lacing of creeds, (always very question- 
able,) the healthy soul discerns what is good, 
and adheres to it, and retains it ; discerns what 
is bad, and spontaneously casts it off". An in- 
stinct from nature herself, like that which 
guides the wild animals of the forest to their 
food, shows him what he shall do, what 
he shall abstain from. The false and foreign 
will not adhere to him; cant and all fantas- 
tic, diseased incrustations are impossible— 
as Walker the Original, in such eminence 
of health was he for his part, could not by 
much abstinence from soap and water, at- 
tain to a dirty face ! This thing thou canst 
work with and profit by, this thing is sub- 
stantial and worthy; that other thing thou 
canst not v.-ork with, it is trivial and inapt: so 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



517" 



speaks unerringly the inward monition of the 
man's whole nature. No need of logic to prove 
the most argumentative absurdity absurd ; as 
Goethe says of himself, "all this ran down 
from me like water from a man in wax-cloth 
dress." Blessed is the healthy nature; it is 
the coherent, sweetly co-operative, not inco- 
herent, self-distracting, self-destructive one! 
In the harmonious adjustment and play of all 
the faculties, the just balance of oneself gives 
a just feeling towards all men and all things. 
Glad light from within radiates outwards, and 
enlightens and embellishes. 

Now all this can be predicated of Walter 
Scott, and of no British literary man that we 
remember in these days, to any such extent, — 
if it be not perhaps of one, the most opposite 
imaginable to Scott, but his equal in this quality 
and what holds of it : William Cobbett ! Nay, 
there are other similarities, widely different as 
they two look; nor be the comparison dis- 
paraging to Scott: for Cobbett also, as the 
pattern John Bull of his century, strong as the 
rhinoceros, and with singular humanities and 
genialities shining through his thick skin, is a 
most brave phenomenon. So bounteous was 
Nature to us; in the sickliestof recorded ages, 
when British literature lay all puking and 
sprawling in Werterism, Byronism, and other 
sentimentalism, tearful or spasmodic, (fruit of 
internal ivind,) Nature was kind enough to 
send us two healthy Men, of whom she might 
still say, not without pride, " These also were 
made in England ; such limbs I still make 
there!" It is one of the cheerfuUest sights, 
let the question of its greatness be settled as 
you will. A healthy nature may or may not 
be great; but there is no great nature that is 
not healthy. — Or, on the whole, might we not 
say, Scott, in the new vesture of the nineteenth 
century, was intrinsically very much the old 
fighting Borderer of prior centuries ; the kind 
of man Nature did of old make in that birth- 
land of his ■? In the saddle, with the foray- 
spear, he would have acquitted himself as he 
did at the desk with his pen. One fancies how 
in stout Bearclic of Harden's time, he could 
have played Beardie's part; and been the stal- 
wart butf-belted terr^e flius he in this late time 
could only delight to draw. The same stout 
self-help was in him ; the same oak and triple 
brass round his heart. He too could have 
fought at Redswire, cracking crowns with the 
fiercest, if that had been the task; could have 
harried cattle in Tynedale, repaying injury 
with compound interest; a right sufficient 
captain of men. A man without qualms or 
fantasticalities ; a hard-headed, sound-hearted 
man, of joyous robust temper, looking to the 
main chance, and fighting direct thitherward : 
valdc slalwartus honin ! — How much in that case 
had slumbered in him, and passed away with- 
out sign. But indeed, who knows how much 
slumbers in many men. Perhaps our greatest 
poets are the ?iiute Miltons ; the vocal are those 
whom by happy accident we lay hold of, one 
here, one there, as it chances, and make vocal. 
It is even a question, whether, had not want, 
discomfort, and distress-warrants been busy 
at Stratford-on-Avon, Shakspeare himself had 
not lived killing calves or combing wool ! 



Had the Edial Boarding-school turned out well, 
we had never heard of Samuel Johnson; 
Samuel Johnson had been a fat schoolmaster 
and dogmatic gerundgrinder, and never know 
that he was more. Nature is rich : those two 
eggs thou art eating carelessly to breakfast, 
could they not have been hatched into a pair of 
fowls, and have covered the whole world with 
poultry? 

But it was not harrying of cattle in Tyne- 
dale, or cracking of crowns at Redswire, that 
this stout Border chief was appointed to per- 
form. Far other work. To be the song- 
singer and pleasant tale-teller to Britain and 
Europe, in the beginning of the artificial nine- 
teenth century; here, and not there, lay his 
business. Beardie of Harden would have 
found it very amazing. How he shapes him-- 
self to this new element; how he helps himself 
along in it, makes it too do for him, lives 
sound and victorious in it, and leads over the 
marches such a spoil as all the cattle-droves 
the Hardens ever took were poor in com- 
parison to : this is the histoiy of the life and 
achievements of o?fr Sir Walter Scott, Baronet; 
— whereat we are now to glance for a little 1 
It is a thing remarkable ; a thing substantial ;' 
of joyful, victorious sort; not uuM'orthy to be' 
glanced at. Withal, however, a glance here 
and there will suffice. Our limits are narrow; - 
the thing, were it never so victorious, is not 
of the sublime sort, nor extremely edifying; 
there is nothing in it to censure vehemently, 
nor love vehemently: there is more to wonder 
at than admire ; and the whole secret is not ar. 
abstruse one. 

Till towards the age of thirty, Scott's life" 
has nothing in it decisively pointing towards- 
literature, or indeed towards distinction ofanj" 
kind ; he is wedded, settled, and has gone' 
through all his preliminary steps, without 
symptoms of renown as yet. It is the life of 
every other Edinburgh youth of his station and 
time. Fortunate we must name it, in many 
ways. Parents in easy or wealthy circum- 
stances, yet unencumbered with the cares and 
perversions of aristocracy: nothing eminent 
in place, in faculty, or culture, yet nothing 
deficient; all around is methodic regulation, 
prudence, prosperity, kind-heartedness ; an 
element of warmth and light of affection, in- 
dustry, and burgherly comfort, heightened into 
elegance ; in which the young heart can 
wholesomely grow. A vigorous health seems 
to have been given by Nature ; yet, as if Na- 
ture had said wiihal, "Let it be a health to- 
express itself by mind, not by body," a lame- 
ness is added in childhood; the brave little 
boy, instead of romping and bickering, must 
learn to think ; or at lowest, what is a great 
matter, to sit still. No rackets and trundling- 
hoops for this young Walter; but ballads^ 
history-books, and a world of legendary stuff, 
which his mother and those near him are- 
copiously able to furnish. Disease, which is 
but superficial, and issues in outward lame- 
ness, does not cloud the young existence , 
rather forwards it towards the expansion it is 
fitted for. The miserable disease had been 
one of the internal nobler parts, marring the 
SX 



518 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



general organization ; under which no Walter 
Scott could have been forwarded, or with all 
his other endowments could have been pro- 
ducible or possible. "Nature gives healthy 
children much : how much! Wise education 
is a wise unfolding of this ; often it unfolds 
itself better of its own accord." 

Add one other circumstance : the place 
■where ; namely, Presbyterian Scotland. The 
influences of this are felt incessantly, they 
stream in at every pore. "There is a country 
accent," says La Rochefoucault, " not in 
speech only, but in thought, conduct, charac- 
ter, and manner of existing, which never for- 
sakes a man." Scott, we believe, was all his 
days an Episcopalean Dissenter in Scotland; 
but that makes little to the matter. Nobody 
who knows Scotland and Scott can doubt but 
Presbyterianism, too, had a vast share in the 
forming of him. A country where the entire 
people is, or even once has been, laid hold of, 
filled to the heart with an infinite religious 
idea, has " made a step from which it cannot 
retrograde." Thought, conscience, the sense 
that man is denizen of a universe, creature of 
an eternity, has penetrated to the remotest 
cottage, to the simplest heart. Beautiful and 
awful, the feeling of a heavenly behest, of duty 
god-commanded, overcanopies all life. There 
is an inspiration in such a people : one may 
say in a more special sense, " the inspiration 
of the Almighty giveth them understanding." 
Honour to all the brave and true; everlasting 
honour to brave old Knox, one of the truest of 
the true ! That, in the moment while he and 
his cause, amid civil broils, in convulsion and 
confusion, were still but struggling for life, he 
sent the schoolmaster forth to all corners, and 
said, "Let the people be taught:" this is but 
one, and indeed an inevitable and compara- 
tively inconsiderable item in his great mes- 
sage to men. His message, in its true com- 
pass, was, " Let men know that they are men ; 
created by God, responsible to God ; who work 
in any meanest moment of time what will last 
through eternity." It is verily a great mes- 
sage. Not ploughing and hammering ma- 
chines, not patent digesters (never so orna- 
mental) to digest the produce of these: no, in 
DO wise; born slaves neither of their fellow- 
men, nor of their own appetites ; but men ! 
This great message Knox did deliver, with a 
man's voice and strength ; and found a people 
to believe him. 

Of such an achievement, we say, were it to 
he made once only, the results are immense. 
Thought, in such a country, may change its 
form, but cannot go out; the country has 
attained majority ; thought, and a certain spi- 
ritual manhood, ready for all work that man 
can do, endures there. It may take many 
forms : the form of hard-fisted, money-getting 
industry, as in the vulgar Scotchman, in the 
vulgar New Englander ; but as compact de- 
veloped force and alertness of faculty, it is 
still there; it may utter itself, one day, as the 
colossal skepticism of a Hume, (beneficent 
this too, though painful, wrestling, Titan-like, 
through doubt and inquiry towards new belief;) 
And again, some better day, it may utter itself 



as the inspired melody of a Burns : in a word, 
it is and continues in the voice and the work 
of a nation of hardy, endeavouring, consider- 
ing men, with whatever that may bear in it, or 
unfold from it. The Scotch national character 
originates in many circumstances; first of all, 
in the Saxon stuft' there was to work on ; but 
next, and beyond all else except that, in the 
Presbyterian Gospel of John Knox. It seems 
a good national character; and, on some sides, 
not so good. Let Scott thank John Knox, for 
he owed him much, little as he dream.ed of 
debt in that quarter! No Scotchman of his 
time was more entirely Scotch than Walter 
Scott : the good and the not so good, which all 
Scotchmen inherit, ran through every fi.bre of 
him. 

Scott's childhood, school-days, college-days, 
are pleasant to read of, though they difiJer not 
from those of others in his place and time. 
The memory of him may probably enough 
last till this record of them become far more 
curious than it now is. " So lived an Edin- 
burgh Writer to the Signet's son in the end of 
the eighteenth century," may some future 
Scotch novelist say to himself in the end of 
the twenty-first ! The following little fragment 
of infanc.)' is all we can extract. It is from an 
autobiography which he had begun, which one 
cannot but regret he did not finish. Scott's 
best qualities never shone out more freely 
than when he went upon anecdote and remi- 
niscence. Such a master of narrative and of 
himself could have done personal narrative 
well. Here, if any where, his knowledge was 
complete, and all his humour and good-hu- 
mour had free scope : 

" An odd incident is worth recording. It 
seems my mother had sent a maid to take 
charge of me, at this farm of Sandy-Knowe, 
that I might be no inconvenience to the family. 
But the damsel sent on that important mission 
had left her heart behind her, in the keeping 
of some wild fellow, it is likel}% who had done 
and said more to her than he was like to make 
good. She became extremely desirous to re- 
turn to Edinburgh ; and, as my mother made 
a point of her remaining where she was, she 
contracted a sort of hatred at poor me, as the 
cause of her being detained at Sandy-Knowe. 
This rose, I suppose, to a sort of delirious af- 
fection, for she confessed to old Alison Wilson, 
the housekeeper, that she had carried me up 
to the craigs under a strong temptation of the 
Devil to cut my throat with her scissors, and 
bury me in the moss. Alison instantly took 
possession of my person, and took care that 
her confidant should not be subject to any 
further temptation, at least so far as I was 
concerned. She was dismissed, of course, and 
I have heard afterwards became a lunatic. 

"It is here, at Sandy-Knowe, in the residence 
of my paternal grandfather, already mention- 
ed, that I have the first consciousness of exist- 
ence ; and I recollect distinctly that my situa- 
tion and appearance were a little whimsical. 
Among the odd remedies recurred to, to aid 
my lameness, some one had recommended 
that so often as a sheep was killed for the use 
of thefamily, I should be stripped, and swathed 
up in the skin warm as it was fiayed from the 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



519' 



carcass of the animal. In this Tartar-like ha- 
biliment I well remember lying upon the floor 
of the little parlour in the farm-house, while 
my grandfather, a venerable old man with white 
hair, used every excitement to make me try to 
crawl. I also distinctly remember the late Sir 
George M'Dougal of Mackerstown, father of 
the present Sir Henry Hay M'Dougal, joining 
in the attempt. He was, God knows how, a 
relation of ours ; and I still recollect hira in 
his old-fashioned military habit, (he had been 
Colonel of the Greys,) with a small cocked- 
hat deeply laced, an embroidered scarlet waist- 
coat, and a light-coloured coat, with milk- 
white locks tied in a military fashion, kneel- 
ing on the ground before me, and dragging his 
watch along the carpet to induce me to follow 
it. The benevolent old soldier, and the infant 
wrapped in his sheep-skin, M'ould have afford- 
ed an odd group to uninterested spectators. 
This must have happened about my third 
year, (1774,) for Sir George M'Dougal and my 
grandfather both died shortly after that period. 
—Vol. i. pp. 15—17. 

We will glance next into the " LiJclesdale 
raids." Scott has grown up to be a brisk-heart- 
ed jovial young man and advocate : in vaca- 
tion time he makes excursions to the High- 
lands, to the Border Cheviots and Northum- 
berland ; rides free and far, on his stout gal- 
loway, through hog and brake, over the dim 
moory debatable land, — over Flodden and other 
fields and places, where, though he yet knew 
it not, his work lay. No land, however dim 
and moory, but either has had or will have its 
poet, and so become not unknown in song. 
Liddesdale, which was once as prosaic as most 
dales, having now attained illustration, let us 
glance thither-ward : Liddesdale too is on this 
ancient Earth of ours under this eternal Sky ; 
and gives and takes, in the most incalculable 
manner, with the Universe at large ! Scott's 
experiences there are rather of the rustic Ar- 
cadian sort; the element of whiskey not want- 
ing. We should premise that here and there 
a feature has perhaps been aggravated for ef- 
fects' sake : 

" During seven successive years," writes Mr. 
Lockhart, (for the autobiography has long since 
left U9,) "Scott made a ntiii, as he called it, 
into Liddesdale with Mr. Shortreed, sherifl'-sub- 
stitute of Roxburgh, for his guide; exploring 
every rivulet to its source, and every ruined 
peel from foundation to battlement. At this 
time no wheel carriage had ever been seen in 
the district — the first, indeed, was a gig, driven 
by Scott himself for a part of his way, when 
on the last of these seven excursions. There 
was no inn or public-house of any kind in the 
whole valley; the travellers passed from the 
shepherd's hut to the minister's manse, and 
again from the cheerful hospitality of the 
manse to the rough and jolly welcome of the 
homestead: gathering, wherever they went, 
songs and tunes, and occasionally more tangi- 
ble relics of antiquity — even such a 'rowth of 
auld knicknackets' as Barns ascribes to Cap- 
tain Grose. To these rambles Scott ov^'ed much 
of the materials of his 'Minstrelsy of the 
Scottish Border;' and not less of that intimate 
acquaintance with the living manners of these 



unsophisticated regions, which constitutes the 
chief charm of one of the most charming of his 
prose works. But how soon he had any defi- 
nite object before him in his researches, seems 
very doubtful. 'He was maLiu'' hi/iiscll a.' the 
time,' said Mr. Shortreed ; ' but he didna ken 
maybe what he was about till years had passed : 
at first he thought o' little, I dare say, but the 
queerness and the fun.' 

'"In those days,' says the Memorandum be- 
fore me, ' advocates were not so plenty — at least 
about Liddesdale;' and the worthy Sheriff-sub- 
stitute goes on to describe the sort of bustle, 
not unmixed with alarm, produced at the first 
farm-house they visited, (Willie Elliot's at 
Millburnholm,) when the honest man was in- 
formed of the quality of one of his guests. 
When they dismounted, accordingly, he re- 
ceived Mr. Scott with great ceremony, and in- 
sisted upon himself leading his horse to the 
stable. Shortreed accompanied Willie, how- 
ever, and the latter, after taking a deliberate 
peep at Scott, 'out by the edge of the door 
cheek,' whispered, ' Weel, Robin, I say, de'il 
hae me if I's be a bit feared for him now ; he's 
just a chield like ourselves, I think.' Half-a- 
dozen dogs of all degrees had already gather- 
ed round the 'advocate,' and his way of re- 
turning their compliments had set Willie Elliot 
at once at his ease. 

"According to Mr. Shortreed, this good man 
of Millburnholm was the great original of 
Dandle Dinmont." * * "They dined at 
Millburnholm ; and, after having lingered over 
Willie Elliot's punch-bowl, until, in Mr. Short- 
reed's phrase, they were ' half-glowrin,' mount- 
ed their steeds again, and proceeded to Dr. El- 
liot's at Cleughhead where (' for,' says my Me- 
morandum, ' folk were na very nice in those 
days,') the two travellers slept in one and the 
same bed — as, indeed, seems to have been the 
case with them throughout most of their excur- 
sions in this primitivedistrict. Dr. Elliot (acler- 
gyman) had already a large MS. collection of 
the ballads Scott was in quest of." * * » 
"Next morning they seem to have ridden a 
long way for the purpose of visiting one ' auld 
Thomas o' Tuzzilehope,' another Elliot, I sup- 
pose, who was celebrated for his skill on the 
Border pipe, and in particular for being in pos- 
session of the real ////* of Dick o' the Cow. Be- 
fore starling, that is, at six o'clock, the ballad 
hunters had, ' just to lay the stomach, a devil- 
led duck or twae, and some London porter.' 
Auld Thomas found them, nevertheless, well 
disposed for 'breakfast' on their arrival at 
Tuzzilehope ; and this being over, he delighted 
them with one of the most hideous^ and un- 
earthly of all specimens of ' riding music,' 
and, moreover, with considerable libations of 
whisky-punch, manufactured in a certain 
wooden vessel, resembling a very small milk- 
pail, which he called ' Wisdom,' because it 
'made' only a few spoonfuls of spirits — 
though he had the art of replenishing it so 
adroitly, that it had been celebrated for fifty 
years as more fatal to sobriety than any bowl 
in the parish. Having done due honour to 
' Wisdom,' they again mounted, and proceeded 

* Loud tune ; German, latlen. 



520 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



over moss and moor to some other equally 
hospitable master of the pipe. ' Ah me,' says 
Shortreed, ' sic an endless fund o' humour and 
drollery as he then had wi' him ! Never ten 
yards but we were either laughing or roaring 
and singing. Wherever we stopped, how braw- 
lie he suited himsell to every body! He aye 
did as the lave did; never made himsell the 
great man, or took ony airs in the company. 
I've seen him in a' moods in these jaunts, 
grave and gay, daft and serious, sober and 
drunk — (this, however, even in our wildest 
rambles, was rare) — but, drunk or sober, he 
■was aye the gentleman. He lookit excessive- 
ly heavy and stupid when he was /cue, but he was 
never out o' gude-humour.' " 

These are questionable doings, questionably 
narrated; but what shall we say of the follow- 
ing, wherein the element of whisky plays an 
extremely prominent parti We will say that 
it is questionable, and not exemplary, whisky 
mounting clearly beyond its level ; that indeed 
charity hopes and conjectures, here may be 
some aggravating of features for effect's sake ! 

" On reaching, one evening, some Charlies- 
hope or other (I forget the name) among those 
wildernesses, they found a kindly reception, as 
usual ; but, to their agreeable surprise after 
some days of hard living, a measured and 
orderly hospitality as respected liquor. Soon 
after supper, at which a bottle of elderberry 
wine alone had been produced, a young student 
of divinity, who happened to be in the house, 
was called upon to take the 'big ha' Bible,' in 
the good old fashion of 'Burns's Saturday 
Night;' and some progress had been already 
made in the service, when the good man of 
the farm, whose 'tendency,' as Mr. Mitchell 
says, ' was soporific,' scandalized his wife and 
the dominie by starting suddenly from his 
knees, and, rubbing his eyes, with a stentorian 

exclamation of ' By , here's the keg at 

last!' and in tumbled, as he spoke the word, a 
couple of sturdy herdsmen, whom, on hearing 
a day before of the advocate's approaching 
visit, he had despatched to a certain smug- 
gler's haunt, at some considerable distance, in 
quest of a supply of rim brandy from the Sol- 
way Frith. The pious ' exercise' of the house- 
hold was hopelessly interrupted. With a 
thousand apologies for his hitherto shabby 
entertainment, this jolly Elliot, or Armstrong, 
had the welcome keg mounted on the table 
without a moment's delay, and gentle and 
simple, not forgetting the dominie, continued 
carousing about it until daylight streamed in 
upon the party. Sir Walter Scott seldom 
failed, when I saw him in company with his 
Liddesdale companion, to mimic with infinite 
humour the sudden outburst of his old host 
on hearing the clatter of horses' feet, which he 
knew to indicate the arrival of the keg — the 
consternation of the dame — and the rueful des- 
pair with which the young clerg3'maa closed 
the book."— Vol. i. pp. 195—199. 

From which Liddesdale rairls, which we 
here, like the young clergyman, close not 
without a certain rueful despair, let the reader 
draw what nourishment he can. They evince 
satisfactorily, though in a rude manner, that 
in those day.s young advocates, and Scott, like 



the rest of them, were alive and alert, — whisky 
sometimes preponderating. But let us now 
fancy that the jovial young advocate has 
pleaded his first cause; has served in yeo- 
manry drills; been wedded, been promoted 
sheriff, without romance in either case; dab- 
bling a little the while, under guidance of Monk 
Lewis, in translations from the German, in 
translation of "Goethe's Gotz with the Iron 
Hand;" — and we have arrived at the thresh- 
old of the " Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
Border," and the opening of a new century. 

Hitherto, therefore, there has been made 
out, by nature and circumstance working 
together, nothing unusually remarkable, yet 
still something very valuable; a stout effec- 
tual man of thirty, full of broad sagacity and 
good humour, with faculties in him fit for any 
burden of business, hospitality, and duty, legal 
or civic :— with what other faculties in him no 
one could yet say. As indeed, who, afterlife- 
long inspection, can say what is in any man? 
The uttered part of a man's life, let us always 
repeat, bears to the unuftered, unconscious- 
part a small unknown proportion ; he himself 
never knows it, much less do others. Give 
him room, give him impube; he reaches down 
to the infinite with that so straitly-imprisoned 
soul of his ; and can do miracles if need be ! 
It is one of the comforlablest truths that great 
men abound, though in the unknown state. 
Nay as above hinted, our greatest, being also 
by nature our quieicst, are perhaps those that 
remain unknown ! Philosopher Fichte took 
comfort in this belief, when from all pulpits 
and editorial desks, and publications, periodi- 
cal and stationary, he could hear nothing but 
the infinite chattering and twittering of com- 
monplace become ambitious ; and in the 
infinite stir of motion nowhither, and of din 
which should have been silence, all seemed 
churned into one tempestuous yesty froth, and 
the stern Fichte almost desired "taxes on 
knowledge" to allay it a little; — he comforted 
himself, we say, by the unshaken belief that 
Thought did still exist in Germany; that 
thinking men, each in his own corner, were 
verily doing their work, though in a silent 
latent manner.* Walter Scott, as a latent 
Waller, had never amused all men for a score 
of years in the course of centuries and eterni- 
ties, or gained and lost, say a hundred thou- 
sand pounds Stirling by literature; but he 
might have been a happy and by no means a 
useless, — nay, who knows at bottom whether 
not a still usefuller Walter ! However that 
was not his fortune. The Genius of rather a 
singular age, — an age at once destitute of faith 
and terrified at skepticism, with little know- 
ledge of its whereabout, with many sorrows to 
bear or front, and on the whole with a life to 
lead in these new circumstances, — had said to 
himself: What man shall be the temporary 
comforter, or were it but the spiritual comfit- 
maker, of this ray poor singular age, to solace 
its dead tedium and manifold sorrows a little? 
So had the Genius said, looking over all the 
world, what man 1 and found hira walking the 
dusty outer parliament-house of Edinburgh, 

* Fichte, Ueber das Wesen des Oelehrten. 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



^21 



"with his advocate-gown on his back ; and ex- 
claimed, That is he ! 

The "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border" 
proved to be a well, from which flowed one 
of the broadest rivers. Metrical romances, 
(which in due time pass into prose romances ;) 
the old life of men resuscitated for us ; it 
is a mighty word ! Not as dead tradition, 
but as a palpable presence, the past stood be- 
fore us. There they were, the rugged old 
fighting men ; in their doughty simplicity and 
strength, with their heartiness, their healthi- 
ness, their stout self-help, in their iron bas- 
nets, leather jerkins, jack-boots, in their 
quaintness of manner and costume; there as 
they looked and lived ; it was like a new dis- 
covered continent in literature; for the new 
century, a bright El Dorado, — or else some fat 
beatific land of Cockaigne, and Paradise of 
Donothings. To the opening nineteenth cen- 
tury, it is languor and paralysis; nothing could 
have been welcomer. Most unexpected, most 
refreshing, and exhilarating; behold our new 
El Dorado ; our fat beatific Lubberland, where 
one can enjoy and do nothing ! It was the 
time for such a new literature ; and this Wal- 
ter Scott was the man for it. The Lays, the 
Marmions, the Ladys and Lords of Lake and 
Isles, followed in quick succession, with ever- 
widening profit and praise. How many thou- 
sands of guineas were paid down for each 
new Lay ; how many thousands of copies 
(fifty and more sometimes) were printed off 
then and subsequently ; what complimenting, 
reviewing, renown, and apotheosis there was; 
all is recorded in these seven volumes, which 
will be valuable in literary statistics. It is a 
history, brilliant, remarkable ; the outlines of 
which are known to all. The reader shall re- 
call it, or conceive it. No blaze in his fancy 
is likely to mount higher than the reality did. 
At this middle period of his life, therefore, 
Scott, enriched with copyrights, with new 
official incomes and promotions, rich in money, 
rich in repute, presents himself as a man in 
the full career of success. "Health, wealth, 
and wit to guide them," (as his vernacular 
proverb says,) all these three are his. The 
field is open for him, and victory there : his 
own faculty, his own self, unshackled, victori- 
ously unfolds itself, — the highest blessedness 
that can befall a man. Wide circle of friends, 
personal loving admirers : warmth of domes- 
tic joys, vouchsafed to all that can true-heart- 
edly nestle down among them; light of radi- 
ance and renown given only to a few: who 
would not call Scott happy 1 But the happi- 
est circumstance of all is, as we said above, 
that Scott had in himself a right healthy soul, 
rendering him little dependent on outward cir- 
cumstances. Things showed themselves to 
him not in distortion or borrowed light or 
gloom, but as they were. Endeavour lay in 
him and endurance, in due measure; and 
clear vision of what was to be endeavoured 
after. Were one to preach a Sermon on 
Health, as really were worth doing, Scott 
ought to be the text. Theories are demon- 
strably true in the way of logic; and then in 
the way of practice, they prove true or else 
not true: but here is the grand experiment, 
66 



Do they turn out well 1 What boots it that a. 
man's creed is the wisest, that his system of 
principles is the superfinest, if, Avhen set to 
work, the life of him does nothing but jar, and 
fret itself into liolcs^ They are untrue in that,, 
were it in nothing else, these principles of 
his; openly convicted of untruth; — fit only,, 
shall we say, to be rejected as counterfeits,, 
and flung to the dogs 1 We say not that ; but 
we do say that ill-health, of body or of mind, 
is defeat, is battle (in a good or in a bad cause) 
with had success ; that health alone is victory. 
Let all men, if they can manage it, contrive to 
be healthy ! He who in what cause soever 
sinks into pain and disease, let him take 
thought of it; let him know well that it is not 
good he has arrived at yet, but surely evil, — 
may, or may not be, on the way towards good- 
Scott's healthiness showed itself decisively 
in all things, and nowhere more decisively 
than in this : the way in which he took his 
fame; the estimate he from the first formed of 
fame. Money will buy money's worth ; but 
the thing men call fame what is it] A gaudy 
emblazonry, not good for much, — except indeed 
as it too may turn to money. To Scott it was 
a profitable pleasing superfluity, no necessary 
of life. Not necessary, now or ever 1 Seem- 
ingly without much effort, but taught by nature, 
and the instinct which instructs the sound 
heart what is good for it and what is not, he 
felt that he could always do without this same 
emblazonry of reputation ; that he ought to 
put no trust in it; but be ready at any time 
to see it pass away from him, and to hold on 
his way as before. It is incalculable, as we 
conjecture, what evil he escaped in this 
manner; what perversions, irritations, mean 
agonies without a name, he lived wholly apart 
from, knew nothing of. Happily before fame 
arrived, he had reached the mature age at 
which all this was easier to him. What a 
strange Nemesis lurks in the felicities of men ! 
In thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey, in thy 
belly it shall be bitter as gall 1 Some weakly- 
organized individual, we will say at the age 
of five-and-twenty, whose main or whole talent 
rests on some prurient susceptivity, and nothing 
under it but shallowness and vacuum, is 
clutched hold of by the general imagination, is 
whirled aloft to the giddy height; and taught 
to believe the divine-seeming message that he 
is a great man : such individual seems the 
luckiest of men: and is he not the unluckiestT 
Swallow not the Circe-drought, O weakly- 
organized individual ; it is fell poison ; it will 
dry up the fountains of thy whole existence^ 
and all will grow withered and parched; thou 
shalt be wretched under the sun ! Is there, for 
example, a sadder book than that " Life of 
Byron," by Moore 1 To omit mere prurient 
susceptivities that rest on vacuum, look at 
poor Byron, who really had much substance 
in him. Sitting there in his self-exile, with a 
proud heart striving to persuade iiself that it 
despises ihe entire created universe; and afar 
off, in foggy Babylon, let any pitifullest whip- 
ster draw pen on him, your proud Byron 
writhes in torture, — as if the pitiful whipster 
were a magician, or his pen a galvanic 
wire struck into the Byron's spinal marrow 1 
2x2 



522 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Lamentable, despicable, — one had rather be a 
kitten and cry mew! O, son of Adam, great 
or little, according as thou art loveable, those 
thou livest with will love thee. Those thou 
livest not with, is it of moment that the}^ have 
the alphabetic letters of thy name engraved on 
their memory with some sign>post likeness of 
Ihee (as like as I to Hercules) appended to 
them ? It is not of moment; in sober truth, 
not of any moment at all ! And yet, behold, 
there is no soul now whom thou canst love 
freely, — from one soul only art thou always 
. sure of reverence enough ; in presence of no 
soul is it rightly well with thee ! How is thy 
•world become desert; and thou, for the sake 
of a little babblement of tongues, art poor, 
bankrupt, insolvent not in purse, but in heart 
and mind. "The golden calf of self-love," 
says Jean Paul, "has grown into a burning 
Phalaris' bull, to consume its owner and wor- 
shipper." Ambition, the desire of shining and 
outshining, was the beginning of sin in this 
•world. The man of letters who founds upon 
his fame, does he not thereby alone declare 
himself a follower of Lucifer (named Satan, 
the Enemy,) and member of the Satanic 

school 1 

It was in this poetic period that Scott formed 
his connection with the Ballantynes; and em- 
barked, though under cover, largely in trade. 
To those who regard him in the heroic light, 
and will have vates to signify prophet as -well 
as poet, this portion of his biography seems 
somewhat incoherent. Viewed as it stood in 
the reality, as he was and as it was, the enter- 
prise, since it proved so unfortunate, may be 
called lamentable, but cannot be called un- 
natural. The practical Scott, looking towards 
practical issues in all things, could not but 
find hard cash one of the most practical. If, 
by any means, cash could be honestly pro- 
duced, were it by writing poems, were it by 
printing them, why not 1 Great things might 
be done ultimately; great difficulties were at 
once got rid of, — manifold higglings of book- 
sellers, and contradictions of sinners hereby 
fell away. A printing and bookselling specu- 
lation was not so alien for a maker of books. 
Voltaire, who indeed got no copyrights, made 
much money by the war commissariat, in his 
time; we believe by the victualling branch of 
it. Saint George himself, they say, was a 
dealer in bacon in Cappadocia. A thrifty man 
will help himself towards his object by such 
steps as lead to it. Station in society, solid 
power over the good things of this world, was 
Scott's avowed object; towards which the pre- 
cept of precepts is that of lago: Put money in 
thy purse. 

Here, indeed, it is to be I'emarked, that, per- 
haps, no literary man of any generation has 
less value than Scott for the immaterial part 
of his mission in any sense; not only for the 
fantasy called fame, with the fantastic miseries 
attendant thereon ; but also for the spiritual 
purport of his work, whether it tended hither- 
ward or thitherward, or had any tendency 



and buttoned into the breeches-pocket. Some- 
what too little of a fantast, this vates of, ours ! 
But so it was: in this nineteenth century, our 
highest literary man, who immeasurably be- 
yond all others commanded the world's ear, 
had, as it were, no message whatever to de- 
liver to the world ; wished not the world to 
elevate itself, to amend itself, to do this or to 
do that, except simply pay him for the books 
he kept writing. Very remarkable ; fittest, per- 
haps, for an age fallen languid, destitute of 
faith and terrified at skepticism? Or, perhaps, 
for quite another sort of age, an age all in 
peaceable triumphant motion 1 But, indeed, 
since Shakspeare's time there has been no 
greater speaker so unconscious of an aim in 
speaking. Equall}'' unconscious these two 
utterances ; equally the sincere complete pro- 
ducts of the minds they came from : and now 
if they were equally deep? Or, if the one was 
living fire, and the other was futile phosphores- 
cence and mere resinous firework? It will 
depend on the relative worth of the minds ; for 
both were equally spontaneous themselves, 
unencumbered by an ulterior aim. Beyond 
drawing audiences to the Globe Theatre, 
Shakspeare contemplated no result in those 
plays of his. Yet they have had results! 
Utter with free heart what thy own damon 
gives thee : if fire from heaven it shall be 
well ; if resinous firework, it shall be — as well 
as it could be, or better than otherwise ! The 
candid judge will, in general, require that a 
speaker, in so extremely serious a universe as 
this of ours, have something to speak about. 
In the heart of the speaker there ought to be 
some kind of gospel-tidings burning till it be 
uttered; otherwise it were better for him that 
he altogether held his peace. A gospel some- 
what more decisive than this of Scott's, — 
except to an age altogether languid, without 
either skepticism or faith 1 These things the 
candid judge will demand of literary men ; yet 
withal will recognise the great worth there is 
in Scott's honesty, if in nothing more, in his 
being the thing he was with such entire good 
faith. Here is a something not a nothing. If 
no skyborn messenger, heaven looking through 
his eyes ; then neither is it a chimera with his 
systems, crotchets, cants, fanaticisms, and " last 
infirmitjr of noble minds," — full of misery, un- 
rest, and ill-will ; but a substantial, peaceable, 
terrestrial man. Far as the Earth is under the 
Heaven, does Scott stand below the former sort 
of character; but high as the cheerful flowery 
Earth is above waste Tartarus does he stand 
above the latter. Let him live in his own 
fashion, and do honour to him in that. 

It were late in the day to write criticisms 
on those Metrical Romances: at the same 
time, the great popularity they had seems na- 
tural enough. In the first place, there was 
the indisputable impress of worth, of genuine 
human force, in them. This, which lies in 
some degree, or is thought to lie, at the bottom 
of all popularity, did to an unusual degree, 
disclose itself in these rhvmed romances of 



whatever; and indeed for all purports and re- j Scott's. Pictures were actually painted and 
suits of his working, except such, we may say, ' presented; human emotions conceived and 
as offered themselves to the eye, and could, in | sympathized with. Considering that wretched 
one sense or the other be handled, looked at, ! Della-Cruscan and other vamping-up of old 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTl. 



523' 



worn-out tatters was the staple article then, it 
may be granted that Scott's excellence was 
superior and supreme. When a Hayley was 
the main singer, a Scott might well be hailed 
with warm welcome. Consider whether the 
Loves of the Plants, and even the Loves of the 
triangles, could be worth the loves and hates 
of men and women ! Scott was as preferable 
to 'what he displaced, as the. substance is to 
■wearisomely repeated shadow of a substance. 
But, in the second place, we may say that 
the kind of worth which Scott manifested 
■was fitted especially for the then temper of 
men. We have called it an age fallen into 
spiritual languoi", destitute of belief, yet terri- 
fied at skepticism; reduced to live a stinted 
half-life, under strange new circumstances. 
Now vigorous whole-life, this was what of all 
things these delineations offered. The reader 
■was carried back to rough strong times, where- 
in those maladies of ours had not yet arisen. 
Brawny fighters, all cased in buff and iron, 
their hearts too sheathed in oak and triple 
brass, caprioled their huge war-horses, shook 
their death-doing spears ; and went forth in 
the most determined manner, nothing doubt- 
ing. The reader sighed, yet not without a 
reflex solacement: " 0, that I could have lived 
in those times, had never known these logic- 
cobwebs, this doubt, this sickliness ; and been 
and felt myself alive among men alive !" Add 
lastly, that in this new-found poetic world there 
was no call for effort on the reader's part ; 
what excellence they had, exhibited itself at a 
glance. It was for the reader, not the El Do- 
rado only, but a beatific land of a Cockaigne 
and Paradise of Donothings ! The reader, 
"what the vast majority of readers so long to 
do, was allowed to lie down at his ease, and 
be ministered to. What the Turkish bath- 
keeper is said to aim at with his frictions, and 
shampooings, and fomentings, more or less 
effectually, that the patient in total idleness 
may have the delights of activity, — was here 
to a considerable extent realized. The languid 
imagination fell back into its rest; an artist 
was there who could supply it with high- 
painted scenes, with sequences of stirring ac- 
tion, and whisper to it. Be at ease, and let thy 
tepid element be comfortable to thee. " The 
rude man," says the critic, " requires only to 
see something going on. The man of more 
refinement must be made to feel. The man 
of complete refinement must be made to re- 
flect." 

We named the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish 
Border" the fountain from which flowed this 
great river of Metrical Romances ; but ac- 
cording to some they can be traced to a still 
higher, obscurer spring; to Goethe's " GiJtz 
von Berlichingen with the Iron Hand ;" of 
■which, as -we have seen, Scott in his earlier 
<iays executed a translation. Dated a good 
many years ago, the following words in a cri- 
ticism on Goethe are found written; which 
probably are still new to most readers of this 
Review : 

"The works just mentioned, Gotz and W't- 
ter, though noble specimens of youthful talent, j 
are still not so much distinguished by their 
intrinsic merits as by their splendid fortune, i 



It would be difficult to name two books which 
have exercised a deeper influence on the sub- 
sequent literature of Europe than these two 
performances of a young author; his first- 
fruits, the pn duce of his twenty-fourth year. 
Wer'.er appeared to seize the hearts of men in 
all quarters of the world, and to utter for them 
the word which they had long been waiting to 
hear. As usually happens, too, this same 
word, once uttered, was soon abundantly re- 
peated ; spoken in all dialects, and chaunted 
through all notes of the gamut, till the sound 
of it had grown a weariness rather than a 
pleasure. Skeptical sentimentality, view-hunt- 
ing, love, friendship, suicide, and desiieration, 
became the staple of literary ware ; and 
though the epidemic, after a long course of 
years, subsided in Germany, it reappeared 
with various modifications in other countries, 
and everywhere abundant traces of its good 
and bad effects are still to be discerned. The 
fortune of Berlichingen with the Iron Hand, 
though less sudden, was by no means less 
exalted. In his own country, Gotz, though he 
now stands solitary and childless, became the 
parent of an innumerable progeny of chivalry 
plays, feudal delineations, and poetico-anti- 
quarian performances: which, though long 
ago deceased, made noise enough in their day 
and generation : and with ourselve.- his influ- 
ence has been perhaps still more remarkable. 
Sir Walter Scott's first literary enterprise was 
a translation of Gotz von Berlichingen : and, if 
genius could be communicated like instruc- 
tion, we might call this work of Goethe's the 
prime cause of Marmion and the Lady of the 
Lake, with all that has followed from the same 
creative hand. Truly, a grain of seed that 
has lighted in the right soil! For if not 
firmer and fairer, it has grown to be taller and 
broader than any other tree; and all the na- 
tions of the earth are still yearly gathering of 
its fruit." 

How far " Gotz von Berlichingen " actually 
affected Scott's literary destination, and whe- 
ther without it the rhymed romances, and 
then the prose romances of the Author of 
Waverly, would not have followed as they 
did, must remain a very obscure question; 
obscure, and not important. Of the fact, how- 
ever, there is no doubt but these two tenden- 
cies, which may be named Gbtzism and Wer- 
terism, of the former of which Scott was re- 
presentative with us, have made, and are still 
in some quarters making the tour of all Eu- 
rope. In Germany, too, there was this affec- 
tionate half-regrelful looking back into the 
past ; Germany had its buff-belted watch- 
tower period in literature, and had even got 
done with it, before Scott began. Then as to 
Werlerism, had not we English our Byron and 
his genius 1 No form of Werterism in any 
other country had half the potency : as our 
Scott carried chivalry literature to the ends 
of the world, so did our Byron Werterism. 
France, busy with its Revolution and Napo- 
leon, had little leisure at the moment for Gotz- 
ism or Werterism ; but it has had them both 
since, in a shape of its own : witness the 
whole "Literature of Desperation" in our 
own days, the beggarliest form of Werterism 



524 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



yet seen, probably its expiring final form: 
witness also, at the other extremity of ihe 
scale, a noble-gifted Chateaubriand, Gcitz and 
Werter, both in one. — Curious : how all Eu- 
rope is but like a set of parishes of the same 
county : participant of the self-same influ- 
ences, ever since the Crusades, and earlier; — 
and these glorious wars of ours are but like 
parish-brawls, which begin in mutual igno- 
rance, intoxication, and boastful speech: which 
end in broken windows, damage, waste, and 
bloody noses ; and which one hopes the gene- 
ral good sense is now in the way towards put- 
ting down, in some measure ! 

But, however, leaving this to be as it can, 
what it concerned us here to remark was, that 
British Werterism, in the shape of those Byron 
Poems, so potent and poignant, produced on the 
languid appetite of men a mighty effect. This 
too was a " class of feelings deeply important 
to modern minds ; feelings -which arise from 
passion incapable of being converted into action, 
which belong to an age as indolent, cultivated, 
and unbelieving as our own !" The " languid 
age without either faith or skepticism" turned 
towards Byronism with an interest altogether 
peculiar: here, if no cure for its miserable 
paralysis and languor, was at least an indig- 
nant statement of the misery; an indignant 
Ernulphus' curse read over it, — which all 
men felt to be something. Half-regretful lock- 
ings into the Past gave place, in many quar- 
ters, to Ernulphus' cursings of the Present. 
Scott was among the first to perceive that the 
day of Metrical Chivalry Romances was de- 
clining. He had held the sovereignty for some 
half-score of years, a comparatively long lease 
of it; and now the time seemed come for de- 
thronement, for abdication ; an unpleasant bu- 
siness: which however he held himself read}^ 
as a brave man will, to transact with compo- 
sure and in silence. After all, Poetry was not 
his staff of life; Poetry had already yielded 
him much money ; this at least it would not 
take back from him. Busy always with editing, 
with compiling, with multiplex official, com- 
mercial business, and solid interests, he beheld 
the coming change with unmoved eye. 

Resignation he was prepared to exhibit in 
this matter ; — and now behold there proved to 
be no need of resignation. Let the Metrical 
Romance become a Prose one ; shake ofl^ its 
rhyme-fetters, and try a wider sweep ! In the 
spring of 1814 appeared " Waverly ;" an event 
memorable in the annals of British literature; 
in the annals of British book-selling thrice and 
four times memorable. Byron sang, but Scott 
narrated; and when the song had sung itself 
out through all variations onwards to the " Don- 
Juan" one, Scott was still found narratinff, and 
carrying the whole world along with hiim All 
bygone popularity of chivalry lays was swal- 
lowed up in a far greater. What " series" 
followed out of" Waverly," and how and with 
what result, ,is known to all men ; was wit- 
nessed and watched with a kind of rapt as- 
tonishment by all. Hardly any literary re- 
putation ever rose so high in our Island; no 
reputation at all ever spread so wide. Walter 
Scott became Sir Walter Scott, Baronet, of Ab- 
botsford ; on whom fortune seemed to pour her 



whole cornucopia of wealth, honour, and 
worldly good; the favourite of Princes and 
of Peasants, and all intermediate men. His 
" Waverly series," swift-following one on the 
other apparently without end, was the universal 
reading, looked for like an annual harvest, by 
all ranks in all European countries. A curious 
circumstance superadded itself, that the author 
though known was unknown. From the first, 
most people suspected, and soon after the first 
few intelligent persons much doubted, that the 
Author of" Waverly" was Walter Scott. Yet 
a certain mystery was still kept up ; rather 
piquant to the public; doubtless very pleasant 
to the author, who saw it all; who probably 
had not to listen, as other hapless individuals 
often had, to this or the other long-drawn " clear 
proof at last," that the author was not Walter 
Scott, but a certain astonishing Mr. So-and-so ; 
— one of the standing miseries of human life 
in that time. But for the privileged author, it 
was like a king travelling incognito. All men 
know that he is a high king, chivalrous Gustaf 
or Kaiser Joseph; but he mingles in their 
meetings without cumber of etiquette or lone- 
some ceremony, as Chevalier du Nord, or Count 
of Lorraine: he has none of the weariness of 
royalty, and yet all the praise, and the satisfac- 
tion of hearing it with his own ears. In a word, 
the Waverly Novels circulated and reigned 
triumphant; to the general imagination the 
"'Author of Waverly'" was like some living 
mythological personage, and ranked among the 
chief wonders of the world. 

How a man lived and demeaned himself in 
such unwonted circumstances is worth seeing. 
We would gladly quote from Scott's corre- 
spondence of this period; but that does not 
much illustrate the matter. His letters, as 
above stated, are never without interest, yet also 
seldom or never very interesting. They are full 
of cheerfulness, of wit, and ingenuity; but they 
do not treat of aught intimate ; without im- 
peaching their sincerity, what is called sin- 
cerity, one may say they do not, in any case 
whatever, proceed from the innermost parts 
of the mind. Conventional forms, due consi- 
derations of your own and yourcorrespondent's 
pretensions and vanities, are at no moment 
left out of view. The epistolary stream runs 
on, lucid, free, glad-flowing; but always, as it 
were parallel to the real substance of the mat- 
ter, never coincident with it. One feels it hol- 
lowish under foot. Letters they are of a most 
humane man of the world, even exemplary in 
that kind ! but with the man of the world al- 
ways visible to them ; — as indeed it was little 
in Scott's way to speak perhaps even with him- 
self in any other fashion. We select rather some 
glimpses of him from Mr. Lockhart's record 
The first is of dining with Royalty or Prince- 
Regentship itself; an almost official matter: 

" On hearing froni Mr. Croker (then Secre- 
taiy to the Admirality) that Scott was to be in 
town by the middle of March, (1815,) the Prince 
said — ' Let me know when he comes, and I'll 
get up a snug little dinner that will suit him ;*■ 
and, after he had been presented and graciously 
received at the levee, he was invited to dinner 
accordingly, through his excellent friend Mr. 
Adam, (now Lord Chief Commissioner of the 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



525 



Jury Court in Scotland,) who at that time held 
a confidential office in the royal household. 
The Regent had consulted with Mr. Adam also 
as to the composition of the party. ' Let us 
have,' said he, 'just a few friends of his own, 
and the more Scoich the better;' and both the 
Commissioner and Mr. Croker assure me that 
the party was the most interesting and agreea- 
ble one in their recollection. It comprised, I 
believe, the Duke of York — the Duke of Gor- 
don (then Marquess of Huntly) — the Marquess 
of Hertford (then Lord Yarmouth) — the Earl 
of Fife — and Scott's early friend Lord Melville. 
' The Prince and Scott,' says Mr. Croker, ' were 
the two most brilliant story-tellers, in their 
several ways, that I have ever happened to 
meet; they were both aware of their /o?-?^, and 
both exerted themselves that evening with de- 
lightful effect. On going home, I really could 
not decide which of them had shone the most.(!) 
The Regent was enchanted with Scott, as Scott 
was with him ; and on all his subsequent visits 
to London, he was a frequent guest at the royal 
table.' The Lord Chief Commissioner remem- 
bers that the Prince was particularly delighted 
•with the poet's anecdotes of the old Scotch 
judges and lawyers, which his Royal Highness 
sometimes capped by ludicrous traits of certain 
ermined sages of his own acquaintance. Scott 
told, among others, a story, which he was fond 
■of telling, of his old friend the Lord Justice- 
Clerk Braxfield ; and the commentary of his 
•Rqyal Highness on hearing it amused Scott, 
who often mentioned it afterwards. The anec- 
dote is this : — Braxfield, whenever he went on 
a particular circuit, was in the habit of visiting 
a gentleman of good fortune in the neighbour- 
hood of one of the assize towns, and staying 
at least one night, which, being both of them 
ardent chess-players, they usually concluded 
with their favourite game. One Spring circuit 
the battle; was not decided at daybreak ; so the 
Justice-Clerk said, — ' Weel, Donald, I must 
■e'en come back this gate, and let the game lie 
■ower for the present;' and back he came in 
October, but not to his old friend's hospitable 
house; for that gentleman had in the interim 
been apprehended on a capital charge, (of for- 
gery,) and his name stood on the Porleous Roll, 
or list of those who M'ere about to be tried 
under his former guest's auspices. The laird 
was indicted and tried accordingly, and the 
jury returned a verdict of guilty. Braxfield 
forthwith put on his cocked hat, (which an- 
swers to the black cap in England,) and pro- 
nounced the sentence of the law in the usual 
•terms — 'To be hanged by the neck until you 
be dead; and may the Lord have mercy upon 
your unhappy soul!' Having concluded this 
awful formula in his most sonorous cadence, 
Braxfield, dismounting his formidable beaver, 
gave a familiar nod to his unfortunate ac- 
quaintance, and said to him in a sort of chuck- 
ling wh'sper — 'And now Donald, my man, I 
think I've checkmated you for ance.' The 
Regent laughed heartily at this specimen of 
Mncqueen's brutal humour; and 'I'faith, Wal- 
ter,' said he, ' this old big-wig seems to have 
taken things as coolly as my tyrannical self. 
Don't you remember Tom Moore's description 
of me at breakfast — 



'"The tnble spread with tea and toast. 
Death-warrants and the Morning Posf!' 

"Towards midnight, the Prince called for 
'a bumper, with all the honours, to the Author 
of Waverley ;' and looked significantly, as he 
was charging his own glass, to Scott. Scott 
seemed somewhat puzzled for a moment, but 
instantly recovering himself, and filling his 
glass to the brim, said, 'Your Royal Highness 
looks as if you thought I had some claim to 
the honours of this toast. I have no such pre- 
tensions, but shall take good care that the real 
Simon Pure hears of the high compliment that 
has now been paid him.' He then drank oflf 
his claret; and joined with a stentorian voice 
in the cheering, which the Prince himself 
timed. But before the company could resume 
their seals his Royal Highness, ' Another of 
the same, if you please, to the Author of Mar- 
mion, — and now, Walter, my man, I have 
checkmated you for uvcc' The second bumper 
was followed by cheers still more prolonged: 
and Scott then rose, and returned thanks in a 
short address, which struck the Lord Chief 
Commissioner as ' alike grave and graceful.' 
This story has been circulated in a very per- 
verted shape." * * * "Before he left town 
he again dined at Carlton House, when the 
party was a still smaller one than before, and 
the merriment if possible still more free. That 
nothing might be wanting, the Prince sang 
several capital songs." — Vol. iii. pp. 340 — 343. 

Or take, at a very great interval in many 
senses, this glimpse of another dinner, alto- 
gether w!,otfLcially and much better described. 
It is James Ballantyne the printer and publish- 
er's dinner, in Saint-John Street, Canongate, 
Edinburgh, on the birtheve of a Waverley 
Novel: 

"The feast was, to use one of James's own 
favorite epithets, i;:o?-geoi<s ,• an aldermanic dis- 
play of turtle and venison, with the suitable 
accompaniments of iced punch, potent ale, and 
generous Madeira. When the cloth was drawn, 
the burly prreses arose, with all he could mus- 
ter of the port of John Kemble, and spouted 
with a sonorous voice the formula of Mac- 
beth — 

'Fill full! 
I drink to the general joy of the whole lahle !' 

This was followed by 'The King, God bless 
him!' and second came — 'Gentlemen, there is 
another toast which never has been nor shall 
be omitted in this house of mine: I give you 
the health of Mr. Walter Scott, with three 
times three!' All honour having been done 
to this health, and Scott having briefly thanked 
the company, with some expressions of warm 
affection to their host, Mrs. Ballantyne retired; 
— the bottles passed round twice or thrice in 
the usual way; and then James rose once 
more, every veir^ on his brow distended: his 
eyes solemnly fixed on vacancy, to propose, 
not as before in his stentorian key, but with 
' 'bated breath,' in the sort of whi'^per by which 
a stage conspirator thrills the gallery — '■Gen- 
ilenien, n bumper tn the immortal Jlulhor of Waver- 
ky!' — The uproar of cheering, in which Scott 
made a fashion of joining, was succeeded by 
deep silence ; and then Ballantyne proceeded — 



526 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



'In his Lord-Burleigh look, serene and serious, 
A something of imposing and mysterious' — 

to lament the obscurity in which his illustrious 
but too modest correspondent still chose to 
conceal himself from the plaudits of the world ; 
to thank the company for the manner in which 
the nominis vrnbra had been received; and to 
assure them that the Author of ' Waverley' 
would, when informed of the circumstance, 
feel highly delighted — 'the proudest hour of 
his life,' &c. &c. The cool, demure fun of 
Scott's features during all this mummery was 
perfect; and Erskine's attempt at a gay wom- 
chahmce was still more ludicrously meritorious. 
Aldiborontiphoscophornio, however, bursting 
as he was, knew too well to allow the new 
Novel to be made the subject of discussion. 
Its name was announced, and success to it 
crowned another cup; but after that, no more 
of Jedediah, To cut the thread, he rolled out 
unbidden some one of his many theatrical 
songs, in a style that would have done no dis- 
honour to almost any orchestra — The Maid of 
Lodi, or perhaps The Bay of Eifcuy, oh! — or 
The sweet little cherub that sits up aloft. Other 
toasts followed, interspersed with ditties from 
other performers; old George Thomson, the 
friend of Burns, was ready, for one, with The 
Moorland Wedding, or Willie brew'd a peck o' 
maut : — and so it went on, until Scott and Ers- 
kine, with any clerical or very staid personage 
that had chanced to be admitted, saw fit to 
withdraw. Then the scene was changed. The 
claret and olives made way for broiled bones 
and a mighty bowl of punch; and when a few 
glasses of the hot beverage had restored his 
powers, James opened ore rotunda on the merits 
of the forthcoming romance. ' One chapter — 
one chapter only !' was the cry. After 'Nay, 
by'r Lady, nay !' and a few more coy shifts, the 
proof-sheets were at length produced, and 
James, with many a prefatory hem, read aloud 
■what he considered as the most striking dia- 
logue they contained. 

" The first I heard so read was the interview 
between Jeanie Deans, the Duke of Argyle, 
and Queen Caroline, in Richmond Park; and, 
notwithstanding some spice of the pompous 
tricks to which he was addicted, I must say he 
did the inimitable scene great justice. At all 
events, the effect it produced was deep and 
memorable ; and no wonder that the exulting 
typographer's one bumper more to Jedediah Cleish- 
bolham preceded his parting-stave, which was 
uniformly The Last Words of Marmion, executed 
certainly with no contemptible rivalry of Bra- 
ham."— Vol. iv. pp. 166 — 168. 

Over at Abbotsford, things wear a still more 
prosperous aspect. Scott is building there, by 
the pleasant banks of the Tweed ; he has 
bought and is buying land there; fast as the 
new gold comes in for a new Waverly Novel, 
or even faster, it changes itself into nioory 
acres, into stone, and hewn or planted wood: 

"About the middle of February" (1820) — 
says Mr. Lockhart, "it having been ere that 
time arranged that I should marry his eldest 
daughter in the course of the spring — I accom- 
panied him and part of his family on one of 
those flying visits to Abbotsford, with which 
he often indulged himself on a Saturday during 



term. Upon such occasions, Scott. appeared 
at the usual hour in Court, but wearing, in- 
stead of the official suit of black, his country 
morning-dress, green jacket, and so forth, 
under the clerk's gown." — "At noon, when the 
Court broke up, Peter Mathieson was sure to 
be in attendance in the Parliament Close ; and, 
five minutes after, the gown had been tossed 
off; and Scott, rubbing his hands for glee, 
was under weigh for Tweedside. As we pro- 
ceeded," &c. 

"Next morning there appeared at breakfast 
John Ballantyne, who had at this time a shoot- 
ing or hunting-box a few miles off, in the vale 
of the Leader, and with him Mr. Constable, his 
guest; and it being a fine clear day, as soon 
as Scott had read the church service and one 
of Jeremy Taylor's sermons, we all sallied out 
before noon on a perambulation of his upland 
territories ; Maida (the hound) and the rest of 
the favourites accompanying our march. At 
starting we were joined by the constant hench- 
man, Tom Purdie, — and I may save myself 
the trouble of anjr attempt to describe his ap- 
pearance, for his master has given us an 
inimitably true one in introducing a certain 
personage of his Redgauntlet: — 'He was, per- 
haps, sixty years old; yet his brow was not 
much furrowed, and his jet-black hair was 
only grizzled, not whitened, by the advance of 
age. All his motions !?poke strength unabated; 
and, though rather under-sized, he had very 
broad shoulders, was square made, thin-flank- 
ed, and apparently combined in his frame 
muscular strength and activity ; the last some- 
what impaired, perhaps, by years, but the first 
remaining in full vigour. A hard and harsh 
countenance; eyes far sunk under projecting 
eyebrows, which were grizzled like his hair; 
a wide mouth, furnished from ear to ear with 
a range of unimpaired teeth of uncommon 
whiteness, and a size and breadth which 
might have become the jaws of an ogre, com- 
pleted this delightful portrait.' Equip this 
figure in Scott's cast-off green jacket, white 
hat, and drab trousers; and imagine that years 
of kind treatment, comfort, and the honest 
consequence of a confidential grieve* had soft- 
ened away much of the hardness and harsh- 
ness originally impressed on the visage by 
anxious penury, and the sinister habits of a 
blact;-fishcr : — and the Tom Purdie of 1820 
stands before us. 

"We were all delighted to see how com- 
pletely Scott had recovered his bodily vigour, 
and none more so than Constable, who, as 
he puffed and panted after him, up one ravine 
and down another, often stopped to wipe 
his forehead, and remarked, that 'it was 
not every author who should lead him such a 
dance.' But Purdie's face shone with rapture 
as he observed how severely the swagbellied 
bookseller's activity was tasked. Scott ex- 
claimed exultingly, though, perhaps, for ihe 
tenth time, 'This will be a glorious spring for 
our trees, Tom !' — 'You may say that, Sheriff,' 
quoth Tom, — and then lingering a moment for 
Constable — ' My certy,' he added, scratching 
his head, ' and I think it will be a grand 



* Overseer; German, graf. 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



527 



season for our buiks too.' But indeed Tom 
always talked of our buiks as if they had been 
as regular products of the soil as our ails and 
our bij-ks. Having threaded first the Hexil- 
cleugh and then the Rhymer's Glen, we arrived 
at Huntly Burn, where the hospitality of the 
kind Weird sisters, as Scott called the Miss 
Fergusons, reanimated our exhausted biblio- 
poles, and gave them courage to extend their 
walk a little further down the same famous 
brook. Here there was a small cottage in a 
very sequestered situation," (named Chiefs- 
wood,) " by making some little additions to 
which Scott thought it might be converted 
into a suitable summer residence for his 
daughter and future son-in-law." * * " As we 
walked homeward, Scott, being a little fatigued, 
laid his left hand on Tom's shoulder, and leaned 
heavily for support, chatting to his ' Sunday 
pony,' as he called the affectionate fellow, just 
as freely as with the rest of the party ; and Tom 
put in his word shrewdly and manfully, and 
grinned and grunted whenever the joke chanced 
to be within his apprehension. It was easy to 
see that his heart swelled within him from the 
moment the Sheriff got his collar in his gripe." 
—Vol. iv. p. 349, 353. 

That Abbotsford became infested to a great 
degree with tourists, wonder-hunters, and all 
that fatal species of people, may be supposed. 
Solitary Ettrick saw itself populous : all paths 
were beaten with the feet and hoofs of an end- 
less miscellany of pilgrims. As many as 
"sixteen parties" have arrived at Abbotsford 
in one day ; male and female; peers, Socinian 
preachers, whatsoever was distinguished, what- 
soever had love of distinction in it ! Mr. 
Lockharl thinks there was no literary shrine 
ever so bepilgrimed, except Ferney in Vol- 
taire's time, who, however, was not half so 
accessible. A fatal species ! These are what 
Schiller calls " the flesh-flies ;" buzzing swarms 
of bluebottles, who never fail where any taint 
of human glory or other corruptibility is in 
the wind. So has Nature decreed. Scott's 
healthiness, bodily and mental, his massive 
solidity of character, nowhere showed itself 
more decisively than in his manner of encoun- 
tering this part of his fate. That his bluebot- 
tles were blue, and of the usual tone and 
quality, may be judged. Hear Captain Basil 
Hall, (in a very compressed state:) 

" We arrived in good time, and found several 
other guests at dinner. The public rooms are 
lighted with oil-gas, in a style of extraordinary 
splendour. The," &c. — " Had I a hundred pens, 
each of which at the same time should sepa- 
rately write down an anecdote, I could not 
hope to record one-half of those which our 
host, to use Spenser's expression, ' welled out 
alway.' " — " Entertained us all the way with an 
endless string of anecdotes;" — " came like a 
stream of poetry from his lips ;" — " path muddy 
and scarcely passable, yet I do not remember 
ever to have seen any place so interesting as 
the skill of this mighty magician had rendered 
this narrow ravine." — " Impossible to touch on 
any theme, but straightway he has an anecdote 
to fit it." — "Thus we strolled along, borne, as 
it were, on the stream of song and story." — " In 
the evening we had a great feast indeed. Sir 



Walter asked us if we had ever read Christa- 
bel." — "Interspersed with these various read- 
ings, were some hundreds of stories, some 
quaint, some pathetical." — "At breakfast to- 
day we had, as usual, some 150 stories — God 
knows how they came in." — "In any man so 
gifted — so qualified to take the loftiest, proudest 
line at the head of the literature, the taste, the 
imagination of the whole world!" — "For in- 
stance, he never sits at any particular place at 
table, but takes," &c., &c.— Vol. v. p. 375—402. 

Among such worshippers, arriving in "six- 
teen parties a-day," an ordinary man might 
have grown buoyant; have felt the god, begun 
to nod, and seemed to shake the spheres. A 
slightly splenetic man, possessed of Scott's 
sense, would have swept his premises clear 
of them : Let no bluebottle approach here, to 
disturb a man in his work, — under pain of 
sugared stjuash (called quassia) and king's yel- 
low ! The good Sir Walter, like a quiet brave 
man, did neither. He let the matter take its 
course; enjoyed what was enjoyable in' it: 
endured what could not well be helped ; per- 
sisted meanwhile in writing his daily portion 
of romnnce-copy, in preserving his composure 
of heart ; — in a word, accommodated himself 
to this loud-buzzing environment, and made it 
serve him, as he would have done (perhaps 
with more ease) to a silent, poor, and solitary 
one. No doubt it affected him too, and in the 
lamentablest way fevered his internal life, — 
though he kept it well down; but it affected 
him less than it would have done almost any 
other man. For his guests were not all of the 
bluebottle sort; far from that. Mr. Lockhart 
shall furnish us with the brightest aspect a 
British Ferney ever yielded, or is like to yield : 
and therewith we will quit Abbotsford and 
the dominant and culminant period of Scott's 
life: 

"It was a clear, bright, September morning, 
with a sharpness in the air that doubled the 
animating influence of the sunshine, and all 
was in readiness for a grand coursing match 
on Newark Hill. The only guest who had 
chalked out other sport for himself was the 
slanchest of anglers, Mr. Rose; but he, too,, 
was there on his shelly, armed with his salmon- 
rod and landing-net, and attended by his 
Hinves, and Charlie Purdie, a brother of Tom, 
in those days the most celebrated fisherman 
of the district. This little group of Waltonians, 
bound for Lord Somerville's preserve, re- 
mained lounging about to witness the start of 
the main cavalcade. Sir Walter, mounted on 
Sibyl, was marshalling the order of procession 
with a huge hunting-whip; and among a 
dozen frolicsome youths and maidens, who 
seemed disposed to laugh at all discipline, ap- 
peared, each on horseback, each as eager 
as the youngest sportsman in the troop, Sir 
Humphry Davy, Dr. Wollaston, and the pa 
triarch of Scottish belles-lettres, Henry Macken- 
zie. The Man of Feeling, however, was per- 
suaded with some difficulty to resign his steed 
for the present to his faithful negro follower, 
and to join Lady Scott in the sociable, until 
we should reach the ground of our baltue. 
Laidlaw, on a long-tailed wiry Highlander, 
yclept Hoddin Grey, which carried him nimbly 



528 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



and stoutly, although his feet almost touched 
the ground as he sat, was the adjutant. But the 
most picturesque figure was the illustrious in- 
ventor of the safety-lamp. He had come for 
his favourite sport of angling, and had been 
practising it successfully with Rnse, his travel- 
ling companion, fur two or three days preceding 
this; but he had not prepared for coursing 
fields, or had left Charlie Purdie's troop for 
Sir Walter's on a sudden thought, and his 
fisherman's costume — a brown hat with flexi- 
ble brim, surrounded Avith line upon line of 
catgut, and innumerable fly-hooks — jack-boots 
worthy of a Dutch smuggler, and a fustian sur- 
tout dabbled with the blood of salmon, made a 
fine contrast with the smart jackets, white-cord 
breeches, and well polished jockey-boots of 
the less distinguished cavaliers about him. 
Dr. Wollaston was in black, and, with his noble 
serene dignity of countenance, might have 
passed for a sporting archbishop. Mr. Macken- 
zie, at this time in the 76th year of his age, 
•with a white hat turned up with green, green 
spectacles, green jacket, and long brown 
leathern gaiters buttoned upon his nether 
anatomy, wore a dog-whistle round his neck, 
and had, all over, the air of as resolute a 
devotee as the gay captain of Huntly Burn. 
Tom Purdie and his subalterns had preceded 
us by a few hours with all the greyhounds 
that could be collected at Ahbotsford, Darnick, 
and Melrose ; but the giantMaida had remained 
as his master's orderly, and now gambolled 
about Sibyl Grey, barking for mere joy like a 
spaniel puppy. 

" The order of march had been all settled, 
and the sociable was just getting under weigh, 
when the Lady Anne broke from the line, 
screaming wiih laughter, and exclaimed, 'Papa, 
papa, I knew you could never think of going 
without your pet.' Scoit looked round, and I 
rather think there was a blush as well as a 
smile upon his face, when he perceived a little 
black pig frisking about his pony, and evi- 
dently a self-elected addition to the party of the 
day. He tried to look stern, and cracked his 
whip at the creature, but was in a moment 
obliged to join in the general cheers. Poor 
piggy soon found a strap round its neck, and 
was dragged into the background; — Scott, 
watching the retreat, repealed with mock 
pathos the first verse of an old pastoral song — 

' What will I do gin my linggie die t 
My joy, my pride, my hoggie ! 
My only beast, I had na mae, 
And wow ! but I was vogie !' 

— the cheers were redoubled — and the squadron 
moved on. 

"This pig had taken, nobody could tell how, 
a most sentimental attachment to Scott, and 
was constantly urging iis pretensions to be 
admitted a regular member of his tail along 
with the greyhounds and terriers; but, indeed, 
I remember him suffering another summer 
under the same sort of pertinacity on the pari 
of an affectionate hen. I leave the explanation 
for philosophers — but such were the facts. I 
have too much respect for the vulgarly calum- 
niated donkey, to name him in the same cate- 
gory of pets with the pig and the hen ; but a 



year or two after this time, ray wife used to 
drive a couple of these animals in a little 
garden chair, and whenever her father appeared 
at the dour of our cottage, we were sure to see 
Hannah More and Lady Morgan (as Anne 
Scott had wickedly christened them) trotting 
from their pasture, to lay their noses over the 
paling, and, as Washington Irving says of the 
old white-haired hedger with the Parisian snuff- 
box, ' to have a pleasant crack wi' the laird.' " 
—Vol. v. p. 7—10.* 

" There (at Chiefswood) my wife and I spent 
this summer and autumn of 1821 — the first of 
several seasons which will ever dwell on my 
memory as the happiest of my life. We were 
near enough Abbotsford to partake as often as 
we liked of its brilliant and constantly varying 
society; yet could do so without being exposed 
to the worry and exhaustion of spirit which 
the daily reception of new comers entailed 
upon all the famil}% except Sir Walter himself. 
But, in truth, even he was not always proof 
against the annoyances connected with such 
a style of open house-keeping. Even his 
temper sank sometimes under the solemn- 
applauses of learned dulness, the vapid rap- 
tures of painted and perriwigged dowagers, the 
horseleech avidity with which underbred fo- 

* On this subject let us report an anecdote furnished 
by a c*rrespondent of our own, whose accuracy we can 
depend on : — " I myself was acquainted with a little 
Blenheim cocker, one of the smallest, beautifuUest, and 
wisest of lapdogs, or dogs, which, though Sir Walter 
knew it not, was very singular in its behaviour towards 
him. Shaiidi/, so hight this remarkable cocker, was 
extremely shy of strangers : promenading on Prince's 
street, wfiich in fine weather used to be crowded in those 
days, he seemed to live in perpetual fear uf being stolen ; 
if any one but looked at him admiringly, he would draw 
back with angry timidity, and crouch towards uis own 
lady-mistress. One day a tall, irregular, busy-looking 
man came halting by ; the little dog ran towards him, 
began fawning, frisking, licking at his feet: it was Sir 
Walter Scott ! Had Shandy been the most e.^tensive 
reader of Reviews, he could not have done better. 
Every time lie saw Sir Walter afterwards, which was 
some three or four times in the course of visiting Edin- 
burgh, he repeated his demonstrations, ran leaping, 
friskins, licking the Author of ' Waverly's' feet. The 
good Sir Walter endured it with good-humour; looked 
down at the little wise face, at the silky shag-coat of 
snow-white and chestnut-brown ; smiled, and avoided 
hitting him as they went on,— till a new division of 
streets or some other obstacles put an end to the inter- 
view. In fact he was a strange little fellow, this Shandy. 
He has been known to sit for hours looking out at the 
summer moon, with the saddest wistfullest expression 
of countenance ; altogether like a Werterean Poet. He 
would have been a Poet, I dare say, if he could have 
found a publisher. But his moral tact was the most 
amazing. Without reason shown, without word spoken 
or act done, he took his likings and dislikings ; unalter- 
able ; really almost unerring. His chief aversion, I 
should say, was to the genus quack, above all to the 
genus acrid-quack; these, though never so clear-starched, 
bland-smiling, and beiielicent, he absolutely would have 
no trade with. Their very sugar-cake was unavailing. 
He said with emphasis, as clearly as barking could say 
it: 'Acrid-quack, avaunt!' Would to Heaven many 
a prime minister and hij^h person in authority had such 
an invaluable talent! On the whole, there is more in 
this universe than our philosophy has dreamt of A 
dog's instinct is a voice of Nature too ; and farther, it 
has never baJphied itself away in idle jargon and hy- 
pothesis, but always adhered to the practical, and erown 
in silence by continual comnjunion with fact. We do 
the animals injustice. Tiieir body resembles our body, 
Biiffon says ; with its four limbs, with its spinal marrow, 
main organs in ihe head, and so forth: but have they 
not a kind of fOul, equally the rude draught and imper- 
fect imitation of ours? It is a strange, an almost 
solemn and pathetic thing to see an intelligence itnpri- 
sonfd in that dumb ru^te form ; strug!;ling to express it- 
self out of that ;— even as we do out of our impriaoB- 
ment; and succeed very imperfectly!" 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



reigners urged their qaestions, and the pompous 
simpers of condescending magnates. When 
sore beset at home in this way, he would every 
now and then discover that he had some very 
particular business to attend to on an outlying 
part of his estate; and, craving the indulgence 
of his guests over night, appear at the cabin 
in the glen before its inhabitants were astir in 
the morning. The clatter of Sibyl Grey's hoofs, 
the yelping of Mustard and Spice, and his own 
joyous shout of rcveillee under our windows, 
were the signal that he had burst his toils, and 
meant for that day to 'take his ease in his 
inn.' On descending, he was to be found 
seated with all his dogs and ours about him, 
under a spreading ash that overshadowed half 
the bank between the cottage and the brook, 
pointing the edge of his woodman's-axe, and 
listening to Tom Purdie's lecture touching the 
plantation that most needed thinning. After 
breakfast he would take possession of a dress- 
ing-room up stairs, and write a chapter of The 
Pirate; and then, having made up and des- 
patched his packet for Mr. Ballantyne, away 
to join Purdie wherever the foresters were at 
"work — and sometimes to labour among them 
as strenuously as John Swanston, — until it was 
time either to rejoin his own party at Abbots- 
ford, or the quiet circle of the cottage. When 
his guests were lew and friendly, he often made 
them come over and meet him at Chiefswood 
in a body towards evening; and surely he never 
appeared to more amiable advantage than when 
helping his young people with their little 
arrangements upon such occasions. He was 
ready with all sorts of devices to supply the 
wants of a narrow establishment; he used to 
delight particularly in sinking the wine in a 
well under the brae ere he went out, and haul- 
ing up the basket just before dinner was an- 
nounced — this primitive device tw^ing, he said, 
what he had always practised when a young 
housekeeper, and in his opinion far superior 
in its results to any application of ice; and in 
the same spirit, whenever the weather was 
sufficiently genial, he voted for dining out of 
doors altogether, which at once got rid of the 
inconvenience of very small rooms, and made 
it natural and easy for the gentlemen to help 
the ladies, so that the paucity of servants went 
for nothing."— Vol. v. pp. 123, 134. 

Surely all this is very beautiful; like a 
picture of Boccaccio : the ideal of a country 
life in our time. Why could it not lastl In- 
come was not wanting: Scott's official perma- 
nent income was amply adequate to meet the 
expense of all that was valuable in it; nay, of 
all that was not harassing, senseless, and des- 
picable. Scott had some £2,000 a year with- 
out writing books at all. Why should he 
manufacture and not create, to make more 
money; and rear mass on mass for a dwelling 
to himself, till the pile toppled, sank, crashing, 
and buried him in its ruins, when he had a 
safe pleasant dwelling ready of its own accord ? 
Alas, Scott, wilh all his health, was i/ifcr'ed 
sick of the fearfullcst malady, that of Ambition ! 
To such length had the King's baronetcy, the 
world's favour, and "sixteen parties a-day," 
brought it with him. So the inane racket must 
be kept up, and rise ever higher. So masons 
67 



labour, ditchers delve ; and there is endless, 
altogether deplorable correspondence about 
marble-slabs for tables, wainscotling of rooms, 
curtains with the trimmings of curtains, orange- 
coloured or fawn-coloured: Walter Scott, one 
of the gifted of the world, whom his admirers 
called the most gifted, must kill himself that he 
may be a country gentleman, the founder of a 
race of Scottish lairds. It is one of the 
strangest, most tragical histories ever enacted 
under this sun. So poor a passion can lead so 
strong a man into such mad extremes. Surely, 
were not man a fool always, one might say 
there was something eminently distracted in 
this, end as it would, of a Waller Scott writing 
daily with the ardour of a steam-engine, that 
he might make £1.5,000 a year, and buy up- 
holstery with it. To cover the walls of a stone 
house in Selkirkshire with knicknacks, ancient 
armour, and genealogical shields, what can we 
name it but a being bit with delirium of a kind 1 
That tract after tract of moorland in the shire 
of Selkirk should be joined together on parch- 
ment and by ring-fence, and named after one's 
name, — why, it rs a shabby small-type edition 
of your vulgar Napoleons, Alexanders, and 
conquering heroes, not counted venerable by 
any teacher of men ! — 

" Tlie wliole world was not half so wide 
To Alexander when he cried 
Because he had but one to subdue, 
As was a narrow paltry tub to 
Diogenes; who ne'er was said. 
For aught that ever I could read, 
To whine, put tinirer i' the ej'e and sob, 
Because h3 had ne'er another tub." 

Not he ! And if, " looked at from the Moon, 
which itself is far from Infinitude," Napoleon's 
dominions were as small as mine, wlt/tt, by 
any chance of possibility, could Abbotsford 
landed-property ever have become"! As the 
Arabs say, there is a black speck, were it no 
bigger than a bean's eye, in every soul; which 
once set it a-working, will overcloud the whole 
man into darkness and quasi-madness, and 
hurry him balefully into Night! 

With respect to the literary character of 
these "Waverly Novels," so extraordinary in 
their commercial character, there remains, 
after so much reviewing, good and bad, little 
that it were profitable at present to say. The ^ 
great fact about them is, that they were faster 
written and better paid for than any other 
books in the world. It must be granted, more- 
over, that they have a worth far surpassing 
what is usual in such cases ; nay, that if litera- 
ture had no task but that of harmlessly amus- 
ing indolent, languid men, here was the very 
perfecticm of literature; that a man, here more 
emphatically than ever elsewhere, might fling 
himself back, exclaiming, "Be mine to lie on 
this sofa, and read everlasting Novels of Wal- 
ter Scott !" The composition, slight as it often 
is, usually hangs together in some measure, 
and IS a composiiion. There is a free flow of 
narrative, of incident and sentiment; an easy 
master-like coherence throughout, as if it were 
the free dash of a mastei-'s hand, "round as 
the O of Giotto."* It is the perfection of 

* •' Venne a Firenze, (il cortigiano del Papa,) e andato 

una mattina in bottega di Giotto, che lavorava, eli 

2 Y 



59 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



extemporaneous writing. Farthermore, surely 
he was a blind critic who did not recognise 
here a certain genial sunshiny freshness and 
picturesqneness ; paintings both of scenery 
and figures, very graceful, brilliant, occasion- 
ally full of grace and glowing brightness, 
blended in the softest composure; in fact, a 
deep sincere love of the beautiful in nature 
and man, and the readiest faculty of express- 
ing this by imagination and by word. No 
fresher paintings of nature can be found than 
Scott's; hardly anywhere a wider sympathy 
with man. From Davie Deans up to Richard 
Coeur-de-Lion ; from Meg Merrilies to Die 
Vernon and Queen Elizabeth! It is the ut- 
terance of a man of open soul; of a brave, 
large, free-seeing man, who has a true brother- 
hood with all men. In joyous picturesque- 
ness and fellow-feeling, freedom of eye and 
heart; or to say it in a word, in general healthi- 
nefs of mind, these novels prove Scott to have 
been amongst the foremost writers. 

Neither in the higher and highest excel- 
lence, of drawing character, is he at any time 
altcgether deficient; though at no time can we 
call him, in the best sense, successful. His 
Bailie Jarvies, Dinmonts, Dalgettys (for their 
name is legion) do look and talk like what 
they give themselves out for; they are, if not 
created and made poetically alive, yet decep- 
tively enacted as a good player might do them.' 
What more is wanted then ? For the reader 
lying on a sofa, nothing more; yet for another 
sort of reader, much. It were a long chapter 
to unfold the difference in drawing a character 
between a Scott, a Shakspeare, and a Goeihe? 
Yet it is a difference literally immense: they 
are of different species; the value of the one 
is not to be counted in the coin of the other. 
We might say in a short word, which means 
a long matter, that your Shakspeare fashions 
his characters from the heart outwards ; your 
Scott fashions them from the skin inwards, 
never getting near the heart of them ! The 
one set became living men and women ; the 
other amount to little more than mechanical 
cases, deceptively painted automatons. Com- 
pare Fenella with Goethe's Mignon, which, it 
was once said, Scott had " done Goethe the 
honour" to borrow. He has borrowed what 
he could of Mignon. The small stature, the 
climbing talent, the trickiness, the mechanico! 
case, as we say, he has borrowed; but the soul 
of Mignon is left behind. Fenella is an unfa- 
vourable specimen for Scott ; but it illustrates, 
in the aggravated state, what is traceable in 
all the characters he drew. To the same pur- 
port, indeed, we are to say that these famed 
books are altogether addressed to the every- 
day mind; that for any other mind, there is 



chicse un poco di liisepno per mandarlo a sua SantitJi. 
Giotto, che garbafissimo era, prese un foffljo. ed in 
qiicllo con un pi'nnello tinto di rosso, ferniato il braccio 
al finanro per fame compasso, e girato la mano fece un 
tondo si pari di sesto p di profilo. che fu a vederlo una 
maravifflin. Cio fatto gliignando disse al cnrligiano, 
Eccovi il diseeno " .... " Onde il Papa, e molli 
cnrtitiani inlendenti conoliliero periifi, quanto (Giotto 
avanzasse d'eccelenza tiitii gli allri pittnri del sue 
tempo. DivoU'aiasi poi qnesta cosa, ne nacque il pro- 
verhio, rl)e anrora 6 in u.«o dirsi a gli noniini di grossa 
pasta: Tu set piii tonilo che I' O di Oiolto." — Vasari, 
nu (Roma, 1759), i. 46, 



next to no nourishment in them. Opinions, 
emotions, principles, doubts, beliefs, beyond 
what the intelligent country gentleman can 
carry along with him, are not to be found. It 
is orderly, customary, it is prudent, decent; 
nothing more. One would say, it lay not in 
Scott to give much more ; getting out of the 
ordinary range, and attempting the heroic, 
which is but seldom the case, he falls almost 
at once into the rose-pink sentimental, — des- 
cries the Minerva Press from afar, and hasti- 
ly quits that course; for none better than he 
knew it to lead nowhither. On the whole, 
contrasting Waverly, which was carefully 
written, with most of its followers, which were 
written extempore, one may regret the extem- 
pore method. Something very perfect in its 
kind might have come from Scott; nor was it 
a low kind : nay, who knows how high, with 
studious self-concentration, he might have 
gone; what wealth nature had implanted ia 
him, which his circumstances, most unkind 
while seeming to be kindest, had never im- 
pelled him to unfdld? 

But after all, in the loudest blaring and 
trumpeting of popularity, it is ever to be held ia 
mind, as a truth remaining true for ever, that 
literature has other aims than that of harmless- 
ly amusing indolent, languid men : or if litera- 
ture have them not, then literature is a very 
poor affair; and something else must have 
them, and must accompli-sh them, with thanks 
or without thanks ; the thankful or thankless 
world were not long a world otherwise ! Under 
this head there is little to be sought or found 
in the " Waverley Novels." Not profitable for 
doctrine, for reproof, for edification, for build- 
ing up or elevating, in any shape ! The sick 
heart will find no healing here, the darkly strug- 
gling heart no guidance: the Heroic that is in 
all men no divine awakening voice. We say, 
therefore, that they do not found themselves 
on deep interests, but on comparativelj^ trivial 
ones ; not on the perennial, perhaps not even 
on the lasting. In fact, much of the interest 
of these novels results from what may be 
called contrasts of costume. The phraseolo- 
gy, fashion of arras, of dress and life, belong- 
ing to one age, is brought suddenly, with singu- 
lar vividness, before the eyes of another. A 
great effect this; yet, by the very nature of it, 
an altogether temporary one. Consider, breth- 
ren, shall not we too one day be antiques, and 
grow to have as quaint a costume as the resti 
The stuffed dandy, only give him lime, will be- 
come one of the wonderfullest mummies. In 
antiquarian museums, only two centuries 
hence, the steeple-hat will hang on the next 
peg to Franks and Company's patent, antiqua- 
rians deciding which is uglier: and the Stullz 
swallow-tail, one may hope, will seem as in- 
credible as any garment that ever made ridicu- 
lous the respectable back of man. Not by 
slashed breeches, steeple-hats, buff-belts, or an- 
tiquated speech, can romance heroes continue 
to interest us; but simply and solely, in the 
long run, by being men. Buff-belts and all 
manner of jerkins and costumes are transito- 
ry ; man alone is perennial. He that has gone 
deeper into this than other men, will be re- 
membered longer than they; he that has not. 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



53* 



not. Tried under this categor)^, Scott with his 
clear practical insight, joyous temper, and other 
sound faculties, is not to be accounted little, 
— among the ordinary circulating library he- 
roes he might well pass for a demi-god. Not 
little ; yet neither is he great; there were great- 
er, more than one or two in his own age : 
among the great of all ages, one sees no like- 
lihood of a place for him. 

What then is the result of these Waverley 
romances 1 Are they to amuse one generation 
only] One or more. As many generations 
as they can, but not all generations : ah no, 
when our swallow-tail has become fantastic as 
trunk-hose, they will cease to amuse ! — Mean- 
while, as we can discern, their results have 
been several-fold. First of all, and certainly 
not least of all, have they not perhaps had this 
result : that a considerable portion of man- 
kind has hereby been sated with mere amuse- 
ment, and set on seeking something better] 
Amusement in the way of reading can go no 
farther, can do nothing better, by the power of 
man; and men ask. Is this what it can do1 
Scott, we reckon, carried several things to their 
ultimatum and crisis, so that change became 
inevitable: a great service, though an indi- 
rect one. Secondly, however, we may say, 
these historical novels have taught all men this 
truth, which looks like a truism, and yet was 
as good as unknown to writers of history and 
others, till so taught : that the by-gone ages 
of the world were actually filled by living men, 
not by protocols, state-papers, controversies, 
and abstractions of men. Not abstractions 
were they, not diagrams and theorems; but 
men, in buff or other coats and breeches, with 
colour in their cheeks, with passions in their 
stomach, and the idioms, features, and vitali- 
ties of very men. It is a little word this ; in- 
clusive of great meaning! History will hence- 
forth have to take thought of it. Her faint 
hearsays of "philosoph}' teaching by experi- 
ence" will have to exchange themselves every- 
where for direct inspection and imbodyment: 
this, and this only, will be counted experience ; 
and till once experience have got in, philoso- 
phy will reconcile herself to wait at the door. 
It is a great service, fertile in consequences, 
this that Scott has done ; a great truth laid 
open by him; — correspondent indeed to the 
substantial nature of the man ; to his solidity 
and veracity even of imagination, which, 
with all his lively discursiveness, was the 
characteristic of him. 

A word here as to the extempore style of 
writing, which is getting much celebrated in 
these days. Scott seems to have been a high 
proficient in it. His rapidity was extreme, and 
the matter produced was excellent considering 
that: the circumstances under which some of 
his novels, when he could not himself write, 
were dictated, are justly considered wonderful. 
It is a valuable faculty this of ready writing; 
nay farther, for Scott's purpose it was clearly 
the only good mode. By much labour he could 
not have added one guinea to his copy-right ; 
nor could the reader on the sofa have lain a 
whit more at ease. It was in all ways neces- 
sary that these works should be produced 
rapidly ; and, round or not, be thrown off like 



Giotto's 0. But indeed, in all things, wnti'ng' 
or other, which a man engages in, there is the 
indispensablest beauty in knowing how to get: 
done. A man frets himself to no purpose; lie 
has not the sleight of the trade; he is not a 
craftsman, but an unfortunate borer and bun-' 
gler, if he know not when to have done. Per- 
fection is unattainable: no carpenter ever 
made a mathematically accurate right-angle 
in the world; yet all carpenters know when it 
is right enough, and do not botch it, and lose 
their wages by making it too right. Too mncb 
pains-taking speaks disease in one's mind, as 
well as too little. The adroit sound-minded 
man will endeavour to spend on each business 
approximately what of pains it deserves; and 
with a conscience void of remorse will dis-' 
miss it then. All this in favour of easy writ- 
ing shall be granted, and, if need were, en-' 
forced and inculcated. And yet, on the other" 
hand, it shall not less but more strenuously be 
inculcated, that in the way of writing no great 
thing was ever, or will ever be done with ease, 
but with difficulty ! Let ready writers, with 
any faculty in them, lay this to heart. Is it 
with ease, or not with ease, that a man shall 
do his best, in any shape ; above all, in this 
shape, justly named of " soul's travail," work- 
ing in the deep places of thought, imbodyfng 
the true out of the obscure and possible, envi- 
roned on all sides with the uncreated false? 
Not so, now or at any time. The experience 
of all men belies it ; the nature of things con- 
tradicts it. Virgil and Tacitus, were they ready 
writers ? The whole Prophecies of Isaiah are 
not equal in extent to this cobweb of a review 
article. Shakspeare, we may fancy, wrote 
with rapidity; but not till he had thought with 
intensity: long and sore had this man thought, 
as the seeing eye may discern well, and had 
dwelt and wrestled amid dark pains and throe.s, 
— though his great soul is silent about all tliat* 
It was for him to write rapidly at fit intervals^ 
being ready to do it. And herein truly lies the 
secret of the matter: such swiftness of mere 
writing, after due energy of preparation, is 
doubtless the right method; the hot furnctce 
havinrr long worked and simmered, letlhe pure 
gold flow out at one gush. It was Shakspeare's 
plan ; no easy writer he, or he had never been- 
a Shakspeare. Neither was Milton one of the 
mob of gentlemen that write with easej'he 
did not attain Shakspeare's faculty, one per- 
ceives, of even writing fastfl//cr long prepara- 
tion, but struggled while he wrote. Goeihe 
also tells us he "had nothing sent him in his 
sleep ;" no page of his but he knew well how" 
it came there. It is reckoned to be the Irest- 
prose, accordingly, that has been written by 
any modern. Schiller, as an unfortunate an«f 
unhealthy man, "konnle nie fertig iverden, nerer 
could get done ;" the noble genius of hiim 
struggled not wisely but too well, and wore 
his life itself heroically out. Or did Petrarca 
write easily] Dante sees himself " growing: 
gray" over his Diviyie Comedy : in stern solita- 
ry death-wrestle with it, to prevail over if, and 
do it, if his uttermost faculty may : hence, too, 
it is done and prevailed over, and the fiery life 
of it endures for evermore among men. Noi. 
creation, one would think, cannot be easjcj 



632 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



your Jove has severe pains and fire-flames in 
the head, out of which an armed Pallas is 
struggling! As for manufacture, that is a dif- 
ferent matter, and may become easy or not 
easy, according as it is taken up. Yet of manu- 
facture, too, the general truih is that, given the 
manufacturer, it will be worthy in direct pro- 
portion to the pains bestowed upon it ; and 
worthless always, or nearly so, with no pains. 
Cease, therefore, O ready-writer, to brag open- 
ly of thy rapidity and facility ; to thee (if thou 
be in the manufacturing line) it is a benefit, 
an increase of wages; but to me it is sheer 
loss, worsening of my pennyworth: why wilt 
thou brag of it to me 1 Write easily, by steam 
if thou canst contrive it, and canst sell it; but 
hide it like virtue ! "Easy writing," said Sheri- 
dan, "is sometimes d d hard reading." 

Sometimes ; and always it is sure to be rather 
useless reading, which indeed (to a creature 
of few years and much work) may be reckon- 
ed the hardest of all. 

Scott's productive facilit}^ amazed every- 
body; and set Captain Hall, for one, upon a 
very strange method of accounting for it with- 
out miracle; — for which see his "journal," 
above quoted from. The Captain, on count- 
ing line for line, found that he himself had 
written in that journal of his almost as much 
as Scott, at odd hours in a given number of 
days; "and as for the invention," says he, "it 
is known that this costs Scott nothing, but 
comes to him of its own accord." Conveni- 
ent indeed ! — But for us too Scott's rapidity is 
great, is a proof and consequence of the solid 
health of the man, bodily and spiritual ; great, 
but unmiraculous; not greater than that of 
many others besides Captain Hall. Admire 
it, yet with measure. For observe always, 
there are two conditions in work: let me fix 
■'the quality, and yoic shall fix the quantity ! 
Any man may get through work rapidly who 
easily satisfies himself about it. Print the talk 
of any man, there will be a thick octavo 
volume daily; make his writing three times 
as good as his talk, there will be the third part 
of a volume daily, which still is good work. 
To write with never such rapidity in a pass- 
;able manner is indicative, not of a man's ge- 
.nius, but of his habits ; it will prove his sound- 
\ness of nervous system, his practicability of 
mind, and in fine, that he has the knack of 
his trade. In the most flattering view, ra- 
pidity will betoken health of mind : much also, 
perhaps most of all, will depend on health of 
body. Doubt it not, a faculty of easy writing 
is attainable by man ! The human genius, 
once fairly set in this direction, will carry it 
far. William Cobbelt, one of the healthiest 
of men, was a greater improviser even than 
Walter Scott: his writing, considered as to 
quality and quantity, of Rural Rides, Registers, 
Grammars, Sermons, Peter Porcupines, His- 
tories of Reformation, ever-fresh denounce- 
ments of Potatoes and Papermoney, — seems 
to us still more wonderful. Pierre Bayle 
wrote enormous folios, one sees not on what 
motive-principle; he flowed on for ever, a 
mighty tide of ditch-water; and even died 
flowing, with the pen in his hand. But indeed 
dae most unaccountable ready-writer of all is, 



probably, the common Editor of a Daily News- 
paper. Consider his leading-articles ; what 
they treat of, how passably they are done. 
Straw that has been thrashed a hundred times 
without wheat; ephemeral sound of a sound; 
such portent of the hour as all men have seen 
a hundred times turn out inane; how a man, 
with merely human faculty, buckles himself 
nightly with new vigour and interest to this 
thrashed straw, nightly thrashes it anew, 
nightly gets up new thunder about it; and so 
goes on thrashing and thundering for a con- 
siderable series of years ; this is a fact re- 
maining still to be accounted for, in human 
physiology. The vitalit}' of man is great. 

Or shall we say, Scott, among the many 
things he carried towards their ultimatum and 
crisis, carried this of ready-writing too, that so 
all men might better see what was in it? It 
is a valuable consummation. Not without 
results; — results, at some of which Scott as a 
Tory politician would have greatly shuddered. 
For if once Printing have grown to be as Talk, 
then Democuact (if we look into the roots of 
things) is not a bugbear and probability, but 
a certainty, and event as good as come! 
"Inevitable seems it me." But leaving this, 
sure enough the triumph of ready-writing ap- 
pears to be even now; everywhere the ready- 
writer is found bragging strangely of his readi- 
ness. In a late translated "Don Carlos," one 
of the most indifferent translations ever done 
with any sign of ability, a hitherto unknown 
individual is found assuring his reader, "The 
reader will possibly think it an excuse, when 
I assure him that the whole piece was com- 
pleted within the space of ten weeks, that is to 
say, between the sixth of January and the 
eighteenth of March of this year, (inclusive of 
a fortnight's interruption from over exertion ;) 
that I often translated twenty pages a-day, and 
that the fifth act was the work of five days."* 
O hitherto unknown individual, what is it to 
me what time it was the work of, whether five 
days or five decades of years? The only 
-question is. How hast thou done it? — So, 
however, it stands: the genius of Extempore 
irresistibly lording it, advancing on us like 
ocean-tides, like Noah's deluges — of ditch- 
water! The prospect seems one of the la- 
mentablest. To have all Literature swum 
away from us in watery Extempore, and a 
spiritual time of Noah supervene? That 
surely is an awful reflection, worthy of dys- 
peptic Matthew Bramble in a London fog! 
Be of comfort, O splenetic Matthew ; it is not 
Literature they are swimming away; it is 
only Book-publishing and Book-selling. Was 
there not a Literature bffore Printing or Faust 
of Mentz, and yet men wrote extempore ? Nay, 
before Writing or Cadmus of Thebes, and yet 
men spoke extempore? Literature is the 
Thought of thinking Souls ; this, by the bless- 
ing of God, can in no generation be swum 
away, but remains with us to the end. 

Scott's career, of writing impromptu novels 
to buy farms with, was not of a kind to termi- 
nate voluntarily, but to accelerate itself more 

* " Don Cnrlog," a Dramatic Poem, from the German 
of Schiller, Mannheim and London, 1837. 



MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE OF SCOTT. 



533 



and more; and one sees not to what wise goal 
it could, in any case, have led him. Book- 
seller Constable's bankruptcy was not the ruin 
of Scott ; his ruin was that ambition, and even 
false ambition, had laid hold of him ; that his 
way .of life was not wise. Whither could it 
lead"? Where could it stopi New farms there 
remained ever to be bought, while new novels 
could pay for them. More and more success 
but gave more and more appetite, more and 
more audacity. The impromptu writing must 
have waxed even thinner; declined faster and 
faster into the questionable category, into the 
condemnable, into the general condemned. 
Already there existed, in secret, everywhere a 
considerable opposition party; witnesses of 
the Waverley miracles, but unable to believe 
in them, forced silently to protest against them. 
Such opposition party was in the sure case to 
grow; and even, with the impromptu process 
ever going on, ever waxing thinner, to draw 
the world over to it. Silent protest must at 
length come to words ; harsh truths, backed 
by harsher facts of a world-popularity ever- 
wrought and worn out, behoved to have been 
spoken ; — such as can be spoken now without 
reluctance when they can pain the brave 
man's heart no more. Who knows 1 Per- 
haps it was better ordered to be all othcncise. 
Otherwise, at any rate, it was. One day the 
Constable mountain, which seemed to stand 
strong like the other rock mountains, gave 
suddenly, as the ice-bergs do, a loud-sounding 
crack ; suddenly, with huge clangor, shivered 
itself into ice-dust; and sank, carrying much 
along with it. In one day Scott's high-heaped 
money-wages became fairy-money and non- 
entity; in one day the rich man and lord of 
land saw himself penniless, landless, a bank- 
rupt among creditors. 

It was a hard trial. He met it proudly, 
bravely, — like a brave proud man of the world. 
Perhaps there had been a prouder way still ; 
to have owned honestly that he was unsuccess- 
ful then, all bankrupt, broken, in the world's 
good's and repute; and to have turned else- 
whither for some refuge. Refuge did lie else- 
where ; but it was not Scott's course, or fash- 
ion of mind, to seek it there. To say. Hither- 
to I have been all in the wrong, and this my 
fame and pride, now broken, was an empty 
delusion and spell of accursed witchcraft ! It 
was difficult for flesh and blood! He said, I 
■will retrieve myself, and make my point good 
yet, or die for it. Silently, like a proud strong 
man, he girt himself to the Hercules' task, of 
removing rubbish-mountains, since that was 
it; of paying large ransoms by what he could 
still write and sell. In his declining years too ; 
misfortune is doubly and trebly unfortunate 
that befalls us then. Scott fell to his Hercules' 
task like a very man, and went on with it un- 
weariedly; with a noble cheerfulness, while 
his lifestrings were cracking, he grappled with 
it, and wrestled with it, years long, in death- 
grips, strength to strength; — and it proved the 
stronger; and his life and heart did crack and 
break: the cordage of a most strong heart! 
Over these last writings of Scott, his Napoleons, 
Demonologies, Scotch Histories, and the rest, criti- 
cism, finding still much to wonder at, much to 



commend, will utter no word of blame ; this 
one word only. Wo is me! The noble war- 
horse that once laughed at the shaking of the 
spear, how is he doomed to toil himself dead, 
dragging ignoble wheels ! Scott's descent was 
like that of a spent projectile; rapid, straight 
down ; — perhaps mercifully so. It is a tragedy, 
as all life is; one proof more that Fortune 
stands on a restless globe ,• that Ambition, 
literary, warlike, politic, pecuniary, never yet 
profited any man. 

Our last extract shall be from Volume Sixth ; 
a very tragical one. Tragical, yet still beauti- 
ful ; waste Ruin's havoc borrowing a kind of 
sacredness from a yet sterner visitation, that 
of Death ! Scott has withdrawn into a solitary 
lodging-house in Edinburgh, to do daily the 
day's work there; and had to leave his wife at 
Abbotsford in the last stage of disease. He 
went away silently ; looked silently at the 
sleeping face he scarcely hoped ever to see 
again. We quote from a Diary he had begun 
to keep in those months, on hint from Byron's 
Ravenna Journal : copious sections of it render 
this sixth volume more interesting than any 
of the former ones : — 

'' MbotsfonI, 3Iay 11,(1826.)— * * * It 
withers my heart to think of it, and to recollect 
that I can hardly hope again to seek confidence 
and counsel from that ear, to which all might 
be safely confided. But in her present lethargic 
state, what would my attendance have availed ? 
— and Anne has promised close and constant 
intelligence. I must dine with James Ballan- 
tyne to-day en famillc. I cannot help it ; but 
would rather be at home and alone. However, 
I can go out too. I will not yield to the barren 
sense of hopelessness which struggles to in- 
vade me." 

" Edinburgh, — Mrs. Brown's lodgings, North St. 
David Street — il/uy 12. — I passed a pleasant day 
with kind J. B., which was a great relief from- 
the black dog, which would have worried me 
at home. He was quite alone. 

" Well, here I am in Arden. And I may say 
with Touchstone, ' When I was in a better 
place ;' I must, when there is occasion, draw 
to my own Baillie Nicol Jarvie's consolation 
— 'One cannot carry the comforts of the Saut- 
Market about with one.' Were I at ease ia 
mind, I think the body is very well cared for. 
Only one other lodger in the house, a Mr. 
Shandy — a clergyman ; and, despite his name, 
said to be a quiet one." 

" May 14. — A fair good-morrow to you, Mr. 
Sun, who are shining so brightly on these 
dull walls. Methinks you look as if you were 
looking as bright on the banks of the Tweed ; 
but look where you will. Sir Sun, you look 
upon sorrow and suffering. — Hogg was here 
yesterday in danger, from having obtained an 
accommodation of £100 from James Ballan- 
tyne, which he is now obliged to repay. I am 
unable to help the poor fellow, being obliged 
to borrow myself." 

" May 15. — Received the melancholy intelli- 
gence that all is over at Abbotsford." 

"Abbotsford, May 16! — She died at nine in 

the morning, after being very ill for two days 

— easy at last. I arrived here late last night. 

Anne is worn out, and has had hvsterics, which 

2x2 



S34 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Tctnrned on my arrival. Her broken accents 
■were like those of a child, the language as well 
as the tones broken, but in the most gentle 
voice of submission. "Poor mamma — never 
return again — gone for ever — a better place." 
Then, when she came to herself, she spoke 
with sense, freedom, and strength of mind, till 
her weakness returned. It would have been 
inexpressibly moving to me as a stranger — 
what was it then to the father and the hus- 
band? For myself, I scarce know how I feel; 
someiimes as firm as the Bass Rock, some- 
times as weak as the water that breaks on it. 
I am as alert at thinking and deciding as I 
ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast 
what this place now is, with what it has been 
not long since, I think my heart will break. 
Lonely, aged, deprived of my family — all but 
poor Anne; an impoverished, an embarrassed 
man, deprived of the sharer of my thoughts 
and counsels, who could always talk down my 
sense of the calamitous apprehensions which 
break the heart that must bear them alone. — 
Even her foibles were of service to me, by 
giving me things to think of beyond my weary 
self-reflections. 

" I have seen her. The figure I beheld is, 
and is not my Charlotte — my thirty years' com- 
panion. There is the same symmetry of form, 
though those limbs are rigid which were once 
so gracefully elastic — but that yellow mask, 
•with pinched features, which seems to mock 
life rather than emulate it, can it be the face 
that was once so full of lively expression 1 I 
will not look on it again. Anne thinks her 
Jittle changed, because the latest idea she had 
formed of her mother is as she appeared under 
circumstances of extreme pain. Mine go back 
to a period of comparative ease. If I write 
long in this way, I shall write down my reso- 
lution, which I should rather write up, if I 
could." 

" Mciy 18. — * * Cerements of lead and of 
wood already hold her; cold earth must have 
her soon. But it is not my Charlotte, it is not 
the bride of my youth, the mother of my chil- 
dren, that will be laid among the ruins of Dry- 
burgh, which we have so often visited in gaye- 
%y and pastime. No, no." 



« May 22.— * * Well, I am not apt to 
shrink from that which is my duty, merely be- 
cause it is painful; but I wish this funeral- 
day over. A kind of cloud of stupidity hangs 
about me, as if all were unreal that men seem 
to be doing and talking." 

" May 20. — * * Were an enemy coming 
upon my house, would I not do my best to 
fight, although oppressed in spirits ; and shall 
a similar despondency prevent me from menial 
exertion"! It shall not, by Heaven!" 

" Edinhunrli, May 30. — Returned to town last 
night with Charles. This morning resume 
ordinary habits of rising early, working in the 
morning, and attending the Court." * * "I 
finished correcting the proofs for the Quarter- 
ly ; it is but a flimsy article, but then the cir- 
cumstances were most untoward. — This has 
been a melancholy day — most melancholy. I 
am afraid poor Charles found me weeping. I 
do not know what other folks feel, but with me 
the hysterical passion that impels tears is a 
terrible violence — a sort of throttling sensa- 
tion — then succeeded by a state of dreaming 
stupidity, in which I ask if my poor Charlotte 
can actually be dead." — Vol. vi. pp. 297, 307. 

This is beautiful as well as tragical. Other 
scenes, in that Seventh Volume, must come, 
which will have no beauty, but be tragical only. 
It is better that we are to end here. 

And so the curtain falls ; and the strong 
Walter Scott is with us no more. A posses- 
sion from him does remain ; widely scattered; 
yet attainable ; not inconsiderable. It can be 
said of him, "when he departed he took a 
Man's life along with him." No sounder piece 
of British manhood was put together in that 
eighteenth century of time. Alas, his fine 
Scotch face, with its shaggy honesty, sagacity, 
and goodness, when we saw it latterly on the 
Edinburgh streets, Avas all worn with care, the 
joy all fled from it; — ploughed deep with la- 
bour and sorrow. We shall never forget it; 
we shall never see it again. Adieu, Sir Wal- 
ter, pride of all Scotchmen, take our proud and 
sad farewell. 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. 



635 



VAMHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS/ 

[London and Westminster Review, 1838.] 



The Lady Rahcl, or Rncbel, surnnmed Levin 
m her maiden days, who died some five years 
ago as Madam Varnhagen von Ense, seems lo 
be still memorable and notable, or to have be- 
■come more than ever so, among our German 
friends. The widower, long known in Berlin 
and Germany for an intelligent and estimable 
man, has here published successively, as 
author, or as editor and annotator, so many 
volumes, nine in all, about her, about himself, 
and the things that occupied and environed 
them. Nine volumes, properly, of German 
Memoirs ; of letters, of miscellanies, biographi- 
cal and autobiographical ; which we have read 
not without zeal and diligence, and in part 
■with great pleasure. It seems to us that such 
of our readers as take interest in things Ger- 
man, ought to be apprized of this publication ; 
and withal that there are in it enough of 
things European and universal to furnish out 
a few pages for readers not specially of that 
class. 

One may hope, Germany is no longer to any 
person that vacant land, of gray vapour and 
chimeras, which it was to most Englishmen, 
not many years ago. One may hope that, as 
readers of German have increased a hundred- 
fold, some partial intelligence of Germany, 
some interest in things German, may have in- 
creased in a proportionably higher ratio. At 
all events, Memoirs of men, German or other, 
will find listeners among men. Sure enough, 
Berlin city, on the sandy banks of the Spree, 
is a living city, even as London is, on the 
muddy banks of Thames. Daily, with every 
rising of the blessed heavenly light, Berlin 
sends up the smoke of a hundred thousand 
kindled hearths, the fret and stir of five hun- 
dred thousand new-awakened human souls; 
— marking or defacing with such smoke-cloud, 
material or spiritual, the serene of our com- 
mon all-embracing Heaven. One Heaven, the 
same for all, embraces that smoke-cloud too, 
adopts it, absorbs it, like the rest. Are there 
not dinner-partie.s, "aesthetic teas;" scandal- 
mongeries, changes of ministry, police cases, 
literary gazettes? The clack of tongues, the 
sound of hammers, mount up in that corner 
of the planet too, for certain centuries of lime. 
Berlin has its royalties and diplomacies, its 
trafRckings,travailings ; literatures, sculptures, 
cultivated heads, male and female; and boasts 
itself to be "the intellectual capital of Ger- 



*1. Rahel. Ein Buck des Andenkens fur ihre Fremule. 
(Raliel. A Book of Memorial for lifir Friends.) 3 vols. 
Berlin, 1834. 

2. Oallerie von Bildnissen avs Raliel's Umo-av.a- und 
Briefwerhsel. (Gallery of Portraits from Raliel's Cir- 
cle of Society and Correspondence.) Edited by K. A. 
Varnhagen von Ense. 2 vols. Leipsic. 1836. 

3. Devkwiirdiffkeiten uvd rermischte Schrifien. (Me- 
moirs and Miscellaneous Writinss.) By K. A. Varnha- 
gen von Ense. 4 vols. Mannheim, 1837-38. 



many." Nine volumes of Memoirs out of 
Berlin will surely contain something for ns. 

Samuel Johnson, or perhaps another, used 
to say, there was no man on the streets whose 
biography he would not like to be acquainted 
with. No rudest mortal walking there who 
has not seen and known experimentally some- 
thing, which, could he tell it, the wisest would 
hear willingly from him ! Nay, after all that 
can be said and celebrated about poetry, elo- 
quence, and the higher forms of composition 
and utterance; is not the primary use of 
speech itself this same, to mter 7)icmoirs, that is, 
memorable experiences to our fellow-crea- 
tures'? A fact is a fact; man is for ever the 
brother of man. That thou. Oh my brother, 
impart to me truly how it stands with thee in 
that inner man of thine, what lively images of 
things passed thy memory has painted there; 
what hopes, what thoughts, afl^ections, know- 
ledges, do now dwell there: for this and for no 
other object that I can see, was the gift of 
speech and of hearing bestowed on us two. I 
say not how thou feignest. Thy fictions, and 
thousand and one Arabian Nights, promul- 
gated as fictions, what are they also at bottom 
but this, things that are in thee, though only 
images of things'? But to bewilder me with 
falsehoods, indeed; to ray out error and dark- 
ness, — misintelligence, which means misat- 
tainment, otherwise failure and sorrow; to go 
about confusing worse our poor world's con- 
fusion, and, as a son of Nox and Chaos, propa- 
gate delirium on earth: not surely with this 
view, but with a far different one, was that 
miraculous tongue suspended in thy head, and 
set vibrating there ! In a word, do not two 
things, veniriti/ and me»wir-icriling, seem to be 
prescribed by Nature herself and the very con- 
stitution of man ? Let us read, therefore, ac- 
cording to opportunity, — and, with judicious 
audacity, review ! 

Our nine printed volumes we called Ger- 
man Memoirs. They agree in this general 
character, but are otherwise to be distinguished 
into kinds, and differ very much in their worth 
for us. The first book on our list, entitled 
"Rahcl," is a book of private letters; three 
thick volumes of Letters written by that lady: 
selected from her wide correspondence ; with 
a short introduction, with here and there a 
short note, and that on Varnhagen's part all. 
Then follows, in two volumes, the work named 
" Gallery of Portraits;" consisting principally 
of Letters to Rahel, by various persons, mostly 
persons of note; to which Varnhagen, as edi- 
tor, has joined some slight commentary, some 
short biographical sketch of each. Of these 
five volumes of German Letters we will say, 
for the present, that they seem to be calculated 
for Germany, and even for some special circle 
there, rather than for England or us. A fflance 



536 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



at them afterwards, we hope, will be possible. 
But the third work, that of Varnhagen himself, 
is the one we must chiefly depend on h^re ; the 
four volumes of " Memoirs and Miscellanies ;" 
lively pieces ; which can be safely recom- 
mended as altogether pleasant reading to 
every one. They are " Miscellaneous Writ- 
ings," as their title indicates; in part col- 
lected and reprinted out of periodicals, or 
wherever they lay scattered; in part sent forth 
now for the first time. There are criticisms, 
notices literary or didactic ; always of a praise- 
worthy sort, generally of small extent. There 
are narrations; there is a long personal nar- 
rative, as it might be called, of service in the 
"Liberation War," of 1814, wherein Varnha- 
gen did duty, as a volunteer officer, in Tetten- 
born's corps, among the Cossacks : this is the 
longest piece, by no means the best. There 
is farther a curious narrative of Lafayette's 
escape (brief escape with recapture) from the 
Prison of Olmiitz. Then also there is a cu- 
rious biography of Doctor Bollmann, the brave 
young Hanoverian, who aided Lafayette in 
that adventure. Then other biographies not 
so curious ; on the whole, there are many 
biographies : Biography, we might say, is the 
staple article; an article in which Varnhagen 
has long been known to excel. Lastly, as basis 
for the whole, there are presented, fitfully, 
now here, now there, and with long intervals, 
considerable sections of Autobiography; — not 
confessions, indeed, or questionable work of 
the-Rousseau sort, but discreet reminiscences, 
personal and other, of a man who having 
looked on much, may be sure of willing audi- 
ence in reporting it well. These are the four 
volumes written by Varnhagen von Ense; 
those are the five edited by him. We shall 
regard his autobiographic memorials as a 
general substratum, upholding and uniting 
into a certain coherence the multifarious con- 
tents of these publications : it is Varnhagen 
von Ense's passage through life ; this is what 
it yielded him; these are the things and per- 
sons he took note of, and had to do with, in 
travelling thus far. 

Beyond ascertaining for ourselves what 
manner of eyesight and way of judgment 
this our memoir-writer has, it is not necessary 
to insist much on Varnhagen's qualities or 
literary character here. He seems to us a 
man peculiarly fitted, both by natural endow- 
ment and by position and opportunit)', for 
writing memoirs. In the space of half a cen- 
tury that he has lived in this world, his course 
has been what we might call erratic in a high 
degree: from the student's garret in Halle or 
Tiibingen to the Tuileries hall of audience 
and the Wagram battle-field, from Chamisso 
the poet to Napoleon the Emperor, his path 
has intersected all manner of paths of men. 
He has a fine intellectual gift; and what is 
the foundation of that and of all, an honest, 
sympathizing, manfully patient, manfully cou- 
rageous heart. His way of life, too erratic 
we should fear for happiness or ease, and sin- 
gularly checkered by vicissitude, has had this 
considerable advantage, if no other, that it 
has trained him, and could not but train him, 
to a certain Catholicism of mind. He has 



been a student of literature, an author, a stu- 
dent of medicine, a soldier, a secretary, a 
diplomatist. A man withal of modest, affec- 
tionate nature; courteous and yet truthful; 
of quick apprehension, precise in utterance ; 
of just, extensive, occasionally of deep and 
fine insiglit, — this is a man qualified beyond 
most to write memoirs. We should call him 
one of the best memoir-writers we have met 
with ; decidedly the best we know of in these 
days. For clearness, grace of method, easy 
comprehensibility, he is worthy to be ranked 
among the French, who have a natural turn 
for memoir-writing; and in respect of honesty, 
valourous gentleness, and simplicity of heart, 
his character is German, not French. 

Such a man, conducting us in the spirit of 
cheerful friendliness, along his course of life, 
and delineating what he has found most me- 
morable in it, produces one of the pleasantest 
books. Brave old Germany, in this and the 
other living phasis, now here, now there, from 
Rhineland to the East-sea, from Hamburg and 
Berlin to Deutsch-Wagram and the March- 
field, paints itself in the colours of reality; 
with notable persons, with notable events 
For consider withal in what a time this man's 
life has lain : in the thick of European things, 
while the Nineteenth Century was opening 
itself. Amid convulsions and revolutions, out- 
ward and inward, — with Napoleons, Goethes, 
Fichtes ; while prodigies and battle-thunder 
shook the world, and, " amid the glare of con- 
flagrations, and the noise of falling towns and 
kingdoms," a new era of thought was also 
evolving itself : one of the wonderfullest times! 
On the whole, if men like Varnhagen were to 
be met Avith, why have we not innumerable 
Memoirs 1 Alas, it is because the men like 
Varnhagen are not to be met with ; men with 
the clear eye and the open heart. Without 
such qualities, memoir-writers are but a nui- 
sance ; which so often as they show them- 
selves, a judicious world is obliged to sweep 
into the cesspool, with loudest possible prohi- 
bition of the like. If a man is not open-minded, 
if he is ignorant, perverse, egoistic, splenetic ;, 
on the whole, if he is false and stupid, how 
shall he write memoirs ? — 

From Varnhagen's young 3'ears, especially 
from his college years, we could extract many 
a lively little sketch, of figures partially known 
to the reader; of Chamisso, La Motte Fonque, 
Raumer, and other the like; of Platonic 
Schleiermacher, sharp, crabbed, shrunken, 
with his wire-drawn logic, his sarcasms, his 
sly malicious ways; of Homeric Wolf, with 
his biting wit, with his grim earnestness and 
inextinguishable Homeric laugh, the irascible 
great-hearted man. Or of La Fontaine, the 
sentimental novelist, over whose rose-coloured 
moral-sublime what fair eye has not wept? 
Varnhagen found him " in a pleasant house 
near the Saale-gate" of Halle, with an ugly 
good-tempered wife, with a pretty niece, which , 
latter he would not allow to read a word of his 
romance stuft^, but "kept it locked from her 
like poison ;" a man jovial as Boniface, swol- 
len out on booksellers' profit, church, prefer- 
ments, and fat things, "to the size of a hogs- 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. 



537 



head ;" for the rest, writing: with such velocity 
(he did some hundred and fifty weeping vo- 
lumes in his time) that he was obliged to hold 
in, and " write only two days in the week;" 
this was La Fontaine, the sentimental novelist. 
But omitting all these, let us pick out a fa- 
mily-picture of one far better worth looking 
at, Jean Paul in his little home at Bai- 
reuth, — "little city of my habitation, which I 
belong to on this side the grave !" It is Sun- 
day, the 23d of October, 1808, according to 
Varnhagen's note-book. The ingenious youth 
of four-and-twenty, as a rambling student, 
passes the day of rest there, and luckily for 
us has kept memorandums : 

" Visit to Jean Paul Friedricli Richter. — This 
forenoon I went to Jean Paul's. Friend Har- 
scher was out of humour, and would not go, 
say what I would. I too, for that matter, am 
but a poor, nameless student: but what of 
that] 

"A pleasant, kindly, inquisitive, woman, 
who had opened the door to me, I at once re- 
cognised for Jean Paul's wife by her likeness 
to her sister. A child was sent off to call its 
father. He came directly : he had been for- 
warned of my visit by letters from Berlin and 
Leipsic ; and received me with great kindness. 
As he seated himself beside me on the sofa, I 
had almost laughed in his face, for in bending 
down somewhat he had the very look our 
Neumann, in his 'Versuchen und Hindernis- 
sen,' has jestingly given him, and his speaking 
and what he spoke confirmed that impression. 
Jean Paul is of stout figure ; has a full, well- 
ordered face ; the eyes small, gleaming out on 
you with lambent fire, then again veiled in 
soft dimness ; the mouth friendly, and with 
some slight motion in it even when silent. His 
speech is rapid, almost hast)-, even stuttering 
somewhat here and there; not without a cer- 
tain degree of dialect, difficult to designate, 
but which probably is some mixture of Frank- 
ish and Saxon, and of course is altogether 
kept down within the rules of cultivated lan- 
guage. 

"First of all I had to tell him what I was 
charged with in the shape of messages, then 
whatsoever I could tell in any way, about his 
Berlin friends. He willingly remembered the 
time he had lived in Berlin, as Marcus Herz's 
neighbour, in Leder's house where I, seven 
years before, had first seen him in the garden 
by the Spree, with papers in his hand, which 
it was privately whispered were leaves of 
' Hesperus.' This talk about persons, and 
then still more about Literature growing out 
of that, set him fairly underway, and soon he 
had more to impart than to inquire. His con- 
versation was throughout amiable and good- 
natured, always full of meaning, but in quite 
simple tone and expression. Though I knew 
beforehand that his wit and humour belonged 
only to his pen, that he could hardly write the 
shortest note without these introducing them- 
selves, while on the contrary his oral utterance 
seldom showed the like, — yet it struck me 
much that, in this continual movement and 
vivacity of mood to which he yielded himself, 
I observed no trace of these qualities. His 
demeanour otherwise was like his speaking ; 
68 



nothing forced, nothing studied, nothing that 
went beyond the burgher tone. His courtesy 
was the free expression of a kind heart; his 
way and bearing were patriarchal, considerate 
of the stranger, yet for himself too altogether 
unconstrained. Neither in the animation to 
which some word or topic would excite him, 
was this fundamental temper ever altered; 
nowhere did severity appear, nowhere any ex- 
hibiting of himself, any watching or spying of 
his hearer; everywhere kindheartedness, free 
movement of his somewhat loose-flowing na- 
ture, open course for him, with a hundred 
transitions from one course to the other, how- 
soever or whithersoever it seemed good to 
him to go. At first he praised every thing that 
was named of our new appearances in Litera- 
ture; and then when we came a little closer 
to the matter, there was blame enough and to 
spare. So of Adam MiiUer's Lectures, of 
Friedrich Schlegel, of Tieck and others. He 
said, German writers ought to hold by the 
people, not by the upper classes, among whom 
all was already dead and gone; and yet he had 
just been praising Adam Miiller, that he had 
the gift of speaking a deep woi'd to cultivated 
people of the world. He is convinced that^ 
from the opening of the old Indian world, 
nothing is to be got for us, except the adding 
of one other mode of poetry to the many modes 
we have already, but no increase of ideas : and 
yet he had just been celebrating Friedncb 
Schlegel's labours with the Sanscrit, as if a 
new salvation were to issue out of that. He 
was free to confess that a right Christian in 
these days, if not a Protestant one, was incon- 
ceivable to him ; that changing from Protest- 
antism to Catholicism seemed a monstrous^ 
perversion; and with this opinion great hope 
had been expressed, a few minutes before, 
that the Catholic spirit in Friedrich Schlegel, 
combined with the Indian, would produce 
much good ! Of Schleiermacher he spoke 
with respect; signified, however, that he did 
not relish his 'Plato' greatly; that in Jacobi's, 
in Herder's soaring flight of soul he traced far 
more of those divine old sages than in the 
learned acumen of Schleiermacher; a deliver- 
ance which I could not let pass without pro- 
test. Fichte, of whose 'Addresses to the Ger- 
man Nation,' held in Berlin under the sound 
of French drums, I had much to say, was not 
a favourite of his; the decisiveness of that 
energy gave him uneasiness ; he said he could 
only read Fichte as an exercise, ' gymnastic- 
ally,' and that with the purport of his Philo- 
sophy he had now nothing more to do. 

"Jean Paul was called out, and I staid 
awhile alone with his wife. I had now to 
answer many new questions about Berlin; her 
interest in persons and things of her native 
town was by no means sated with what she 
had already heard. The lady pleased me ex- 
ceedingly; soft, refined, acute, she united with 
the loveliest expression of household goodness 
an air of higher breeding and freer manage- 
ment than Jean Paul seemed to manifest. Yet, 
in this respect too, she willingly held herself 
inferior, and looked up to her gifted husband. 
It was apparent every way that their life toge- 
ther was a right happy one. Their three. 



538 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



children, a boy and two girls, are beautiful, 
healthy, well-conditioned creatures. I had a 
hearty pleasure in them; they recalled other 
dear children to my thoughts, whom I had 
lately been beside! * * * 

"Wiih continual copiousness and in the 
best humour, Jean Paul (we were now at 
table) expatiated on all manner of objects. 
Among the rest, I had been charcjed with a 
salutation from Rahel Levin to him, and the 
modest question, 'Whether he remembered 
her still]' His face beamed with joyful satis- 
faction: 'How could one forget such a per- 
son V cried he impressively. ' That is a woman 
alone of her kind: I liked her heartily well, and 
more now than ever, as I gain in sense an ap- 
prehension to do it; she is the only woman in 
•whom I have found genuine humour, the one 
woman of this world who had humour!' He 
called me a lucky fellow to have such a friend ; 
and asked, as if proving me and measuring 
my value, ' How I had deserved that V 

"Monday, 24//( October. — Being invited, I 
went a second time to dine. Jean Paul had 
just returned from a walk; his wife, with one 
of the children, was still out. We came upon 
his writings; that questionable string with 
most authors, which the one will not have you 
touch, which another will have you keep 
jingling continually. He was here what I ex- 
pected him to be ; free, unconstrained, good- 
natured, and sincere with his whole heart. 
His 'Dream of a Madman,' just published by 
Cotta, was what had led us upon this. He 
said he could write such things at any time; 
the mood for it, when he was in health, lay in 
his own power; he did but seat himself at the 
harpsichord, and fantasying for a while on it, 
in the wildest way, deliver himself over to the 
feeling of the moment, and then write his ima- 
ginings,— according to a certain predetermined 
course, indeed, which however he would often 
alter as he went on. In this kind he had once 
undertaken to write a 'Hell,' such as mortal 
never heard of; and a great deal of it is actu- 
ally done, but not fit for print. Speaking of 
descriptive composition, he also started as in 
fright when I ventured to say that Goethe was 
less complete in this province; he reminded 
me of two passages in 'Werter,' which are in- 
deed among the finest descriptions. He said 
that to describe any scene well the poet must 
make the bosom of a man his cumcrn obscura, 
and look at it through this, then would he see 
it poetically. * * 

"The conversation turned on public occur- 
rences, on the condition of Germany, and the 
oppressive rule of the French. To me discus- 
sions of that sort are usually disagreeable; but 
it was delightful to hear Jean Paul express, on 
such occasion, his noble patriotic sentiments; 
and for the sake of this rock-island I willingly 
swam through the empty tide of uncertain 
news and wavering suppositions which envi- 
roned it. What he said was deep, considerate, 
hearty, valiant, German to the marrow of the 
bone. I had to tell him much; of Napoleon, 
whom he knew only by portraits; of Johannes 
von Muller; of Fichte, whom he now as a 
patriot admired cordially; of the Marquez de 
la Romana and his Spaniards, whom I had 



seen in Hamburgh. Jean Paul said he at no 
moment doubted, but the Germans, like the 
Spaniards, would one day rise, and Prussia 
would avenge its disgrace, and free the coun- 
try; he hoped his son would live to see it, and 
did not deny that he was bringing him up for 
a soldier. * * * 

" Odobcr 2o h. — I staid to supper, contrary 
to my purpose, having to set out next morning 
early. The lady was so kind, and Jean Paul 
himself so trustful and blithe, I could not with- 
stand their entreaties. At the neat and well- 
furnished table (reminding you that South 
Germany was now near) the best humour 
reigned. Among other things we had a good 
laugh at this, that Jean Paul ofl'ered me an in- 
troduction to one of, what he called his dearest 
friends in Stuttgart,— and then was obliged to 
give it up, having irrev^ocably forgotten his 
name I Of a more serious sort again was our 
conversation about Tieck, Friedrich and Wil- 
helm Schlegel, and others of the romantic 
school. He seemed in ill humour with Tieck 
at the moment. Of Goethe he said: 'Goethe 
is a consecrated head; he has a place of his 
own, high above us all.' We spoke of Goethe 
afterwards for some time : Jean Paul, with 
more and more admiration, nay, with a sort of 
fear and awe-struck reverence. 

"Some beautiful fruit was brought in for 
dessert. On a sudden, Jean Paul started up, 
gave me his hand, and said: 'Forgive me, I 
must go to bed ! Stay you here in God's name, 
for it is still early, and chat with my wife; 
there is much to say, between you, which my 
talking has kept back. I am a Spiessburgcr,' 
(of the Club of Odd Fellows,) ' and my hour is 
come for sleep.' He took a candle, and said, 
good night. We parted with great cordiality, 
and the wish expressed on both sides, that I 
might stay at Baireuth another time." 

These biographic phenomena ; Jean Paul's 
loose-flowing talk, his careless variable judg- 
ments of men and things; the prosaic basis 
of the free-and-easy in domestic life with the 
poetic Shandean, Shakspearean, and even 
Daiitesque, that grew from it as its public out- 
come; all this Varnhagen had to rhyme and 
reconcile for himself as he best could. The 
loose-flowing talk and variable jud^jments, the 
fact that Richter went along, "looking only 
right before him as with blinders on," seemed 
to Varnhagen a pardonable, nay, an amiable 
peculiarity, the mark of a trustful, spontane- 
ous, artless nature ; connected with whatever 
was best in Jean Paul. He found him on the 
whole (what we at a distance have always 
done) " a genuine and noble man : no decep- 
tion or impunity exists in his life: he is alto- 
gether as he writes, loveable, hearty, robust, 
and brave. A valiant man I do believe : did 
the cause summon, I fancy he would be rea- 
dier with his sword too than the most." And 
so we quit our loved Jean Paul, and his sim- 
ple little Baireuth home. The lights are blown 
out there, the fruit platters swept away, a do- 
zen years ago, and all is dark now,— swal- 
lowed in the long night. Thanks to Varnha- 
gen that he has, though imperfectly, rescued 
any glimpse of it, one scene of it, still visible 
to eyes, by the magic of pen and ink. 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. 



539 



The next picture that strikes us is not a 
family-piece, but a battle-piece: Deutsch-Wag- 
ram, in the hot weather of 1809; whither 
Varnhagen, with a great change of place and 
plan, has wended, pr("'posing now to be a sol- 
dier, and rise by fighting the tyrannous French. 
It is a fine picture ; with the author's best ta- 
lent in it. Deutsch-Wagram village is filled 
with soldiers of every uniform and grade ; in 
all manner of movements and employments ; 
Archduke Karl is heard " fantasying for an 
hour on the piano-forte," before his serious ge- 
neralissimo duties begin. The Marchfekl has 
its camp, the Marchfeld is one great camp of 
many nations — Germans, Hungarians, Italians, 
Madshars ; advanced sentinels walk steadily, 
drill Serjeants bustle, drums beat ; x\ustrian 
generals gallop, " in blue-gray coat and red 
breeches" — combining "simplicity with coii- 
spicuousness." Faint on our south-western 
horizon appears the Stephans-taunn (St. Ste- 
phen's Steeple) of Vienna; south, over the 
Danube, are seen endless French hosts defiling 
tow^ards us, with dust and glitter, along the 
hill-roads ; one may hope, though with mis- 
givings, there will be work soon. 

Meanwhile, in every regiment there is but 
one tent, a chapel, used also for shelter to the 
chief officers ; you, a subaltern, have to lie 
on the ground, in your own dug trench, to 
■which, if you can contrive it, some roofing 
of branches and rushes may be added. It 
is burning sun and dust, occasionally it is 
thunder-storm and water-spouts ; a volunteer, 
if it were not for the hope of speedy battle, 
has a poor time of it: your soldiers speak 
little, except unintelligible Bohemian Sclavo- 
nic ; j'our brother ensigns know nothing of 
Xenophon, Jean Paul, of patriotism, or the 
higher philosophies ; hope only to be soon 
back at Prague, where are billiards and thin»gs 
suitable. "The following days were heavy 
and void : the great summer-heat had withered 
the grass and grove ; the willows of the Russ- 
bach were long since leafless, in part bark- 
less ; on the endless plain fell nowhere a sha- 
dow; only dim dust-clouds, driven up by 
sudden whirlblasts, veiled for a moment the 
glaring sky, and sprinkled all things with a 
hot rain of sand. W^e gave up drilling as im- 
possible, and crept into our earth-holes." It 
is feared, too, there will be no battle : Varnha- 
gen has thoughts of making oflT to the fighting 
Duke of Brunswick-Oels, or some other that 
will fight. " However," it would seem, " the 
worst trial was already over. After a hot, 
wearying, wasting day, which promised no- 
thing but a morrow like it, there arose on the 
30th of June, from beyond the Danube, a 
sound of cannon-thunder ; a solacing refresh- 
ment to the languid soul ! A party of French, 
as we soon learned, had got across from the 
Lobau, by boats, to a little island named Miihle- 
ninsel, divided only by a small arm from our 
side of the river; they had then thrown a 
bridge over this too, with defences ; our bat- 
teries at Esslingen were for hindering the ene- 
my's passing there, and his nearest cannons 
about the Lobau made answer." On the fourth 
day after, 

" Archduke John got orders to advance 



again as far as Marcheck ; that, in the event 
of a batlle on the morrow, he might act on the 
enemy's right tlank. With us too a resolute 
engagement was arranged. On the 4th of 
July, in the evening, we were ordered, if there 
was cannonading in the night, to remain quiet 
till daybreak ; but at daybreak to be under 
arms. Accordingly, so soon as it was dark, 
there began before us, on the Danube, a vio- 
lent fire of artillery ; the sky glowed ever and 
anon with the cannon flashes, with the courses 
of bombs and grenadoes : for nearly two hours 
this thunder-game lasted on both sides; for 
the French had begun their attack almost at 
the same time with ours, and while we were 
striving to ruin their works on the Lobau, 
they strove to burn Enzersdorf town, and ruin 
ours. The Austrian cannon could do little 
against the strong works on the Lobau. On 
the other hand, the enemy's attack began to 
tell ; in his object was a wider scope, more 
decisive energy; his guns were more nume- 
rous, more effectual: in a short time Enzers- 
dorf burst out in flames, and our artillery 
struggled without effect against their superi- 
ority of force. The region round had been 
illuminated for some time with the conflagra- 
tion of that little town, when the sky grew 
black with heavy thunder: the rain poured 
down, the flames dwindled, the artill.iy fired 
seldomer, and at length fell silent altogether. 
A frightful thunder-storm, such as no one 
thought he had ever seen, now raged over the 
broad Marchfeld, which shook with the crash- 
ing of the thunder, and, in the pour of rain- 
floods and howl of winds, was in such a roar, 
that even the artillery could not have been 
heard in it." 

On the morrow morning, in spite of Austria 
and the war of elements. Napoleon, with his 
endless hosts, and " six hundred pieces of ar- 
tillery" in front of them, is across, advancing 
like a conflagration, and soon the whole March- 
feld, far and wide, is in a blaze. 

"Ever stronger batteries advanced, ever 
larger masses of troops came into action ; the 
whole line blazed \^'ith fire, and moved for- 
M'ard and forward. We, from our higher po- 
sition, had hitherto looked at the evolutions 
and fightings before us, as at a show; but now 
the battle had got nigher; the air over us sang 
with cannon-balls, which were lavishly hurled 
at us, and soon our batteries began to bellow 
in answer. The infantry got orders to lie flat 
on the ground, and the enemy's balls at first 
did little execution ; however, as they kept in- 
cessantly advancing, the regiments ere long 
stood to their arms. The Archduke General- 
issimo, with his staff, came galloping along, 
drew bridle in front of us ; he gave his com- 
mands ; looked down into the plain, where the 
French still kept advancing. You saw by his 
face that he heeded not danger or death, that 
he lived altogether in his work ; his whole 
bearing had got a moi-e impressive aspect, a 
loftier determination, full of joyous courage, 
which he seemed to diffuse '■ound him; the 
soldiers looked at him with p'ide and trust, 
many voices saluted him. He lad ridden a 
little towards Baumersdorf, when an adjutant 
came galloping back, and cried : " Volunteers 



540 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



forward!" In an instant, almost the whole 
company of Captain Marais stept out as vo- 
lunteers : we fancied it was to storm the ene- 
my's nearest battery, which was advancing 
through the corn-fields in front; and so, cheer- 
ing with loud shout, we hastened down the de- 
clivity, when a second adjutant came in with 
the order that we were but to occupy the 
Russbach, defend the passage of it, and not to 
fire till the enemy was quite close. Scattering 
ourselves into skirmishing order, behind wil- 
low-trunks, and high corn, we waited with 
firelocks ready; covered against cannon-balls, 
but hit by musket shots and howitzer grenades, 
which the enemy sent in great numbers to our 
quarter. About an hour we waited here, in 
the incessant roar of the artillery, which shot 
both ways over our heads ; with regret we soon 
remarked that the enemy's were superior, at 
least, in number, and delivered twice as many 
shots as ours, which, however, was far better 
served; the more did we admire the active 
zeal and valorous endurance by which the 
unequal match was nevertheless maintained. 

"The Emperor Napoleon meanwhile saw, 
with impatience, the day passing on without a 
decisive result; he had calculated on striking 
the blow at once, and his great accumulated 
force was not to have directed itself all hither- 
ward in vain. Rapidly he arranged his troops 
for storming. Marshal Bernadotte got orders 
to press forward, over Atterkla, towards Wa- 
gram ; and, by taking this place, break the 
middle of the Austrian line. Two deep storm- 
ing columns were at the same time to advance, 
on the right and left, from Baumersdorf over 
the Russbach; to scale the heights of the Aus- 
trian position, and sweep away the troops 
there. French infantry had, in the mean while, 
got up close to where we stood ; we skirmish- 
ers were called back from the Russbach, and 
again went into the general line; along the 
whole extent of which a dreadful fire of mus- 
ketry now began. This monstrous noise of 
the universal, never-ceasing crack of shots, 
and still more, that of the infinite jingle of iron, 
in handling more than twenty thousand mus- 
kets, all crowded together here, was the only 
new and entirely strange impression that I, in 
these my first experiences in war, could say I 
had got ; all the rest was in part conformable 
to my preconceived notion, in part even below 
it: but every thing, the thunder of artillery 
never so numerous, every noise, I had heard 
or figured, was trifling, in comparison with 
this continuous storm-tumult of the small 
arms, as we call them — that weapon by which 
indeed our modern battles do chiefly become 
deadly." 

What boots it'? Ensign Varnhagen and 
Generalissimo Archdukf- Karl are beaten ; 
have to retreat in the uest possible order. — 
The sun of Wagram srts as that of Austerlitz 
had done; the war bas to end in submission 
and marriage; and. as the great Atlantic tide- 
stream rushes into every creek and alters the 
current there, so for our Varnhagen too a new 
chapter opens— ihe diplomatic one, in Paris 
first of all. Varnhagen's experiences "At the 
Court of Napoleon," as one of his sections is 
headed, are jxtremely entertaining. They are 



tragical, comical, of mixed character; always 
dramatic, and vividly given. We have a 
grand Schwartzenberg Festival, and the Em- 
peror himself, and all high persons present in 
grand gala, with music, light, and crowned 
goblets, in a wooden pavilion, with upholstery 
and draperies : a rag of drapery flutters the 
wrong way athwart some wax-light, shrivels 
itself up in quick fire, kindles the other drape- 
ries, kindles the gums and woods, and all 
blazes into swift choking ruin; a beautiful 
Princess Schwartzenberg, lost in the mad tu- 
mult, is found on the morrow as ashes amid 
the ashes ! Then also there are soirees of Im- 
perial notabilities ; " the gentlemen walking 
about in varied talk, wherein you detect a cer- 
tain cautiousness; the ladies all solemnly 
ranged in their chairs, rather silent for ladies." 
Berthier is a "man of composure," vot without 
higher capabilities. Denon, in spite of his 
kind speeches, produces an ill eflTect on one ; 
and in his habit habile, with court-rapier and 
lace-cuffs, " looks like a dizened ape" Car- 
dinal Maury in red stockings, he that was 
once Abbe Maury, " pet son of the scarlet 
woman," whispers diplomatically in your ear, 
in passing. Nous avons bcaucoup de joie de vous 
voir id. But the thing that will best of all suit 
us here, is the presentation to Napoleon him- 
self: 

"On Sunday, the 22d of July, (1810,) was 
to be the Emperor's first levee after that fatal 
occurrence of the fire ; and we were told it 
would be uncommonly fine and grand. la 
Berlin I had often accidentally seen Napoleon,, 
and afterwards at Vienna and Schonbrunn ; 
but always too far off for a right impression 
of him. At Prince Schwartzenberg's festival,^ 
the look of the man, in that whirl of horrible 
occurrences, had effaced itself again. I as- 
sume, therefore, that I saw him for the first 
time now, when I saw him tightly, near at 
hand, with convenience, and a sufficient length 
of time. The frequent opportunities I after- 
wards had, in the Tuileries and at St. Cloud, 
(in the latter place especially, at the brilliant 
theatre, open only to the Emperor and his 
guests, where Talma, Fleury, and La Raucourt 
figured,) did but confirm, and, as it were, com- 
plete that first impression. 

" We had driven to the Tuileries, and ar- 
rived through a great press of guards and 
people at a chamber, of which I had already 
heard, under the name of Salle dcs Ambassa- 
deurs. The way in which, here in this narrow 
ill-furnished pen, so many high personages 
stood jammed together, had something ludi- 
crous and insulting in it, and was indeed the 
material of many a Paris jest. — The richest 
uniforms and court dresses were, with diffi- 
culty and anxiety, struggling hilherward and 
thitherward; intermixed with Imperial liveries 
of men handing refreshments, who always, by 
the near peril, suspended every motion of 
those about them. The talk was loud and vi- 
vacious on all sides; people seeking acquaint- 
ances, seeking more room, seeking better light. 
Seriousness of mood, and dignified concentra- 
tion of oneself seemed foreign to all ; and what 
a man could not bring with him, there was 
nothing here to produce. The whole matter 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. 



541 



had a distressful, offensive air; you found 
yourself ill off, and waited out of humour. My 
look, however, dwelt with especial pleasure on 
the members of our Austrian Embassy, whose 
bearing and demeanour did not discredit the 
dignity of the old Imperial house. — Prince 
Schwartzenberg, in particular, had a stately 
aspect; ease without negligence, gravity with- 
out assumption, and over all an honest good- 
ness of expression ; beautifully contrasted 
■with the smirking saloon-activity, the perked 
up courtierism and pretentious nullity of many 
here. * * * 

" At last the time came for going up to au- 
dience. On the first announcement of it, all 
rushed without order towards the door; you 
squeezed along, you pushed and shoved your 
neighbour without ceremony. Chamberlains, 
pages, and guards, filled the passages and 
ante-chamber; restless, overdone officiousness 
struck you here too; the soldiers seemed the 
only figures that knew how to behave in their 
business, — and this, truly, they had learned, 
not at Court, but from their drill-sergeants. 

"We had formed ourselves into a half-cir- 
cle in the Audience Hall, and got placed in 
several crowded ranks, when the cry of 
' L' Empereur 1' announced the appearance of 
]>fapoleon, who entered from the lower side of 
the apartment. In simple blue uniform, his 
little hat under his arm, he walked heavily to- 
wards us. His bearing seemed to me to ex- 
press the contradiction between a will that 
■would attain something, and a contempt for 
those by whom it was to be attained. An im- 
posing appearance he would undoubtedly have 
liked to have; and yet it seemed to him not 
■worth the trouble of acquiring; acquiring, I 
may say, for by nature he certainly had it not. 
Thus there alternated in his manner a negli- 
gence and a studiedness, which combined 
themselves only in unrest and dissatisfaction. 
He turned first to the Austrian Embassy, 
•which occupied one extremity of the half- 
circle. The consequences of the unlucky fes- 
tival gave occasion to various questions and 
remarks. The Emperor sought to appear 
sympathetic, he even used words of emotion; 
but this tone by no means succeeded with him, 
and accordingly he soon let it drop. To the 
Russian Ambassador, Kurakin, who stood 
next, his manner had already changed into a 
rougher; and in his farther progress some face 
or some thought must have stung him, for he 
got into violent anger; broke stormfully out on 
some one or other, not of the most important 
there, whose name has now escaped me; 
could be pacified with no answer, but demand- 
ed always new; rated and threatened, and held 
the poor man, for a good ^pace, in tormenting 
annihilation. Those who stood nearer, and 
were looking at this scene, not without anx- 
ieties of thtir own, declared afterwards that 
there was no cause at all for such fury; that 
the Emperor had merely been seeking an op- 
portunity to vent his ill humour, and had done 
so even inlentionally on this pour wight, that 
all the rest might be thrown into due terror, 
and every opposiiion beforehand beaten down. 

"As he walked on, he again endeavoured to 
speak more mildly; but his jarred humour 



still sounded through. His words were short, 
hasty, as if shot from him, and on the most in- 
different matters had a passionate rapidity; 
nay, when he wished to be kindly, it still 
sounded as if he were in anger. Such a raspy, 
untamed voice as that of his I have hardly 
heard. 

" His eyes were dark, overclouded, fixed on 
the ground before him; and only glanced 
backwards in side-looks now and then, swift 
and sharp, on the persons there. When he 
smiled, it was but the mouth and a part of the 
cheeks that smiled ; brow and eyes remained 
gloomily motionless. If he constrained these 
also, as I have subsequently seen him do, his 
countenance took a still more distorted expres- 
sion. This union of gloom and smile had 
something frightfully repulsive in it. I know 
not what to think of the people who have 
called this countenance gracious, and its kind- 
liness attractive. Were not his features, 
though undeniably beautiful in the plastic 
sense, yet hard and rigourous like marble; 
foreign to all trust, incapable of any hearti- 
ness'? 

"What he said, whenever I heard him 
speaking, was always trivial both in purport 
and phraseology ; without spirit, without wit, 
without force, nay, at times, quite poor and 
ridiculous. Faber, in his 'Notices sur I'ln- 
terieur de la France,' has spoken expressly 
of his questions, those questions which Na- 
poleon was wont to prepare beft)rerhand for 
certain persons and occasions, to gain credit 
thereby for acuteness and special knowledge. 
This is literally true of a visit he had made a 
short while before to the great Library: all 
the way on the stairs he kept calling out about 
that passage in Josephus where Jesus is made 
mention of; and seemed to have no other task 
here but that of showing off this bit of learn- 
ing ; it had altogether ihe air of a question got 
by heart. * * * His gift lay in saying things 
sharp, or at least unpleasant; nay, when he 
wanted to speak in another sort, he often made 
no more of it than insignificance: thus it be- 
fel once, as I myself witnessed in Saint-Cloud, 
he went through a whole row of ladies, and 
repeated twenty times merely these three 
words, " // fait chaufl." * * * 

" At this time there circulated a song on his 
second marriage ; a piece composed in the 
lowest popular tone, but which doubtless had 
originated in the higher classes. Napoleon 
saw his power and splendour stained by a 
ballad, and breathed revenge; but the police 
could no more detect the author than they 
could the circulators. To me among others a 
copy, written in a bad hand and without name, 
had been sent by the city post ; I had privately 
with friends amused myself over the bur- 
lesque, and knew it by heart. Altogether at 
the wrong time, exactly as the Emperor, 
gloomy and sour of humour, was now passing 
me, the words and tune of that song came into 
my head ; and ihe more I strove to drive them 
back, the more decidedly they forced them- 
selves forward; so that my imagination, ex- 
cited by the very frightfulness of the thing, 
was getting giddy, and seemed on the point of 
breaking forth into the deadliest ofi'ence, — 
2Z 



542 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



when happily the audience came to an end ; 
and deep repeated bows accompanied the exit 
of Napoleon ; who to me had addressed none 
of his words, but did, as he passed, turn on me 
one searching glance of the eye, with the de- 
parture of which it seemed as if a real danger 
had vanished. 

"The Emperor gone, all breathed free, as 
if disioaded from a heavy burden. By degrees 
the company again grew loud, and then went 
over altogether into the noisy disorder and 
haste which had ruled at the commencement. 
The French courtiers especially took pains to 
redeem their late downbent and terrified bear- 
ing by a free jocularity now; and even in de- 
scending the stairs there arose laughter and 
quizzing at the levee, the solemnity of which 
had ended here." 

Such was Varnhagen von Ense's presenta- 
tion to Napoleon Bonaparte in the Palace of 
the Tuileries. What Varnhagen saw remains 
a possession for him and for us. The judg- 
ment he formed on what he saw will — depend 
upon circumstances. For the eye of the in- 
tellect " sees in all objects what it brought 
with it the means of seeing." Napoleon is a 
man of the sort which Varnhagen elsewhere 
calls daimonisrh, a "demonic man;" whose 
meaning or magnitude is not very measurable 
by men ; who, with his ownness of impulse and 
insight, with his mystery and strength, in a 
■word, with his originalily, (if we will under- 
stand that,) reaches down into the region of the 
perennial and primeval, of the inarticulate and 
unspeakable; concerning whom innumerable 
things may be said, and the right thing not 
said for a long while, or at all. We will leave 
him standing on his own basis, at present; 
bullying the hapless, obscure functionary 
there ; declaring to all the world the meteoro- 
logical fact, II fait ckaud. 

Varnhagen, as we see, has many things to 
write about; but the thing which beyond all 
others he rejoices to write about, and would 
gladly sacrifice all the rest to, is the memory 
of Rahel, his deceased wife. Mysterious indi- 
cations have of late years flitted round us, con- 
cerning a certain Rahel, a kind of spiritual 
queen in Germany, who seems to have lived 
in familiar relation to most of the distinguish- 
ed persons of that country in her time. Travel- 
lers to Germany, now a numerous sect with 
us, ask you as they return from aesthetic capi- 
tals and circles, "Do you know Rahell" 
Marquis Custine, in the "Revue de Paris," 
(treating of this book of " Rahel's Letters,") 
says, by experience: "She was a woman as 
extraordinary as Madame de Stael, for her 
faculties of mind, for her abundance of ideas, 
her light of soul, and her goodness of heart: 
she had, moreover, what the author of 
' Corinne' did not pretend to, a disdain for 
oratory ; she did not write. The silence of 
minds hke hers is a force too. With more 
vanity, a person so superior would have 
sought to make a public for herself: but 
Rahel desired only friends. She spoke to 
communicate t>.ie life that was in her; never 
did she speak to be admired." Goethe testi- 
fies that she is a " right woman ; with the 



strongest feelings I have ever seen, and the 
completes! mastery of them." Richter ad- 
dresses her by the title gcflugcL'e, " winged 
one." Such a Rahel might be worth knowing. 

We find, on practical inquiry, that Rahel 
was of Berlin ; by birth a Jewess, in ea'^y not 
afiiuent circumstances; who lived, mostly 
there, from 1771 to 1833. That her youth 
passed in studies, struggles, disappointed pas- 
sions, sicknesses, and other sufferings and vi- 
vacities to which one of her excitable organi- 
zation was liable. That she was deep in 
many spiritual provinces, in poetry, in art, in 
philosophy; — the first, for instance, or one of 
the first to recognise the significance of 
Goethe, and teach theSchlegels to do it. That 
she wrote nothing; but ihought, did, and 
spoke, many things, which attracted notice, 
adn)iration spreading wider and wider. That 
in 1814 she became the wife of Varnhagen; 
the loved wife, though her age was forty-three, 
exceeding his by some twelve years or more, 
and she could never boast of beaut}^ That 
without beauty, without wealth, foreign ce- 
lebrity, or any artificial nimbus whatsoever, 
she had grown in her silently progressive way 
to be the most distinguished woman in Berlin ; 
admired, partly worshipped by all manner of 
high persons, from Prince Louis of Prussia 
downwards; making her mother's, and then 
her husband's house the centre of an alto- 
gether brilliant circle there. This is the 
" social phenomenon of Rahel." What farther 
could be readily done to understand such a 
social phenomenon we have endeavoured to 
do; with what success the reader shall see. 

First of all, we have looked at the Portrait 
of Rahel given in these volumes. It is a face 
full of thought, of alfcction, and energy ; with 
no pretensions to beauty, yet loveable and at- 
tractive in a singular degree. The strong 
high brow and still eyes are full of contempla- 
tion ; the long upper lip (sign of genius, some 
say) protrudes itself to fashion a curved 
mouth, condemuable in academies, yet beauti- 
fully expressive of laughter and affection, of 
strong endurance, of noble silent scorn; the 
whole countenance looking as with cheerful 
clearness through a world of great pain and 
disappointment; one of those faces which the 
lady meant when she said, "But are not all 
beautiful faces ugly, then, to begin with V In 
the next place, we have read diligently what- 
soever we could anywhere find written about 
Rahel ; and have to remark here that the things 
written about her, unlike some things written 
by her, are generally easy to read. Varnha- 
gen's account of their intercourse ; of his first 
young feelings towards her, his long waiting, 
and final meeting of her in snowy weather 
under the Lindens, in company with a lady 
whom he knew, his tremulous speaking to her 
there, the rapid progress of their intimacy ; 
and so onward., to love, to marriage: all this 
is touching and beautiful; a Petrarcan ro- 
mance, and yet a reality withal. 

Finally, we have read in these three thiek 
volumes of Letters, — till in the second t'lick vo- 
lume, the reidiiig faculty unhappily broke 
down, and had to skip largely thenceforth, 
only diving here and there at a venture with 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS. 



543 



considerable intervals ! Such is the melan- 
choly fact. It must be urged in defence that 
these volumes are of the toughest reading; 
calculated, as we said for Germany, rather than 
for England or us. To be written with such 
indisputable marks of ability, nay of genius, 
of depth and sincerity, they are the heaviest 
business we perhaps ever met with. The truth 
is, they do not suit us at ail. They are subjec- 
tive letters, what the metaphysicians call sub- 
jective, not oijcciive : the grand material of them 
is endless depicturing of moods, sensations, 
miseries, joys, and lyrical condititms of the 
writer; no definite picture drawn, or rarely 
any, of persons, transactions, or events which 
the writer stood amidst : a wrong material, as 
it seems to us. To what end ? To what end ] 
•we always ask. Not by looking at itself, but 
by looking at things out of itself, and ascer- 
taining and ruling these, shall the mind become 
known. "One thing above all other," says 
Goethe once, "I have never thought about think- 
ing." What a thrift almost of itself equal to a 
fortune in these days : " /taftf m'e ans Denken 
gedachtJ" But how much wastefuller still it is 
to feel about Feeling! One is wearied of that ; 
the healthy soul avoids that. Thou shalt look 
outward, not inward. Gazing inward on one's 
own self, — why, this can drive one mad, like 
the monks of Alhos, if at last too long. Un- 
profitable writing this subjective sort does seem ; 
— at all events, to the present reviewer, no read- 
ing is so insupportable. Nay, we ask, might 
not the world be entirely deluged by it, unless 
prohibitedl Every mortal is a microcosm; to 
himself a macrocosm, or universe large as 
nature; universal nature would barely hold 
what he could say about himself. Not a dys- 
peptic tailor on any shopboard of this city but 
could furnish all England, the year through, 
with readingabout himself, about his emotions, 
and internal mysteries of wo and sensibility, 
if England would read him. It is a course 
which leads nowhither ; a course which should 
be avoided. 

Add to all this, that such self-utterance on the 
part of Rahci, in these letters, is in the highest 
degree vapourous, vague. Her very mode of 
writing is complex, nay, is careless, incondite ; 
with dashes and splashes, with notes of admi- 
ration, of interrogation, (nay, both together 
sometimes,) with involutions, abruptness, 
whirls, and tortuosities ; so that even the 
grammatical meaning is altogether burden- 
some to seize. And then when seized, alas, it 
is as we say, of due likeness to the phraseo- 
logy; a thing crude, not articulated into pro- 
positions, but flowing out as in bursts of inter- 
jection and exclamation. No wonder the 
reading faculty breaks down ! And yet we 
do gather gold grains and precious thought 
here and there ; though out of large wastes of 
sand and quicksand. In fine, it becomes clear, 
beyond doubting, both that this Rahel was a 
woman of rare gifts and worth, a woman of 
true genius; and also that her genius has 
passed away, and left no impress of itself 
there for us. These printed volumes produce 
the efl^ect not of speech, but of multifarious, 
confused wind-music. It seems to require 
the aid of pantomime, to tell us what it means. 



But after all, we can understand how talk of 
that kind, in an expressive mouth, with bright 
deep eyes, and the vivacity of social move- 
ment, of question and response, may have beea 
delightful; and moreover that, for those to 
whom they vividly recall such talk, these letters 
may still be delightful. Hear Marquis de Cus- 
tine a little farther: 

" You could not speak with her a quarter 
of an hour without drawing from that fountain 
of light a shower of sparkles. The comic 
was at her command equally with the highest 
degree of the sublime. The proof that she 
was natural is, that she understood laughter as 
she did grief; she took it as a readier means 
of showing truth; all had its resonance in her, 
and her manner of receiving the impressions 
which you wished to communicate to her mo- 
dified them in yourself; you loved her at first 
because she had admirable gifts; and then, 
what prevailed over every thing, because she 
was entertaining. She was nothing for you, 
or she was all; and she could be all to several 
at a time without exciting jealousy, so much 
did her noble nature participate in the source 
of all life, of all clearness. When one has lost 
in youth such friend," &c., &c.. ..." It seems to 
me you might define her in one word : she had 
the head of a sage and the heart of an apostle,^ 
and in spite of that, she was a child and a 
woman as much as any one can be. Her mind 
penetrated into the obscurest depths of nature; 
she was a thinker of as much and more clear- 
ness than our Theosophist Saint Martin, whom 
she comprehended and admired ; and she felt 
like an artist. Her perceptions were always 
double; she attained the sublimesl truths by 
two faculties which are incompatible in ordi- 
nary men, by feeling and by reflection. Her 
friends asked of themselves, — Whence came 
these flashes of genius which she threw from 
her in conversation? Was it the effect of long 
studies'? Was it the effect of sudden inspi- 
rations 1 It was the intuition granted as re- 
compense by Heaven to souls that are true. 
These martyr souls wrestle ibr the ti uth, which 
they have a forecast of; they suffer for the God 
whom they love, and their whole life is the 
school of eternity."* 

This enthusiastic testimony of the clever sen- 
timental marquis is not at all incredible to us, 
in its way: yet from these letters we have no- 
thing whatever to produce that were adequate 
to make it good. As was said already, it is 
not to be made good by excerpts and written 
documents; its proof resf; in the memory of 
living witnesses. Meanwhile, from these same 
wastes of sand, and even of quicksand danger- 
ous to linger in, we will try to gather a few 
grains the most likegold, that it may be guessed, 
by the charitable, whether or not a Pactolus 
once flowed there : 

"If there be miracles, they are those that 
are in our breast; what we do not know, we 
call by that name. How astonished, almost 
how ashamed are we, when the inspired mo- 
ment comes, and we get to know them !" 

" One is late in learning to lie : and late in 
learning to speak the truth." — "I cannot, be- 

•*' Revue de Paris," Novembre, 1837. 



544 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



cause I cannot lie. Fancy not that I take 
credit for it : I cannot, just as one cannot play 
upon the flute." 

"In the meanest hut is a romance, if you 
knew the hearts there." 

"So long as we do not take even the injus- 
tice which is done us, and which forces the 
burning tears from us; so long as we do not 
lake even this for just and right, we are in the 
thickest darkness, without dawn." 

"Manure with despair, — but let it be genu- 
ine; and you will have a noble harvest." 

"True misery is ashamed of itself: hides 
itself, and does not complain. You may know 
it by that." 

" What a commonplace man ! If he did not 
live in the same time with us, no mortal would 
mention him." 

" Have you remarked that Homer, when- 
ever he speaks of the water, is always great; 
as Goethe is, when he speaks of the stars." 

"If one were to say, 'You think it easy to 
te original: but no, it is difficult; it costs a 
whole life of labour and exertion,' — you would 
think him mad, and ask no more questions of 
him. And yet his opinion would be altogether 
true, and plain enough withal. Original, I 
grant, every man might be, and must be, if 
men did not almost always admit mere undi- 
gested hearsays into their head, and fling them 
out again undigested. Whoever honestly ques- 
tions himself, and faithfully answers, is busied 
continually with all that presents itself in life ; 
and is incessantly inventing, had the thing been 
invented never so long before. Honesty be- 
longs as a first condition to good thinking ; and 
there are almost as few absolute dunces as 
geniuses. Genuine dunces would always be 
original ; but there are none of them genuine : 
they have almost always understanding enough 
to be dishonest." 

"He (the blockhead) tumbled out on me 
his definition of genius ; the trivial old dis- 
tinctions of intellect and heart; as if there 
ever was, or could be, a great intellect with a 
mean heart !" 

" Goethe 1 When I think of him, tears come 
into my eyes: all other men I love with my 
own strength; he teaches me to love with his. 
My Poet!" 

" Slave-trade, war, marriage, working-class- 
es : — and they are astonished, and keep clout- 
ing and remending 1" 

" The whole world is, properly speaking, a 
tragic embarras." 

" . . . .1 here, Rahel the Jewess, feel 
that I am as unique as the greatest appearance 
in this earth. The greatest artist, philosopher 
or poet, is not above me. We are of the same 
element; in the same rank, and stand together. 
Whichever would exclude the other, excludes 
only himself. But to me it was appointed not 
to write, or act, but to live : I lay in embryo till 
my century ; and then was, in outward respects, 
so flu ns nivay. — It is for this reason that I tell 
you. But pain, as I know it, is a life too : and 
I think with myself, I am one of those figures 
which Humanity was fated to evolve, and then 
never to use more, never to have more: Me 
no one can comfort." — " Why not be beside 
oneself, dear friend ? There are beautiful pa- 



rentheses in life, which belong neither to us nor 
to others : beautiful I name them, because they 
give us a freedom we could not get by sound 
sense. Who would volunteer to have a ner- 
vous fever? And yet ii may save one's life. 
I love rage ; I use it, and patronize it." — "Be 
not alarmed ; I am commonly calmer. But 
when I write to a frieyuVs heart, it comes to pass 
that the sultry laden horizon of my soul breaks 
out in lightning. Heavenly men /ovc lightning." 

" To Varnhagen, . . One thing I must write 
to thee ; what I thought of last night in bed, 
and for the first time in my life. That I, as a 
relative and pupil of Shakspeare, have, from 
my childhood upwards, occupied myself much 
with death, thou mayest believe. But never 
did my own death aff'ect me; nay, I did not 
even think of this fact, that I was affected by 
it. Now, last night there was something I had 
to write ; I said Varnhagen must know this 
thing, if he is to think of me after I am dead. 
And it seemed to me as if I must die; as if my 
heart were flitting away over this earth, and I 
must follow it; and my death gave me pity: 
for never before, as I now saw, had I thought 
that it would give anybody pity : of thee I 
knew it would do so, and yet it was the first 
time in my life I had seen this, or known that I 
had never seen it. In such solitude have I lived : 
comprehend it ! I thought, when I am dead, 
then first will Varnhagen know what suffer- 
ings I had ; and all his lamenting will be in 
vain ; the figure of me meets him again through 
all eternity no more ; swept away am I then, as 
our poor Prince Louis is. And no one can be 
kind to me then; with the strongest w-ill, with 
the exertion of despair, no one : and this 
thought of thee about me was what at last af- 
fected me. I must write of this, though it af- 
flict thee never so." * * * 

" To Rose, a younger sister, on her marriage in 

Amsterdam. — Paris, 1801 Since thy 

last letter I am sore downcast. Gone art thou! 
No Rose comes stepping in to me with true foot 
and heart, who knows me altogether, knows 
all my sorrows altogether. When I am sick of 
body or soul, alone, alone thou comest not to 
me any more; thy room empty, quite empty, 
for ever empty. Thou art away, to try thy for- 
tune. O Heaven ! and to me not even trying 
is permitted. Am not / in luck! The gardea 
in the Lindenstrasse where we used to be with 
Hanne and Feu — was it not beautiful 1 I will 
call it Rose njw; with Hanne and Hanse will 
I go often thither, and none shall know of it. 
Dost thou recollect that night when I was to set 
out with Fink the time before last 1 How 
thou hadst to sleep up stairs, and then to stay 
with me? O my sister, I might be as ill again 
— though not for that cause : and thou too, 
what may not lie before thee ! But, no, thy 
name is Rose ; thou hast blue eyes, and a far 
other life than I with my stars and black ones. 
* * * Salute mamma a million times ; tell 
her I congratulate her from the heart; the 
more so as / can never give her such a plea- 
sure ! God willed it not. But I, in her place, 
would have great pity for a child so circum- 
stanced. Yet let her not lament for me. I 
know all her goodness, and thank her with my 
soul. Tell her I have the fate of nations and 



VARNHAGEN VON ENSE'S MEMOIRS, 



545 



of the greatest men before my eyes here : they 
too go tumbling, even so on the great sea of 
Existence, mounting, sinking, swallowed up. 
From of old all men have seemed to me like 
spring blossoms, which the wind blows off and 
whirls; none knows where they fall, and the 
fewest come to fruit." 

Poor Rahel ! The Frenchman said above 
she was an artist and apostle, yet had not 
ceased to be a child and woman. But we must 
stop short. One other little scene, a scene 
from her death-bed by Varnhagen, must end 
the tragedy: 

" . . . . She said to me one morning, after a 
dreadful night, with the penetrating tone of that 
lovely voice of hers: '0, I am still happy; I 
am God's creature still; He knows of me; I 
shall come to see how it was good and needful 
forme to suffer: of a surety I had something 
to learn by it. And am I not already happy 
in this trust, and in all the love that I feel and 
meet with V 

"In this manner she spoke, one day, among 
other things, with joyful heartiness, of a dream 
which always from childhood she had remem- 
bered and taken comfort from. 'In my seventh 
year,' said she, 'I dreamt that I saw God quite 
near me ; he stood expanded above me, and 
his mantle was the whole sky; on a corner of 
this mantle I had leave to rest, and lay there 
in peaceable felicity till I awoke. Ever since, 
through my whole life, this dream has return- 
ed on me, and in the worst times was present 
also in my waking moments, and a heavenly 
comfort to me. I had leave to throw myself 
at God's feet, on a corner of his mantle, and 
he screened me from all sorrow there : He per- 
mitted it.' * * * The following words, 
which I felt called to write down exactly as she 
spoke them on the 2d of March, are also re- 
markable : ' What a history !' cried she with 
deep emotion : ' A fugitive from Egypt and 
Palestine am I here; and find help, love, and 
kind care among you. To thee, dear August, 
was I sent by this guiding of God, and thou to 
me; from afar, from the old times of Jacob 
and the Patriarchs! With a sacred joy I think 
of this my origin, of all this wide M'eb of pre- 
arrangement. How the oldest remembrances 
of mankind are united with the newest reality 
of things, and the most distant times and places 
are brought together. What for so long a pe- 
riod of my life I considered as the worst igno- 
miny, the sorest sorrow and misfortune, that I 
was born a Jewess, this I would not part with 
now for any price. Will it not be even so Avith 
these pains of sickness ? Shall I not one day 
mount joyfully aloft on them, too ; feel that I 
could not want them for any price? O August, 
this is just, this is true ; we will try to go on 
thus !' Thereupon she said, with many tears, 
'Dear August, my heart is refreshed to its in- 
most ; I have thought of Jesus, and wept over 
his sorrows ; I have felt, for the first time felt, 
that he is my Brother. And Mary, what must 
she have suffered! She saw her beloved Son 
in agony, and did not sink; she stood at the 
Cross. That I could not have done ; I am not 
strong enough for that. Forgive me, God, I 
confess how weak I am.' * * * 

" At nightfall, on the 6th of March, Rahel 
69 



felt herself easier than for long before, and 
expressed an irresistible desire to be new 
dressed. As she could not be persuaded from it, 
this was done, though with the utmost precau- 
tion. She herself was busily helpful in it, and 
signified great contentment that she had got it 
accomplished. She felt so well she expected 
to sleep. She wished me good-night, and bade 
rae also go and sleep. Even the maid, Dora, 
was to go and sleep ; however, she did not. 

"It might be about midnight, and I was still 
awake, when Dora called me: 'I was to come, 
she was much worse.' Instead of sleep, Ra- 
hel had found only suffering, one distress added 
to another; and now all had combined into 
decided spasm of the breast. I found her in a 
state little short of that slie had passed six days 
ago. The medicines left for such an occur- 
rence (regarded as possible, not probable) were 
tried ; but this time with little effect. The 
frightful struggle continued; and the beloved 
sufferer, writhing in Dora's arms, cried, several 
times, ' This pressure against her breast was 
not to be borne, was pushing her heart out:' 
the breathing, too, was painfully difficult. She 
complained that ' it was getting into her head 
now, that she felt like a cloud there ;' she lean- 
ed back with that. A deceptive hope of some 
alleviation gleamed on us for a moment, and 
then went out for ever ; the eyes were dimmed, 
the mouth distorted, the limbs lamed ! In this 
state the doctors found her; their remedies 
were all bootless. An unconscious hour and 
half, during M'hich the breast still occasionally 
struggled in spasmodic efforts — and this noble 
life breathed out its last. The look I got then, 
kneeling almost lifeless at her bed, stamped 
itself, glowing, for ever into my heart." 

So died Rahel Varnhagen von Ense, born 
Levin, a singular biographic phenomenon of 
this century ; a woman of genius, of true 
depth and worth, whose secluded life, as one 
cannot but see, had in it a greatness far be- 
yond what has many times fixed the public ad- 
miration of the whole world; a woman equal 
to the highest thoughts of her century; in 
wdiom it was not arrogance, we do believe, but 
a just self-consciousness, to feel that "the 
highest philosopher, or poet, or artist was not 
above her, but of a like element and rank 
with her." That such a woman should have 
lived unknown and, as it were, silent to the 
world, is peculiar in this time. 

We say not that she was equal to De Stael, 
nor the contrary ; neither that she might have 
written De Stael's books, nor even that she 
might not have written far better books. She 
has ideas unequalled in De Stael ; a sincerity, 
a pure tenderness and genuineness which that 
celebrated person had not. orhad lost. But what 
then 1 The subjunctive, the optative are vague 
moods : there is no tense one can found on but 
the preterite of the indicative. Enough for us, 
Rahel did not write. She sat imprisoned, or it 
might be sheltered and fosteringly embowered, 
in those circumstances of hers ; she " was not 
appointed to write or to act, but only to live." 
Call her not unhappy on that account, call her 
not useless; nay, perhaps, call her happier 
and usefuller. I3lessed are the humble, are 
they that are not known. It is written, " Seek- 
2 z 2 



546 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



est thou great things, seek them not;" live 
where thou art, only live wisely, live diligently. 
Rahel's life was not an idle one for herself or 
for others : how many souls may " the sparkles 
showering from that light-fountain" have 
kindled and illuminated ; whose new virtue goes 
on propagating itself, increasing itself, under in- 
calculable combinations, and will be found in 
far places, after many days ! She left no stamp 
of herself on paper ; but in other ways, doubt it 
not, the virtue of her working in this world will 
survive all paper. For the working of the good 
and brave, seen or unseen, endures literally 
for ever, and cannot die. Is a thing nothing 
because the morning papers have not men- 
tioned if? Or can a nothing be made some- 
thing, by ever so much bablDling of it there 1 
Far better, probably, that no morning or even- 
ing paper mentioned it ; that the right hand 
knew not what the left was doing ! Rahel might 
have written books, celebrated books. And yet, 
what of books 1 Hast thou not already a bible 
to write, and publish in print, that is eternal; 
namely, a Life to lead 1 Silence, too, is great ; 
there should be great silent ones, too. 

Beautiful it is to see and understand that no 
worth, known or unknown, can die even in this 
earth. The work an unknown good man has 
done is like a vein of water flowing hidden 



under ground, secretly making the ground 
green ; it flows and flows, it joins itself with 
other veins and veinlels; one day it will start 
forth as a visible perennial well. Ten dumb 
centuries had made the speaking Dante ; a 
well he of many veinlets. William Burnes,or 
Burns, was a poor peasant; could not prosper 
in his " seven acres of nursery-ground," nor 
any enterprise of trade and toil ; had to " thole 
a factor's snash," and read attorney letters, in 
his poor hut, " which threw us all into tears;" 
a man of no money-capital at all, of no account 
at all; yet a brave man, a wise and just, in 
evil fortune faithful, unconquerable to the 
death. And there wept withal among the 
others a boy named Robert, with a heart of 
melting pity, of greatness and fiery wrath; and 
his voice, fashioned here by this poor father, 
does it not already reach, like a great elegy, 
like a stern prophecy, to the ends of the world 1 
"Let me make the songs, and you shall make 
the laws !" What chancellor, king, senator, 
begirt with never such sumptuosity, dyed vel- 
vet, blaring, and celebrity, could you have 
named in England that was so momentous as 
that William Burns ! Courage! — 

We take leave of Varnhagen with true good- 
will, and heartily thank him for the pleasure 
and instruction he has given us. 



PETITION ON THE COPY-RIGHT BILL. 



[THE (London) Examiner, 1839. 



To the Honourable the Commons of Eng- 
land in Parliament assembled, the Petition of 
Thomas Carlyle, a Writer of Books, 
Humbly showeth. 

That your petitioner has written certain 
books, being incited thereto by various inno- 
cent or laudable considerations, chiefly by the 
thought that said books might in the end be 
found to be worth something. 

That your petitioner had not the happiness 
to receive from Mr. Thomas Tegg, or any Pub- 
lisher, Republisher, Printer, Bookseller, Book- 
buyer, or other the like man or body of men, 
any encouragement or countenance in writing 
of said books, or to discern any chance of re- 
ceiving such ; but wrote them by eflx)rt of his 
own and the favour of Heaven. 

That all useful labour is worthy of recom- 
pense ; that all honest labour is worthy of the 
chance of recompense ; that the giving and 
assuring to each man what recompense his 
labour has actually merited, may be said to be 
the business of all Legislation, Polity, Govern- 
ment, and Social Arrangement whatsoever 
among men; — a business indispensable to at- 
tempt, impossible to accomplish accurately, 
difficult to accomplish without inaccuracies 
that become enormous, unsupportable, and the 
parent of Social Confusions which never alto- 
{;ether end. 

That your petitioner does not undertake to 



say what recompense in money this labour of 
his may deserve ; Avhether it deserve any re- 
compense in money, or whether money in any 
quantity could hire him to do the like. 

That this his labour has found hitherto, in 
money or money's worth, small recompense or 
none ; that he is by no means sure of its ever 
finding recompense, but thinks, that, if so, it 
will be at a distant time, when he, the laborer, 
will probably no longer be in need of money, 
and those dear to him will still be in need 
of It. 

That the law does at least protect all persons 
in selling the production of their labour at Avhat 
they can get for it, in all market places, to all 
lengths of time. Much more than this the law 
does to many, but so much it does to all, and 
less than this to none. 

That your petitioner cannot discover him- 
self to have done unlawfully in this his said 
labour of writing books, or to have become 
criminal, or have forfeited the law's protection 
thereby. Contrariwise your petitioner believes 
firmly that he is innocent in said labour; that 
if he be found in the long run to have written 
a genuine enduring book, his merit therein, 
and desert towards England and English and 
other men, will be considerable, not easilv esti- 
mable in money ; that on the other hand, if his 
book prove false and ephemeral, he and it will 
be abolished and forgotten, and no harm dune.. 



DR. FRANCIA. 



547 



That, in this manner, your petitioner plays 
no UTifair game against the world; his stake 
being life itself, so to speak, (for the penalty is 
death by starvation,) and the world's stake 
nothing till once it see the dice thrown ; so 
that in any case the world cannot lose. 

That in the happy and long-doubtful event 
of the game's going in his favour, your peti- 
tioner submits that the small winnings thereof 
do belong to him or his, and that no other 
mortal has justly either part or lot in them at 
ail, now, henceforth, or for ever. 



May it therefore please your Honourable 
House to protect him in said happy and long- 
doubtful event; and (by passing your Copy- 
Right Bill) forbid all Thomas Teggs and 
other extraneous persons, entirely unconcerned 
in this adventure of his, to steal from him his 
small winnings, for a space of sixty years at 
the shortest. After sixty years, unless your 
Honourable House provide otherwise, they 
may begin to steal. 

And your petitioner will ever pray. 

Thomas Cakltle. 



DR. FRANC I a; 



[Foreign Quarteklt Review.] 



The confused South American revolution, 
and set of revolutions, like the South American 
continent itself, is doubtless a great confused 
phenomenon; worthy of better knowledge than 
men yet have of it. Several books, of which 
we here name a few known to us, have been 
written on the subject; but bad books mostly, 
and productive of almost no effect. The heroes 
of South America have not yet succeeded in 
picturing any image of themselves, much less 
any true image of themselves, in the Cis-Atlan- 
tic mind or memory. 

Iturbide, " the Napoleon of Mexico," a great 
man in that narrow country, who was he ? He 
made the thrice-celebrated " Plan of Iguala:" 
a constitution of no continuance. He became 
Emperor of Mexico, most serene " Augustin 
I. :" was deposed, banished to Leghorn, to Lon- 
don ; decided on returning; — landed an the 
shore at Tampico, and was there met, and shot : 
this, in a vague sort, is what the world knows 
of the Napoleon of Mexico, most serene Au- 
gustin the First, most unfortunate Augustin 
the Last. He did himself publish memoirs or 
memorials,! but few can read them. Oblivion, 
and the deserts of Panama, have swalloAved 
this brave Don Augustin : vate carnit sarro. 

And Bolivar, "the Washington of Colum- 
bia," Liberator Bolivar, he too is gone without 



* 1. Funeral Discourse delivered on occasion of celebrat- 
ing the ohseguies of his late Excellenctj the Perpetual Dic- 
tator of the Republic of Paraguay, the Citizen Dr. Josi 
Oaspar Francia, by Citizen the Rev. Manuel Jlntonia 
Perez, of the Church of the Incarnation, on the 20fA of 
October, 1840. In the "British Packet and Argentine 
News," No. 813. Buenos Ayres : March 19, 1842. 

2. Essai Historique sur la Revolution tie Paraguay, et le 
Oouvernevient Dictatorial du Docteur Francia. Par MM. 
Rensger et Longchamp. 2de edition. Paris, 1827. 

3. Letters on Paraguay. By J. P. and W. P. Robertson. 
2 vols. Second edition. London, 1839. 

4. Francia's Reign of Terror. By the same. Lon- 
don, 1829. 

5. Letters on South ..America. By the same. 3 vols. 
London. 1843. 

6. Travels in Chile and La Plata. By John Miers. 
2 volB. London, 1826. 

7. Memoirs of General Miller, in the Service of the Re- 
public of Peru. 2 vols. 2d edition. Londony 1829. 

\ A Statement of some of the principal Events in the 
Public Life of Augustin de Iturbide : written by Him- 
eelf. London, 1843. 



his fame. Melancholy lithographs represent 
to us a long-faced, square-browed man ; of 
stern, considerate, cowsciOMs/i/ considerate aspect, 
mildly aquiline form of nose ; with terrible 
angularity of jaw ; and dark deep eyes, some^ 
what too close together, (for which latter cir- 
cumstance we earnestly hope the lithograph 
alone is to blame :) this is Liberator Bolivar : — 
a man of much hard fighting, hard riding, of 
manifold achievements, distresses, heroisms 
and histrionisms in this world ; a many-coun- 
selled, much-enduring man; now dead and 
gone : — of whom, except that melancholy litho- 
graph, the cultivated European public knows 
as good as nothing. Yet did he not fly hither 
and thither, often in the most desperate man- 
ner, with wild cavalry clad in blankets, with 
War of Liberation, " to the death?" Clad in 
blankets, ponchos the South Americans call 
them : it is a square blanket, with a short slit 
in the centre, which you draw over your head, 
and so leave hanging: many a liberative cava- 
lier has ridden, in those hot climates, without 
further dress at all ; and fought handsomely 
too, wrapping the blanket round his arm, when 
it came to the charge. 

With such cavalry, and artillery and infantry 
to match, Bolivar has ridden, fighting all the 
way, through torrid deserts, hot mud swamps, 
through ice-chasms beyond the curve of per- 
petual frost, — more miles than Ulysses ever 
sailed: let the conving Homers take note of it. 
He has marched over the Andes more than 
once; a feat analogous to Hannibal's; and 
seemed to think little of it. Often beaten, 
banished from the firm land, he always returned 
again, truculently fought again. He gained in 
the Cumana regions the "immortal victory" 
of Carababo and several others ; under him 
was gained the finishing "immortal victory" 
of Ayacucho in Peru, where Old Spain, for 
the last time, burnt powder in those latitudes, 
and then fled without return. He was Dicta- 
tor, Liberator, almost emperor, if he had lived. 
Some three times over did he, in solemn 
Columbian parliament, lay down his Dictator 
ship with Washington eloquence ; and as often. 



548 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



on pressing request, take it up again, being a 
man indispensable. Thrice, or at least twice, 
did he, in different places, painfully construct 
a Free Constitution ; consisting of " two cham- 
bers, and a supreme governor for life with 
liberty to name his successor," the reasonablest 
democratic constitution you could well con- 
struct; and twice, or at least once, did the 
people, on trial, declare it disagreeable. He 
was of old, well known in Paris ; in the disso- 
lute, the philosophico-political and other cir- 
cles there. He has shone in many a gay 
Parisian soiree, this Simon Bolivar; and he, 
in his later years, in autumn, 1825, rode 
triumphant into Potosi and the fabulous Inca 
Cities, with clouds of feathered Indians somer- 
setting and warwhopping round him* — and 
"as the famed CV/-0, metalliferous Mountain, 
came in sight, the bells all pealed out, and 
there was a thunder of artillery," says General 
Miller ! If this is not a Ulysses, Polytlas and 
Polymetis, a much enduring and many coun- 
selled man ; where was there one 1 Truly a 
Ulysses whose history were worth its ink, — 
had the Homer that could do it, inade his ap- 
pearance ! 

Of General San Martin, too, there will be 
something to be said. General San Martin, 
when we last saw him, twenty years ago or 
more, — through the organs of the authentic 
steadfast Mr. Miers, — -had a handsome house 
in Mendoza, and " his own portrait, as I re- 
marked, hung up between those of Napoleon 
and the Duke of Wellington." In Mendoza, 
cheerful, mudbuilt, whitewashed Town, seated 
at the eastern base of the Andes, "with its 
shady public walk well paved and swept ;" 
looking out pleasantly, on this hand, over wide 
horizons of Pampa wilderness; pleasantly on 
that, to the Rocky-chain, Cordillera they call it, 
of the sky-piercing Mountains, capt in snow, 
or with volcanic fumes issuing from them : 
there dwelt General 7t.r-Generalissimo San 
Martin, ruminating past adventures over half 
the world ; and had his portrait hung up be- 
tween Napoleon's and the Duke of Welling- 
ton's. 

Did the reader ever hear of San Martin's 
march over the Andes in Chile ? It is a feat 
worth looking at; comparable, most likely, to 
Hannibal's march over the Alps, while there 
was yet no Simplon or Mont-Cenis highway; 
and it transacted itself in the year 1817. 
South American armies think little of picking 
their way through the gullies of the Andes ; so 
the Bucnos-Ayres people, having driven out 
their own Spaniards, and established the reign 
of freedom, though in a precarious manner, 
thought it were now good to drive the Spaniards 
out of Chile, and establish the reign of freedom 
there also instead: whereupon San Martin, 
commander at Mendoza, was appointed to do 
it. By way of preparation, for he began from 
afar, San Martin, while an army is getting 
ready at Mendoza, assembles " at the fort of 
San Carlos by the Aguanda river," some days' 
journey to the south, all attainable tribes of 
the Pehuenche Indians, to a solemn Palaver, 
so they name it, and civic entertainment, on 

♦ Memoirs of General Miller. 



the esplanade there. The ceremonies and de- 
liberations, as described by General Miller, are 
somewhat surprising; still more the conclud- 
ing civic feast, which lasts for three days, which 
consists of horses' flesh for the solid part, and 
horses' blood with ardent spirits ad libitum for 
the liquid, consumed with such alacrity, with 
such results as one may fancy. However, the 
women had prudently removed all the arms 
beforehand; nay, "five or six of these poor 
women, taking it by turns, were always found 
in a sober state, watching over the rest;" so 
that comparatively little mischief was done, 
and only "one or two" deaths by quarrel took 
place. 

The Pehuenches having drunk their ardent- 
water and horses' blood in this manner, and 
sworn eternal friendship to San Martin, went 
home, and — communicated to his enemies, 
across the Andes, the road he meant to take. 
This was what San Martin had foreseen and 
meant, the knowing man! He hastened his 
preparations, got his artillery slung on poles, 
his men equipt with knapsacks and haversacks, 
his mules in readiness; and, in all stillness, 
set forth from Mendoza by another road. Few 
things in late war, according to General Mil 
ler, have been more noteworthy than this 
mai'ch. The long straggling line of soldiers, 
six thousand and odd, with their quadrupeds 
and baggage, winding through the heart of the 
Andes, breaking for a brief moment the old 
abysmal solitudes! — For you farre along, on 
some narrow roadway, through stony laby- 
rinths; huge rock-mountains hanging over 
your head, on this hand ; and under your feet, 
on that, the roar of mountain-cataracts, horror 
of bottomless chasms; — the very winds and 
echoes howling on j'ou in an almost preter- 
natural manner. Towering rock-barriers rise 
sky-high beibre you, and behind you, and 
around you ; intricate the outgate ! The road- 
way is narrow ; footing none of the best. Sharp 
turns there are, where it will behove you to 
mind your paces; one false step, and you will 
need no second; in the gloomy jaws of the 
abyss you vanish, and the spectral winds 
howl requiem. Somewhat better are the sus- 
pension bridges, made of bamboo and leather, 
though they swing like see-saws : men are 
stationed with lassos, to gin you dexterously, 
and fish you up from the torrent, if you trip 
there. 

Through this kind of country did San Mar- 
tin march; straight towards San lago, to fight 
the Spaniards and deliver Chile. For am- 
munition wagons he had sorras, sledges, canoe- 
shaped boxes, made of dried bull's-hide. His 
cannons were carried on the back of mules, 
each cannon on two mules judiciously harness- 
ed: on the packsaddle of your foremost mule, 
there rested with firm girths a long strong 
pole ; the other end of which (forked end, we 
suppose) rested, with like girths, on the pack- 
saddle of the hindmost mule; your cannon 
was slung with leathern straps on this pole, 
and so travelled, swaying and dangling, yet 
moderately secure. In the knapsack of each 
soldier was eight days' provender, dried beef 
ground into snufl-powder, with a modicum of 
pepper, and a slight seasoning of biscuit or 



DR. FRANCIA. 



S49 



maizemeal ; " store of onions, of garlic," was 
not wanting: Paraguay tea could be boiled at 
eventide, by fire of scrub-bushes, or almost 
of ruck-lichens or dried mule-dung. No further 
baggage was permitted : each soldier lay, at 
night, wrapt in his poncho, with his knapsack 
for pillow, under the canopy of heaven ; lulla- 
bied by hard travail : and sank soon enough 
into steady nose-melody, into the foolishest 
rough colt-dance of unimaginable Dreams. 
Had he not left much behind him in the Pam- 
pas, — mother, mistress, what not ; and was 
like to find somewhat, if he ever got across to 
Chile living] What an entity, one of those 
night-leaguers of San Martin; all steadily 
snoring there, in the heart of the Andes, under 
the eternal stars! Wayworn sentries with 
difficulty keep themselves awake : tired mules 
chew barley rations, or doze on three legs ; 
the feeble watchfire will hardly kindle a cigar ; 
Canopus and the Southern Cross glitter down ; 
and all snores steadily, begirt by granite 
deserts, looked on by the constellations in that 
manner! San Martin's improvident soldiers 
ate out their week's rations almost in half the 
time ; and for the last three days, had to rush 
on, spurred by hunger: this also the knowing 
San Martin had foreseen; and knew that they 
could bear it, these rugged Guachos of his ; 
nay, that they would march all the faster for it. 
On the eighth day, hungry as wolves, swift 
and sudden as a torrent from the mountains, 
they disembogued ; straight towards San lago, 
to the astonishment of men ;— struck the 
doubly astonished Spaniards into dire mis- 
givings ; and then, in pitched fight, after due 
manoeuvres, into total defeat on the " Plains 
of Maypo," and again, positively for the last 
time, on the Plains or Heights of "Chacabuco;" 
and completed the " deliverance of Chile," as 
was thought, for ever and a day. 

Alas, the "deliverance of Chile was but 
commenced ; very far from completed. Chile, 
after many more deliverances, up to this hour, 
is always but "delivered," from one set of 
evil doers to another set ! San Martin's Ma- 
noeuvres to liberate Peru, to unite Peru and 
Chile, and become some W^ashington-Napoleon 
of the same, did not prosper so well. The 
suspicion of mankind had to rouse itself; 
Liberator Bolivar had to be called in ; and 
some revolution or two to take place in the 
interim. San Martin sees himself peremptorily, 
though with courtesy, complimented over the 
Andes again ; and in due leisure, at Mendoza, 
hangs his portrait between Napoleon's and 
Wellington's. Mr. Miers considered him' a 
fairspoken, obliging, if somewhat artful man. 
Might not the Chilenos as well have taken 
him for their Napoleon 1 They have gone 
farther, and, as yet, fared little better! 

The world-famous General O'Higgins, for 
example, he, after some revolution or two, 
became Director of Chile ; but so terribly ham- 
pered by " class-legislation," and the like, 
what could he make of it? Almost nothing! 
O'Higgins is clearly of Irish breed; and, 
though a Chileno born, and "natural son of 
Don Arnbrosio O'Higgins, formerly the Spa- 
nish Viceroy of Chile," carries his Hibernian- 
ism in his very face. A most cheery, jovial, 



buxom countenance, radiant with pepticity, 
good humour, and manifold effectuality in 
peace and war ! Of his battles and adven- 
tures let some luckier epic writer sing or 
speak. One thing we Foreign Reviewers will 
always remember: his father's immense merits 
towards Chile in the matter of highways. 
Till Don Ambrosio arrived to govern Chile, 
some half century ago, there probably was not 
a made road of ten miles long from Panama to 
Cape Horn. Indeed, except his roads, we fear 
there is hardly any yet. One omits the old 
Inca causeways, as too narrow (being only 
three feet broad) and altogether unfrequented 
in the actual ages. Don Ambrosia made, 
with incredible industry and perseverance and 
skill, in every direction, roads. From San 
lago to Valparaiso, where ofnly sure-footed 
mules with their packsaddles carried goods, 
there can now M'ooden-axled cars, loud-sound- 
ing, or any kind of vehicle, commodiously roll. 
It was he that shaped these passes, through the 
Andes, for most part; hewed them out from 
mule-tracks, into roads, certain of them. And 
think of his casuchas. Always on the higher 
inhospitable solitudes, at every few miles' dis- 
tance, stands a trim brick cottage, or cashucha, 
into which the forlorn traveller, introducing 
himself, finds covert and grateful safety ; nay 
food and refection, — for there are "iron boxes" 
of pounded beef or other provender, iron 
boxes of charcoal ; to all which the traveller, 
having bargained with the Post-office authori- 
ties, carries a key.* Steel and tinder are not 
wanting to him, nor due iron skillet, with- 
water from the stream : there he, striking a 
light, cooks hoarded victuals at eventide, amid 
the lonely pinnacles of the world, and blesses 
Governor O'Higgins. With " both hands," 
it may be hoped, — if there is vivacity of mind 
in him : 

Had you seen this road before it was made. 

You would lift both your hands and bless General Wade, 

It affects one with real pain to hear from 
Mr. Miers, that the war of liberty has half 
ruined these O'Higgins rasnrhas. Patriot sol- 
diers, in want of more warmth than the char- 
coal box could yield, have not scrupled to tear 
down the door, doorcase, or whatever wooden 
thing could be come at, and burn it, on the 
spur of the moment. The storm-stayed travel- 
ler, who sometimes, in threatening weather, 
has to linger here for days, "for fifteen days 
together," does not lift both his hands, and 
bless the Patriot soldier! 

Nay, it appears, the O'Higgins roads, even 
in the plain country, have not, of late years, 
been repaired, or in the least attended to, so 
distressed was the finance department; and 
are now fast verging towards impassability 
and the condition of mule-tracks again. What 
a set of animals are men and Chilenos' If an 
O'Higgins did not now and then appear among 
them, what would become of the unfortunates'? 
Can you wonder that an O'Higgins sometimes 
loses temper with them ; shuts the persuasive 
outspread hand, clutching some sharpest hide 
whip, some terrible sword of justice or gallows 



* Miers. 



550 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLAISEOUS WRITINGS. 



lasso therewith, instead, — and becomes a Dr. 
Francia now and then ! Both the O'Higgins 
and Francia, it seems probable, are phases 
of the same character; both, one begins to 
fear, are indispensable from time to time, in a 
world inhabited by men and Chilenos ! 

As to O'Higgins the Second, Patriot, Natural 
son O'Higgins, he, as we said, had almost no 
success whatever as a governor; being ham- 
pered by class-legislation. Alas, a governor 
in Chile cannot succeed. A governor there 
has to resign himself to the want of success; 
and should say, in cheerful interrogative tone, 
like that Pope elect, who, showing himself on 
the balcony, was greeted with mere howls, 
" Non piacemmo alpopolof — and thereupon pro- 
ceed cheerfully to the next fact. Governing is a 
rude business everywhere ; but in South Ame- 
rica it is of quite primitive rudeness ; they 
have no parliamentary way of changing minis- 
tries as yet; nothing but the rude primitive 
way of hanging the old ministry on gibbets, 
that the new may be installed : Their govern- 
ment has altered its name, says the sturdy Mr. 
Miers, rendered sulky by what he saw there : 
altered its name, but its nature continues as 
before. Shameless peculation, malversation, 
that is their government: oppression formerly 
by Spanish officials, now by native hacienda- 
dos, land-proprietors, — the thing called justice 
still at a great distance from them, says the 
sulky Mr. Miers ! — Yes, but coming always, 
answer we ; every new gibbeting of an old in- 
effectual ministry bringing justice somewhat 
nearer! Nay, as Miers himself has to admit, 
certain improvements are already indisputa- 
ble. Trade everywhere, in spite of multiplex 
confusions, has increased, is increasing: the 
days of somnolent monopoly and the old Ac- 
apulco ship are gone, quite over the horizon. 
Two good, or partially good measures, the 
very necessity of things has ever3rwhere 
brought about in those poor countries: clip- 
ping of the enormous bat-wings of the clergy, 
and emancipating of the slaves. Bat-wings, 
we say; for truly the South American clergy 
had grown to be as a kind of bat-vampires : — 
readers have heard of that huge South Ameri- 
can blood-sucker, which fixes its bill in your 
circulating vital-fluid as you lie a sleep, and 
there sucks ; waving you with the motion 
of its detestable leather wings into ever deeper 
sleep ; and so drinking till it is satisfied, and 
you — do not awaken any more ! The South 
American governments, all in natural feud 
with the old church-dignitaries, and likewise 
all in great straits for cash, have everywhere 
confiscated the monasteries, cashiered the dis- 
obedient dignitaries, melted the superfluous 
church-plate into piasters; and, on the whole, 
shorn the icings of their vampire ; so that if it 
still suck, you will at least have a chance of 
awakening before death ! — Then again, the 
very want of soldiers of liberty led to the 
emancipating of blacks, yellows, and other 
coloured persons; your mulatto, nay your 
negro, if well drilled, will stand fire as well as 
another. 

Poor South American emancipators ; they 
began with Volney, Raynal and Company, at 
ihat gospel of Social Contract and the Rights 



of Man ; under the most unpropitious circum- 
stances ; and have hitherto got only to the 
length we see ! Nay now, it seems, they do 
possess " universities," which are at least 
schools with other than monk teachers : they 
have got libraries, though as yet almost no- 
body reads them, and our friend Miers, re 
peatedly knocking at all doors of the Grand 
Chile National Library, could never to this 
hour discover where the key lay, and had to 
content himself with looking in through the 
windows.* Miers, as already hinted, deside- 
rates unspeakable improvements in Chile; — 
desiderates, indeed, as the basis of all, an im- 
mense increase of soap-and-water. Yes, thou 
sturdy Miers, dirt is decidedly to be removed, 
Vi'hatever improvements, temporal or spiritual, 
may be intended nextl According to Miers, 
the open, still more the secret personal nasti- 
ness of those remote populations, rises almost 
towards the sublime. Finest silks, gold bro- 
cades, pearl necklaces, and diamond ear-drops, 
are no security against it : alas, all is not gold 
that glitters ; somewhat that glitters is mere 
putrid fish-skin ! Decided, enormously in- 
creased appliance of soap-and-water, in all its 
branches, with all its adjuncts ; this, according 
to Miers, would be an improvement. He says 
also (" in his haste," as is probable, like the 
Hebrew Psalmist) that all Chileno men are 
liars ; all, or in appearance, all ! A people 
that uses almost no soap, and speaks almost 
no truth, but goes about in that fashion, in a 
state of personal nastiness, and also of spiritual 
nastiness, approaching the sublime ; such peo- 
ple is not easy to govern w-ell ! — 

But undoubtedly by far the notablest of 
all these South American phenomena is Dr. 
Francia and his Dictatorship in Paraguay ; 
concerning whom and which we have now 
more particularly to speak. Francia and his 
" reign of terror" have excited some interest, 
much vague wonder in this country ; and 
es])ecially given a great shock to constitution- 
al feeling. One would rather wish to know 
Dr. Francia; — but unhappily one cannot! Out 
of such a murk of distracted shadows and 
rumours, in the other hemisphere of the world, 
who would pretend at present to decipher the 
real portraiture of Dr. Francia and his Life? 
None of us can. A few credible features, 
wonderful enough, original enough in our 
constitutional time, will perhaps to the im- 
partial eye disclose themselves ; these, with 
some endeavour to interpret these, may lead 
certain readers into various reflections, con- 
stitutional and other, not entirely without benefit. 

Certainly, as we say, nothing could well 
shock the constitutional feeling of mankind, 
as Dr. Francia has done. Dionysius the tyrant 
of Syracuse, and indeed the whole breed of 
tyrants, one hoped, had gone many hundred 
years ago, with their reward; and here, under 
our very nose, rises a new "tyrant," claiming 
also his reward from us ! Precisely when 
constitutional liberty was beginning to be 
understood a little, and we flattered ourselves 
that by due ballot-boxes, by due registration 

* Travels in Chile. 



DK. FRANCIA. 



551 



courts, and bursts of parliamentary eloquence, 
something like a real National Palaver would 
be got up in those countries, — arises this tawny- 
visaged, lean, inexorable Dr. Francia ; claps 
you an embargo on all that ; says to con- 
stitutional liberty, in the most tyrannous man- 
ner. Hitherto, and no farther ! It is an un- 
deniable, though an almost incredible fact, 
that Francia, a lean private individual. Practi- 
tioner of Law, and Doctor of Divinit)% did, 
for twenty or near thirty years, stretch out his 
rod over the foreign commerce of Paraguay, 
saying to it, Cease ! The ships lay high and 
dry, their pitchless seams all yawning on the 
clay banks of the Parana; and no man could 
trade but by Francia's license. If any person 
entered Paraguay, and the Doctor did not like 
his papers, his talk, conduct, or even the cut 
of his face, — it might be the worse for such 
person ! Nobody could leave Paraguay on 
any pretext whatever. It mattered not that 
you were man of science, astronomer, geo- 
loger, astrologer, wizard of the north ; Francia 
heeded none of these things. The whole world 
knows of M. Aime Bonpland ; how Francia 
seized him, descending on his tea-establish- 
ment in Entre Rios, like an obscene vulture, 
and carried him into the interior, contrary 
even to the law of nations ; how the great 
Humboldt and other high persons expressly 
applied to Dr. Francia, calling on him, in the 
name of human science, and as it were under 
penalty of reprobation, to liberate M. Bonpland ; 
and how Dr. Francia made no answer, and M. 
Bonpland did not return to Europe, and in- 
deed has never yet returned. It is also ad- 
mitted that Dr. Francia had a gallows, had 
jailers, Jaw-fiscals, officials ; and executed, in 
his time, " upwards of forty persons," some of 
them in a very summary manner. Liberty 
of private judgment, unless it kept its mouth 
shut, was at an end in Paraguay. Paraguay 
lay under interdict, cut off for above twenty 
years from the rest of the world, by a new 
Dionysius of Paraguay. All foreign commerce 
had ceased ; how much more all domestic 
constitution-building! These are strange facts. 
Dr. Francia, we may conclude at least, was 
not a common man but an uncommon. 

How unfortunate that there is almost no 
knowledge of him procurable at present! 
Next to none. The Paraguenos can in many 
cases spell and read, but they are not a litera- 
ry people ; and, indeed, this Doctor was, per- 
haps, too awful a practical phenomenon to be 
calmly treated of in the literary way. Your 
Breughel paints his sea-storm, not while the 
ship is labouring and cracking, but after he 
has got to shore, and is safe under cover ! 
Our Buenos-Ayres friends, again, who are not 
without habits of printing, lay at a great dis- 
tance from Francia, under great obscurations 
of quarrel and controversy with him; their 
constitutional feeling shocked to an extreme 
degree by the things he did. To them, there 
could little intelligence float down, on those 
long muddy waters, through- those vast dis- 
tracted countries, that was not more or less of 
a distracted nature ; and then from Buenos- 
Ayres over into Europe, there is another long 
tract of distance, liable to new distractions. 



Francia, Dictator of Paraguay, is, at present, 
to the European mind, little other than a 
chimera ; at best, the statement of a puzzle, 
to which the solution is still to seek. As the 
Paraguenos, though not a literary people, can 
many of them spell and write, and are not 
without a discriminating sense of true and 
untrue, why should not some real "Life of 
Francia," from those parts, be still possible 1 
If a writer of genius arise there, he is hereby 
invited to the enterprise. Surely in all places 
your writing genius ought to rejoice over an 
acting genius, when he falls in with such ; 
and say to himself: "Here or nowhere is (he 
thing for me to write of! Why do I keep pen 
and ink at all, if not to apprize men of this 
smgular acting genius and the like of him? 
My fine-arts and aesthetics, my epics, litera- 
tures, poetics, if I will think of it, do all at 
bottom mean either that or else nothing what-, 
ever!" 

Hitherto our chief source of information as 
to Francia is a little book, the second on our 
list, set forth in French some sixteen years ago, 
by the Messrs. Rengger and Longchamp. 
Translations into various languages were exe- 
cuted ; of that into English it is our painful duty 
to say that no man, except in the case of ex- 
treme necessity, shall use it as reading. The 
translator, having little fear of human detection, 
and seemingly none at all of divine or diabolic, 
has done his work even unusually ill ; with ig- 
norance, with carelessness, with dishonesty 
prepense; coolly omitting whatsoever he saw 
that he did not understand: — poor man, if he 
yet survive, let him reform in time! He has 
made a French book, which was itself but lean 
and dry, into the most wooden of English false 
books; doing evil as he could in that matter ; — 
and claimed wages for it, as if the feat deserved 
wages first of all ! Reformation, even on the 
small scale, is highly necessary. 

The Messrs. Renggei- and Longchamp were, 
and we hope still are, two Swiss Surgeons ; 
who in the year 1819 resolved on carrying their 
talents into South America, into Paraguay, with 
views towards " natural history," among other 
things. After long towing and struggling in 
those Parana floods, and distracted provinces,, 
after much detention by stress of weather and 
of war, they arrived accordingly in Francia's 
country; but found that without Francia's 
leave they could not quit it again. Francia 
was now a Dionysius of Paraguay. Paraguay 
had grown to be, like some mousetraps and 
other contrivances of art and nature, easy to 
enter, impossible to get out of. Our brave Sur- 
geons, our brave Rengger (for it is he alone of 
the two that speaks and writes) reconciled them- 
selves ; were set to doctoring of Francia's sol- 
diery, of Francia's self; collected plants and 
beetles ; and, for six years, endured their lot 
rather handsomely : at length, in 1825, the em- 
bargo was for a time lifted, and they got home. 
This book was the consequence. It is not a 
good book, but at that date there was, on the 
subject, no other book at all ; nor is there yet 
any other better, or as good. We consider it to 
be authentic, veracious, moderately accurate ; 
though lean and dry, it is intelligible, rational ; in 
the French original, not unreadable. We ma^ 



552 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



say it embraces up to this date, the present date, 
all of importance that is yet known in Europe 
about the Doctor Despot; add to this its indispu- 
table firmly ; the fact that it can be read sooner 
by several hours than any other Dr. Francia : 
these are its excellences, — considerable, though 
wholly of a comparative sort. 

After all, brevity is the soul of wit! There 
is an endless merit in a man's knowing when 
to have done. The stupidest man, if he will 
be brief in proportion, may fairly claim some 
hearing from us : he too, the stupidest man, 
has seen something, heard something, which 
is his own, distinctly peculiar, never seen or 
heard by any man in this world before ; let him 
tell us that, — he, brief in proportion, shall be 
welcome ! 

The Messrs. Robertson, with their "Francia's 
Reign of Terror," and other books on South 
America, have been much before the world of 
late ; and failed not of a perusal from this re- 
viewer; whose next sad duty it now is to say 
a word about them. The Messrs. Robertson, 
some thirty or five-and-thirty years ago, were 
two young Scotchmen, from the neighbourhood 
of Edinburgh, as would seem : who, under fair 
auspices, set out for Buenos-Ayres, thence for 
Paraguay, and other quarters of that remote 
continent, in the way of commercial adventure. 
Being young men of vivacity and open eye- 
sight, they surveyed with attentive view those 
convulsed regions of the world; wherein it was 
evident that revolution raged not a little; but 
also that precious metals, cowhides, Jesuits' 
bark, and multiplex commodities, were never- 
theless extant ; and iron or brazen implements, 
ornaments, cotton and woollen clothing, and Bri- 
tish manufactures not a few, were objects of de- 
sire to mankind. The brothers Robertson, acting 
on these facts, appear to have prospered, to 
have extensively flourished in their commerce ; 
which they gradually extended up the river 
Plate, to the city of the Seven Streams or Cur- 
rents, (Corrienles so called,) and higher even to 
Assumpcion,metropolis of Paraguay; in which 
latter place, so extensive did the commercial 
interests grow, it seemed at last expedient that 
one or both of the prosperous brothers should 
take up his personal residence. Personal resi- 
dence accordingly they did take up, one or both 
of them, and maintain, in a fluctuating way, now 
in this city, now in that, of the De la Plata, 
Parana or Paraguay country, for a considera- 
ble space of years; how many years, in precise 
arithmetic, it is impossible, from these inextrica- 
bly complicated documents now before us, to as- 
certain. In Paraguay itself, in Assumpcion city 
itself, it is very clear, the brothers Robertson did, 
successively or simultaneously, in a fluctuating 
inextricable manner, live for certain years ; and 
occasionally saw Dr. Francia with their own 
eyes, — though to them or others, he had not yet 
become notable. 

Mountains of cow and other hides, it tt^ould 
appear quitted those countries by movement 
of the brothers Robertson, to be worn out in 
Europe as tanned boots and horse-harness, with 
more or less satisfaction, — not without due 
profit to the merchants, we shall hope. About 
the time of Dr. Francia's beginning his "reign 
af terror," or earlier it may be, (for there are 



no dates in these inextricable documents,) the 
Messrs. Robertson were lucky enough to take 
final farewell of Paraguay, and carry their com- 
mercial enterprises into other quarters of that 
vast continent, where the reign was not of 
terror. Their voyagings, counter-voyagings, 
comings and goings, seem to have been exten- 
sive, frequent, inextricably complex ; to Europe, 
to Tucuman, to Glasgow, to Chile, to Laswade 
and elsewhither; too complex for a succinct 
intelligence, as that of our readers has to be at 
present. Suflicient for us to know, that the 
Messrs. Robertson did bodily, and for good, re- 
turn to their own countr}^ some few years since; 
with what nel result of cash is but dimly 
adumbrated in these documents; certainly with 
some increase of knowledge — had the unfold- 
ing of it but been brief in proportion! Indis- 
putably the Messrs. Robertson had somewhat 
to tell : their eyes had seen some new things, 
of which their hearts and understandings had 
taken hold more or less. In which circum- 
stances the Messrs. Robertson decided on pub- 
lishing a book. Arrangements being made, 
two volumes of "Letters on Paraguay" came 
out, with due welcome from the world, in 1839. 
We have read these "Letters" for the first 
time lately : a book of somewhat a5?(fo«s struc- 
ture : immeasurably thinner than one could 
have wished ; otherwise not without merit. It 
is written in an off-hand, free-glowing, very art- 
less, veryincorrect style of language, of thought, 
and of conception ; breathes a cheerful, eupep- 
tic, social spirit, as of adventurous South-Ame- 
rican Britons, worthy to succeed in business ; 
gives one, here and there, some visible concrete 
feature, some lively glimpse of those remote 
sun-burnt countries ; and has throughout a kind 
of bantering humour or quasi-humour, a jovi- 
ality and healthiness of heari, which is com- 
fortable to the reader, in some measure. A 
book not to be despised in these dull times : one 
of that extensive class of books which a reader 
can peruse, so to speak, "with one eye shut 
and the other not open ;" a considerable luxury 
for some readers. These " Letters on Para- 
guay" meeting, as Avould seem, a unanimous 
approval, it was now determined by the Messrs. 
Robertson that they would add a third volume, 
and entitle it " Dr. Francia's Reign of Terror." 
They did so, and this likewise the present re- 
viewer has read. Unluckily the authors had, 
as it were, nothing more whatever to say about 
Dr. Francia, or next to nothing; and under this 
condition, it must be owned they have done 
their book with what success was well possi- 
ble. Given a cubic inch of respectable Castile 
soap. To lather it up in water so as to fill oue 
puncheon wine-measure: this is the problem; 
let a man have credit (of its kind) for doing 
his problem! The Messrs. Robertson have 
picked almost every fact of significance from 
" Rengger and Longchamp," adding some not 
very significant reminiscences of their own ; 
this is the square inch of soap; you lather it 
up in Robertsonian loquacity, joviality, Com- 
mercial-Inn banter, Leading-Article philoso- 
phy, or other aqueous vehicles, till it fills the 
puncheon, the volume of four hundred pages, 
and say " There !" The public, it would seem, 
did not fling even this in the face of the 



DR. FRANCIA. 



553 



venders, but bought it as a puncheon filled ; and 
the consequences are already here: Three vo- 
lumes more on "South America," from the 
same assidious Messrs Robertson ! These also, 
in his eagerness, this present reviewer has 
read ; and has, alas, to saj' that they are simply 
the old volumes in new vocables, under a new 
figure. Intrinsically all that we did not already 
know of these three volumes, — there are crafts- 
men of no great eminence who will undertake 
to write it in one sheet! Yet there they stand, 
three solid-looking volun:es, a thousand printed 
pages and upwards; three puncheons more 
lathered out of the old square inch of Castile 
soap ! It is too bad. A necessitous ready- 
witted Irishman sells you an indifferent grey- 
horse ; steals it overnight, paints it black, and 
sells it to you again on the morrow; he is 
haled before judges, sharply cross-qi:estioned, 
tried and almost executed, for such adroitness 
in horse-flesh: but there is no law yet as to 
books ! 

M. de la Condamine, about a century ago, 
was one of a world-famous company that went 
into those equinoctial countries, and for the 
space of nine or ten years did exploits there. 
From Quito to Cuenca he measured you de- 
grees of the meridian, climbed mountains, took 
observations, had adventures ; wild Creoles op- 
posing Spanish nescience to human science; 
wild Indians throwing down your whole cargo 
of instruments occasionally in the heart of re- 
mote deserts, and striking work there.* M. de 
la Condamine saw bull-fights at Cuenca, five 
days running; and, on the fifth day, saw his 
unfortunate too audacious surgeon massacred 
by popular tumult there. He sailed the entire 
length of the Amazons River, in Indian canoes; 
over narrow Pongo rapids, over infinite mud- 
waters, the infinite tangled wilderness with its 
reeking desolation on the right hand of him 
and on the left ; — and had mischances, adven- 
tures, and took celestial observations all the 
way, and made remarks ! Apart altogether 
from his meridian degrees, which belong in a 
very strict sense to v.-orld-history and the ad- 
vancement of all Adam's sinful posterity, this 
man and his party saw and suffered many 
hundred times as much of mere romance ad- 
venture as the Messrs. Robertson did: — 
Madame Godin's passage down the Amazons, 
and frightful life-in-death amid the howling 
forest-labyrinths, and M'recks of her dear 
friends, amounts to more adventure of itself 
than was ever dreamt of in the Roberisonian 
world. And of all this M. de la Condamine 
gives pertinent, lucid, and conclusively intel- 
ligible and credible account in one very small 
octavo volume; not quite the eighth part of 
what Messrs. Robertson have already written, 
in a not pertinent, not lucid, or conclusively 
intelligible and credible manner. And the 
Messrs. Robertson talk repeatedly, in iheirlast 
vi'lumes, of wriiing still other volumes on 
Chile " if the public will encourage." The 
Public will be a monstrous fool if it do. The 
Public ought to stipulate first that the real 
new knowledge forthcoming thereabout Chile 
be separated from the knowledge or ignorance 

♦ Condnmine: Relation d'un Voyage dans I'lnt^rieur 
df I'Auierique meridionale. 
70 



already known ; that the preliminary questioa 
be rigorously put. Are several volumes the 
space to hold it, or a small fraction of one vo- 
lume 7 

On the whole, it is a sin, good reader, though 
there is no Act of Parliament against it; an 
indubitable «?a/efaction or crime. No mortal 
has a right to wag his tongue, much less to 
wag his pen, without saying something: he 
knows not what mischief he does, past compu- 
tation ; scattering words without meaning, — 
to afflict the whole world yet, before they 
cease ! For thistle-down flies abroad on all 
winds and airs of wind: idle thistles, idle dande- 
lions, and other idle products of Nature or the 
human mind, propagate themselves in that 
way ; like to cover the face of the earth, did 
not man's indignant providence with reap-hook, 
with rake, with autumnal steel-and-tinder, in- 
tervene. It is frightful to think how every idle 
volume flies abroad like an idle globular down- 
beard, embryo of new millions ; every word 
of it a potential seed of infinite newdownbeards 
and volumes ; for the mind of man is feracious, 
is voracious ; germinative, above all things, 
of the downbeard species ! Why, the author 
corps in Great Britain, every soul of them in- 
clined to grow mere dandelions if permitted, is 
now supposed to be about ten thousand strong ; 
and the reading corps, who read merely to es- 
cape from themselves, with one eye shut and 
the other not open, and will put up with almost 
any dandelion or thing which they can read 
wlihont opening both their eyes, amounts to 
twenty-seven millions all but a few ! could 
the Messrs. Robertson, spirited, articulate- 
speaking men, once know well in what a 
comparatively blessed mood you close your 
brief^, intelligent, conclusive M. de la Conda- 
mine, and feel that you have passed your 
evening well and nobly, as in a temple of wis- 
dom, — not ill and disgracefully, as in brawling 
tavern supper-rooms, with fools and noisy per- 
sons, — ah, in that case, perhaps the Messrs. Ro- 
bertson would write their new work on Chile 
in part of a volume ! 

13ni enough of this Robertsonian department; 
v.'hich we must leave to the Fates and Supreme 
Providences. These spirited, articulate-speak- 
ing Robertsons are far from the worst of their 
kind; nay, among the best, if you will ; — only 
unlucky in this case, in coming across the 
autumnal steel and tinder! Let it cease to 
rain angry sparks on them : enough now, and 
more than enough. To cure tliat unfurtunate 
department by philosophical criticism — the at- 
tempt is most vain. Who will dismount on a 
hasty journey, with the day declining, to at- 
tack musquito-swarms with the horsewhip 1 
Spur swiftly through them; breathing perhaps 
some pious prayer to heaven. By the horse- 
whip they cannot be killed. Drain out the 
swamps where they are bred, — Ah.couldst thou 
do something towards that! And in the mean 
while: How to get on with this of Dr Francia. 

The materials, as our reader spes, are of the 
miserablest: mere intricate inanity (if we ex- 
cept poor wooden I^cns^er,) and little more; 
not facts, but broken shadows of facts ; clouds 
of confused bluster and jargon; — the whole 
still more bewildered in the iioier/sons, by wha* 
3A 



554 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



■we may call a running shriek of constitutional 
denunciation, "sanguinary tyrant," and so 
forth. How is any picture of Francia to be 
fabricated out of that? Certainly, first of all, 
by omission of the running shriek ! This latter 
we shall totally omit. Francia, the sanguinary 
tyrant, was not bound to look at the world 
through Re ngger's eyes, through Parish Robert- 
son's eyes, but faithfully through his own eyes. 
We are to consider that, in all human likeli- 
hood, this Dioijysius of Paraguay did mean 
something; and then ask in quietness, What? 
The running shriek once hushed, perhaps 
many things will compose themselves, and 
straggling fractions of information, almost infi- 
nitessimally small, may become unexpectedly 
luminous ! 

An unscientific cattle-breeder and tiller of 
the earth, in some nameless chacra not far from 
the city of Assumpcion, was the father of this 
remarkable human individual ; and seems to 
have evoked h/m into being some time in the 
year 1757. The man's name is not known to 
us; his very nation is a point of controversy : 
Francia himself gave him out for an immigrant 
of French extraction ; the popular belief was, 
that he had wandered over from Brazil. Por- 
tuguese or French, or both in one, he produced 
this human individual, and had him christened 
by the name of Jose Gaspar Rodriguez Fran- 
cia, in the year above mentioned. Rodriguez no 
doubt had a mother too; but her name also, 
nr where found mentioned, must be omitted in 
this delineation. Her name, and all her fond 
maternities, and workings, and sufferings, 
good brown lady, are sunk in dumb forgetfui- 
ness ; and buried there along with her, under 
the twenty-fifth parallel of Southern Latitude; 
and no British reader is required to interfere 
with them ! Jose Rodriguez must have been 
a loose-made tawny creature, much given to 
taciturn reflection ; probably to crying hu- 
mours, with tits of -vehement ill-nature: such 
a subject, it seemed to the parent Francia 
cautiously reflecting on it, would, of all attain- 
able trades, be suilablesi for preaching the gos- 
pel, and doing the divine offices, in a country 
like Paraguay. There were other young Fran- 
cias ; at least one sister and one brother in ad- 
dition ; of whom the latter by and by went 
mad. The Francias, with their adust charac- 
ter, and vehement French-Portuguese blood, 
had perhaps all a kind of aptitude for madness. 
The Dictator himself was subject to the terri- 
blesl fits of hypochondria, as your adust "men 
of genius" too frequently are! The lean Rod- 
riguez, we fancy, may have been of a devo- 
tional turn withal; born half a century earlier, 
he had infallibly been so. Devotional or not, 
he shall be a priest, and do the divine offices 
in Paraguay, perhaps in a very unexpected 
way. 

Rodriguez having learned his hornbooks and 
elementary branches at Assumpcion, was ac- 
cordingly despatched to the University of Cor- 
dova in Tucuman, to pursue his curricnl.um in 
that seminary. So far we know, but almost no 
farther. What kind of curriculum it was, 
what lessons, spiritunl spoonmeat, the poor 
lank sallow boy was crammed with, in Cor- 



dova High Seminary; and how he took to it, 
and pined or throve on it, is entirely uncertain. 
Lank sallow boys in the Tucuman and other 
high Seminaries are often dreadfully ill-dealt 
with, in respect to their spiritual spoonmeat, 
as the times go ! Spoon-poison you niight often 
call it rather: as if the object were to make 
them Mithridateses, able to live on poison ! 
Which maybe a useful art, too, in its kind! 
Nay, in fact, if we ccmsider it, these high semi- 
naries and establishments exist there, in 
Tucuman and elsewhere, not for that lank 
sallow boy's special purposes, but for their 
own wise purposes; they were made and 
put together, a long while since, without taking 
the smallest counsel of the sallow boy ! Fre- 
quently they seem to say to him, all along: 
" This precious thing that lies in thee, O sallow 
boy, of 'genius,' so called, it may to thee and 
to eternal Nature, be precious; but to us and 
to temporary Tucuman, it is not precious, but 
pernicious, deadly : we require thee to quit this, 
or expect penalties !" And yet the poor boy, how 
can he quit it; eternal Nature herself, from 
the depths of the Universe, ordering him to go 
on with it? From the depths of the Universe, 
and of his own Soul, latest revelation of the 
Universe, he is, in a silent, imperceptible, but 
irrefragable manner, directed to go on with it, 
— and has to go, though under penalties. Pe- 
nalties of very death, or worse! Alas, the 
poor boy, so willing to obey temporary Tucu- 
mans, and yet unable to disobey eternal Na- 
ture, is truly to be pitied. Thou shalt be 
Rodriguez Francia ! cries Nature, and the 
poor boy to himself Thou shalt be Ignatius 
Loyola, Friar Ponderoso, Don Fatpauncho 
Usandwonto! cries Tucuman. Thepoorcrea- 
ture's whole boyhood is one long lawsuit: 
Rodriguez Francia against All Persons in ge- 
neral. It is so in Tucuman, so in mi)st places. 
You cannot advise efiectually into what high 
seminary he had best be sent; the only safe 
way is to bargain beforehand, that he have 
force born with him sufficient to make itself 
good against all persons in general ! 

Be this as it may, the lean Francia prose- 
cutes his studies at Cordova, waxes gradually 
taller towards new destinies. Rndriguez Fran- 
cia, in some kind of Jesuit scullcap, and black 
college serge gown, a lank rawboned creature, 
stalking with a down-look through the irregu- 
lar public streets of Cordova in those years, 
with an infinitude of painful unspeakabilities 
in the interior of him, is an interesting object 
to the historical mind. So much is unspeak- 
able, O Rodriguez; and it is a most strange 
Universe this we are born into; and the theo- 
rem of Ignatius Loyola and Don Fatpauncho 
Usandwonto seems to me to hobble somewhat ! 
Much is unspeakable; lying within one like a 
dark lake of doubt, of Acherontic dread lead- 
ing down to Chaos itself Much is unspeak- 
able, answers Francia ; but somewhat also is 
speakable, — this for example: That I will not 
be a priest in Tucuman in these circum- 
stances; that I should like decidedly to be a 
secular person rather, were it even a lawyer! 
Francia, arrived at man's years, changes from 
Divinity to Law. Some say it was in D vinity 
that he graduated, and got his Doctor's hat ;. 



DR. FRANCIA. 



555 



Rengger says. Divinity ; the Robertson?, like- 
lier to be incorrect, call him Doctor of I-aws. 
To our present readers it is all one, or nearly 
so. Rodriguez quitted the Tucuman ./llnia 
Mater, with some beard on his chin, and reap- 
peared in Assumpcion to look out for practice 
at the bar. 

What had R.idriguez contrived to learn, or 
grow to, under this h\sJhnii Mater in Cordova, 
when he quitted her 7 The answer is a mere 
guess; his curriculum, we again say, is not yet 
known. Some faint smattering of Arithmetic, 
or the everlasting laws of numbers; faint 
smattering of Geometry, everlasting laws of 
Shapes ; these things we guess, not altogether 
in the dark, Rodriguez did learn, and found 
extremely remarkable. Curious enough : That 
round Globe put into that round Drum, to 
touch it at the ends and all round, it is pre- 
cisely as if you clapt 2 into the inside of 3, 
not a jot more, not a jot less : wonder at it, O 
Francia; for in fact it is a thing to make one 
pause ! Old Greek Archimedeses, Pythago- 
rases, dusky Indians, old nearly as the hills, 
detected such things ; and they have got across 
into Paraguay, into this brain of thine, thou 
happy Francia. How is it, too, that the Al- 
mighty Maker's planets run in those heavenly 
spaces, in paths which are conceivable in thy 
poor human head as Sections of a cone^ 
The thing thou conceivest as an Ellipse, the 
Almighty Maker has set his Planets to roll in 
that. Clear proof, which neither Loyola nor 
Usandwonto can contravene, that T/wu too art 
denizen of this universe; that thou too, in 
some inconceivable manner, wert present at 
the Conncil of the Gods! — Faint smatterings 
of such things Francia did learn in Tucuman. 
Endless heavy fodderings of Jesuit theology, 
poured on him and round him by the wagon- 
load, incessantly, and )'ear after year, he did 
not learn; but left lying there as shot rubbish. 
On the other hand, some slight inkling of hu- 
man grammatical vocables, especially of 
French vocables, seems probable. French 
vocables; bodily garments of the " Encyclo- 
pedie" and Gospel according to Volney, Jean 
Jacques and Company; of infinite import to 
Francia ! 

Nay, is it not in some sort beautiful to see 
the sacred flame of ingenuous human curi- 
osity, love of knowledge, awakened, amid the 
damp somnolent vapours, real and metaphori- 
cal, the damp tropical poison-jungles, and fat 
Lethean stupefactions and entanglements, even 
in the heart of a poor Paraguay Creole 1 Sa- 
cred flame, no bigger yet than that of a far- 
thing rushlight, and with nothing but second- 
hand French class-books in science, and in 
politics and morals nothing but the Raynals 
and Rousseaus, to feed it: an j//-fed, lank-qua- 
vering, most blue-coloured, almost ghastly- 
looking flame ; but a needful one, a kind of 
sacred one even that! Thou shalt love know- 
ledge, search what is the t}-it.th of this God's 
"Universe; thou art privileged and bound to 
love it, to search for it, in Jesuit Tucuman, in 
all places that the sky covers ; and shall try 
even Volneys for help, if there be no other 
help! This poor blue-coloured inextinguish- 
able flame in the soul of Rodriguez Francia, 



there as it burns better or worse, in many 
figures, through the whole life of him, is very 
notable to me. Blue flame though it be, it 
has to burn up considerable quantities of poi- 
sonous lumber from the general face of Para- 
guay ; and singe the profound impenetrable 
forest-jungle, spite of all its brambles and lia- 
nas, into a very black condition, — intimating 
that there shall be disease and removal on the 
p:irtof said forest-jungle ; peremptory removal; 
that the blessed Sunlight shall again look in 
upon his cousin Earth, tyrannously hidden 
from him, for so many centuries now! Cou- 
rage, Rodriguez ! 

Rodriguez, indifferent to such remote consi- 
derations, successfully addicts himself to law- 
pleadings, and general private studies, in the 
city of Assumpcion. We have always under- 
stood he was one of the best advocates, per- 
haps the very best, and, what is still more, the 
justest that ever took briefs in that country. 
This the Robertsonian "Reign of Terror" it- 
self is willing to admit, nay repeatedily as- 
serts, and impresses on us. He was so just 
and true, while a young man ; gave such di- 
vine prognostics of a life of nobleness ; and 
then, in his riper years, so belied all that! 
Shameful to think of; he bade fair, at one time, 
to be a friend of humanity of the first water; 
and then gradually, hardened by piil;t cal suc- 
cess, and love of power, he became a mere 
ravenous goul, or solitary thief in the night; 
stealing the constitutional palladiums from 
their parliament houses — and executed up- 
ward of forty persons! Sad to consider what 
men and friends of humanity will come to ! 

For the rest it is not given to this or as yet to 
any editor, till a Biography arrive from Para- 
guay, to shape out, with the smallest clearness, 
a representation of Francia's existence as an 
Assumpcion Advocate; the scene is so distant, 
the conditions of it so unknown. Assumpcion 
city, near three hundred years old now, lies in 
free-and-easy fashion, on the left bank of the Pa- 
rana River, embosomed among fruit-forests, rich 
tropical umbrage; thick wood round it every- 
where, — which serves for defence too against 
the Indians. Approach by which of the vari- 
ous roads you will, it is through miles of soli- 
tary shady avenue, shutting out the sun's glare; 
over-canopying, as with grateful green awn- 
ing, the loose sand-highway, — where, in the 
early part of this century, (date undiscoverable 
in those intricate volumes.) Mr. Parish Robert- 
son, advancing on horseback, met one cart 
driven by a smart brown girl, in red bodice, 
with long black hair, not unattractive to look 
upon ; and for a space of twelve miles, no 
other articulate-speaking thing whatever.* 

The people of that profuse climate live in 
a careless abundance, troubling themselves 
about few things ; build what wooden carts, 
hide-beds, mud-brick houses, are indispens- 
able; import what of ornamental lies handiest 
abroad ; exchanging it for Paraguay tea in 
sewed goatskins. Riding through the town of 
Santa Fe, with Parish Robertson at three in 
the afternoon, you will find the entire popula- 
tion just risen from its siesta ; slipshod, half- 



♦ Letters on Paraguay. 



556 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



buttoned ; sitting in its front verandahs open 
to the street, eating pumpkins with voracity, — 
sunk to the ears in pumpkins ; imbibing the 
grateful saccharine juices, in a free and easy 
way. They look up at the sound of your 
hoofs, not without good humour. Frondent 
trees parasol the streets, — thanks to Nature 
and the Virgin. You will be welcome at their 
tertulias, — a kind of " swarrie," as the flunkey 
says, "consisting of flirtation and the usual 
trimmings : sivarrie on the table about seven 
o'clock." Before this, the whole population, it 
is like, has gone to bathe promiscuously, and 
cool and purify itself in the Parana : promis- 
cuously, but you have all got linen bathing- 
garments and can swash about with some de- 
cency; a great relief to the human taberna- 
cle in those climates. At your tcrtulia, it is 
said, the Andalusian eyes, still bright to the 
tenth or twelfth generation, are distractive, 
seductive enough, and argue a soul that would 
repay cultivating. The beautiful half-savages; 
full of wild sheet-lightning, which might be 
made continuously luminous ! Tertulia well 
over, you sleep on hide stretchers, perhaps 
here and there on a civilized mattrass, within 
doors or on the housetops. 

In the damp flat country parts, where the 
mosquitoes abound, you sleep on high stages, 
mounted on four poles, forty feet above the 
ground, attained by ladders; so high, blessed 
be the Virgin, no mosquito can follow to sting, 
— it is a blessing of the Virgin or some other. 
You sleep there, in an indiscriminate arrange- 
ment, each in his several poncho or blanket- 
cloak ; with some saddle, deal-box, wooden 
log, or the like, under your head. For bed- 
tester is the canopy of everlasting blue: for 
night-lamp burns Canopus in his infinite 
spaces; mosquitoes cannot reach you, if it 
please the Powers. And rosy-fingered Morn, 
sufi'usingthe east with sudden red and gold, and 
other flame-heraldry of swift-advancing Day, 
attenuates all dreams; and the sun's first level 
light-volley sheers away sleep from living 
creatures everywhere; and living men do 
ihen awaken on their four-post stage there, in 
the Pampas, — and might begin with prayer if 
they liked, one fancies ! There is an altar 
decked on the horizon's edge yonder, is there 
not; and a cathedral wide enough? — How, 
over night, you have defended yourselves 
against vampires, is unknown to this editor. 

The Guacho population, it must be owned, 
is not yet fit for constitutional liberty. They 
are a rude people ; lead a drowsy life, of ease 
and sluttisii abundance, — one shade, and but 
one, above a dog's life, which is defined as 
" ease and scarcity." The arts are in their in- 
fancy; and not less the virtues. For equip- 
ment, clothing, bedding, household furniture, 
and general outfit of every kiiid, those simple 
populations depend much on the skin of the 
cow; making of it most things wanted, lasso, 
bolas, ship-cordage, rimmings of cart-wheels, 
spatterdashes, beds, and house-doors. In coun- 
try places they sit on the skull of the cow : 
General Artigas was seen, and spoken with, 
by one of the Robertsons, sitting among field- 
officers, all on cow-skulls, toasting stripes of 
beef, and "dictating to three secretaries at 



once."* They sit on the skull of the cow ia 
country places; nay they heat themselves, 
and even burn lime, by igniting the carcass of 
the cow. 

One art they seem to have perfected, and 
one only — that of riding. Astleys and Ducrows 
must hide their head, all glories of Newmarket 
and Epsom dwindle to extinction, in compari- 
son of Guacho horsemanship. Certainly if 
ever Centaurs lived upon the earth, these are 
of them. They stick on their horses as if both 
were one flesh; galloping where there seems 
hardly path for an ibex ; leaping like kan- 
garoos, and flourishing their nooses and bolases 
the while. They can whirl themselves round 
under the belly of the horse, in cases of war- 
stratagem, and stick fast, hanging on by the 
mere great toe and heel. You think it is a 
drove of wild horses galloping up: on a sud- 
den, with wild scream, it becomes a troop of 
Centaurs with pikes in their hands. Nay, they 
have the skill, which most of all transcends 
Newmarket, of riding on horses that are not 
fed; and can bring fresh speed and alacrity 
out of a horse which, with you, was on the 
point of lying down. To ride on three horses 
with Ducrow^ they would esteem a small feat: 
to ride on the broken-winded fractional part 
of one horse, that is the feat! 

Their huts abound in beef, in reek also, and 
rubbish ; excelling in dirt most places that 
human nature has anywhere inhabited. Poor 
Guachos ! They drink Paraguay tea, sucking 
it up in succession, through the same tin pipe, 
from one common skillet. They are hospita- 
ble, sooty, leathery, lying, laughing fellows ; 
of excellent talent in their sphere. They have 
stoicism, though ignorant of Zeno ; nay stoic- 
ism coupled with real gayety of heart. Amidst 
their reek, they laugh loud, in rough jolly 
banter; they twang, in a plaintive manner, 
rough love-melodies on a kind of guitar j 
smoke infinite tobacco; and delight in gam- 
bling and ardent spirits, ordinary refuge of 
voracious empty souls. For the same reason, 
and A belter, they delight also in Corpus- 
Christi ceremonies, mass-chantings, and de- 
votional performances. These men are fit to 
be drilled into something! Their lives stand 
there like empty capacious bottles, calling to 
the heavens and the earth, and all Dr. Francias 
who may pass that way : " Is there nothing to 
put into us, then 1 Nothing but nomadic idle- 
ness, Jesuit superstition, rubbish, reek, and dry 
stripes of tough beef?" Ye unhappy Guachos, 
— yes, there is something other, there are 
several things other, to put into you ! But 
withal, you will observe, the seven devils have 
first to be put out of you: Idleness, lawless 
Brutalness, Darkness, Falseness — seven devils 
or more. And the way to put something into 
you is, alas, not so plain ai present ! Is it-, — 
alas, on the whole, is il not perhaps to lay 
good horse-whips lustily upon you, and cast 
out these seven devils as a preliminary ] 

How Francia passed his days in such a 
region, where philosophy, as is too clear, was 
at the lowest ebb? Francia, like Quintus 
Fixlein, had " perennial fire-proof joys, namely 



♦ Letters on Parajuay. 



DR. FRANCIA. 



557 



employments." He had much law-business, a 
great and ever-increasing reputation as a man 
at once skilful and faithful in the management 
of causes for men. Then, in his leisure hours, 
he had his Volneys, Raynals; he had second- 
hand scientific treatises in French ; he loved 
to " interrogate Nature," as they say; to pos- 
sess theodolites, telescopes, star-glasses, — any 
kind of glass or book, or gazing implement 
whatever, through which he might try to catch 
a glimpse of Fact in this strange Universe : 
poor Francia ! Nay, it is said, his hai-d heart 
was not without inflammability; was sensible 
to those Andalusian eyes still bright in the 
tenth or twelfth generation. In such case, too, 
it may have burnt, one would think, like an- 
thracite, in a somewhat ardent manner. Ru- 
mours to this effect are afloat; not at once in- 
credible. Pity there had not been some An- 
dalusian pair of eyes, with speculation, depth 
and soul enough in the rear of them to fetter 
Dr. Francia permanently, and make a house- 
father of him. It had been better; but it be- 
fell not. As for that light-headed, smart, brown 
girl whom, twenty years afterwards, you saw 
selling flowers on the streets of Assumpcion, 
and leading a light life, is there any certainty 
that she was Dr. Francia's daughter] Any 
certainty that, even if so, he could and should 
have done something considerable for her?* 
Poor Francia, poor light-headed, smart, brown 
girl, — this present reviewer cannot say! 

Francia is a somewhat lonesome, down- 
looking man, apt to be solitary even in the press 
of men ; wears a face not unvisited by laughter, 
yet tending habitually towards the sorrowful, 
the stern. He passes everywhere for a man 
of veracity, punctuality, of iron methodic 
rigour; of iron rectitude, above all. "The 
skilful lawyer," " the learned lawyer," these 
are reputations; but the "honest lawyer!" 
This law-case was reported by the Robertsons 
before they thought of writing a "Francia's 
Reign of Terror," with that running shriek, 
which so confuses us. We love to believe the 
anecdote, even in its present loose state, as 
significant of many things in Francia : 

"It has been already observed that Francia's 
reputation, as a lawyer, was not only unsullied 
by venality, but conspicuous for rectitude. 

"He had a friend in Assumpcion of the 
name of Domingo Rodriguez. This man had 
cast a covetous eye upon aNaboth's vineyard, 
and this Naboth, of whom Francia was the 
open enemy, was called Estanislao Machain. 
Never doubting that the young doctor, like 
other lawyers, would undertake his unright- 
eous cause, Rodriguez opened to him his case, 
and requested, with a handsome retainer, his 
advocacy of it. Francia saw at once that 
his friend's pretensions were founded in fraud 
and injustice ; and he not only refused to act 
as his counsel, but plainly told him, that much 
as he haled his antagonist Machain, yet if he 
(Rodriguez) persisted in his iniquitous suit, 
that antasonisi should have his (Francia's) 
most zealous support. But covetousness, as 
Ahab's story shows us, is not so easily driven 
from its pretensions; and in spite of Francia's 



♦ Robertson. 



warning, Rodriguez persisted. As he was a 
potent man in point of fortune, all was going 
against Machain and his devoted vineyard. 

" At this stage of the question, Francia wrap* 
ped himself one night in his cloak, and walked 
to the house of his inveterate enemy, Machain. 
The slave who opened the door, knowing that 
his master and the doctor, like the houses of 
Montagu and Capulet, were smoke in each 
other's eyes, refused the lawyer admittance, 
and ran to inform his master of the strange 
and unexpected visit. Machain, no less struck 
by the circumstance than his slave, for some 
time hesitated ; but at length determined to 
admit Francia. In walked the silent doctor to 
Machain's chamber. All the papers connected 
with the law-plea — voluminous enough I have 
been assured — v/ere outspread upon the dc" 
fendant's escritoire. 

" ' Machain,' said the lawyer, addressing 
him, 'you know I am your enemy. But I 
know that my friend Rodriguez meditates, and 
will certainly, unless I interfere, carry against 
you an act of gross and lawless aggression; I 
have come to offer my services in your de- 
fence.' 

"The astonished Machain could scarcely 
credit his senses ; but poured forth the ebulli- 
tion of his gratitude in terms of thankful ac- 
quiescence. 

"The first 'escrito,' or writing, sent in by 
Francia to the Juez de Alzada, or Judge of the 
Court of Appeal, confounded the adverse advo- 
cates, and staggered the judge, who was in their' 
interest. 'My friend,' said the judge to the 
leading counsel, 'I cannot go forward in this 
matter, unless you bribe Dr. Francia to be 
silent.' 'I will try,' replied the advocate, and 
he went to Naboth's counsel with a hundred 
doubloons, (about three hundred and fifty 
guineas,) which he offered him as a bribe to 
let the cause take its iniquitous course. Con- 
sidering, too, that his best introduction would 
be a hint that his douceur was offered with 
the judge's concurrence, the knavish lawyer 
hinted to the upright one that such was the fact. 

" ' Saiga Usied,' said Francia, ' con sus viles 
pensamientos, y vilisimo oro de mi casa.' ' Out 
with your vile insinuations and dross of gold 
from my house.' 

" Off marched the venal drudge of the unjust 
judge; and in a moment putting on his capote, 
the ofl^ended advocate went to the residence of 
the Juez de Alzada. Shortly relating what had 
passed between himself and the myrmidon, — 
'Sir,' continued Francia, 'you are a disgrace 
to law, and a blot upon justice. You are, more- 
over, completely in my power; and unless 
to-morrow I have a decision in favour of my 
client, I will make your seat upon the bench 
too hot for you, and the insignia of your judi- 
cial office shall become the emblems of your 
shame.' 

"The morrow ri(rf bring a decision in favour 
of Francia's client. Naboth retained his vine- 
yard; the judge lost his reputation; and the 
young doctor's fame extended far and wide." 

On the other hand, it is admitted that he 
quarrelled with his father, in those days; and, 
as is reported, never spoke to him more. The 
3 A 2 



658 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



subject of the quarrel is vaguely supposed to 
have been " money matters." Francia is not 
accused of avarice ; nay, is expressly acquitted 
of loving money, even by Rengger. But he 
did hate injustice; — and probably was not in- 
disposed lo allow /;j»ise//', among others, "the 
height of fair play !" A rigorous, correct man, 
that will have a spade be a spade; a man of 
much learning in Creole law, and occult 
French sciences, of great talent, energy, fide- 
lity: — a man of some temper withal : unhap- 
pily subject to private " hypochondria ; black 
private thunder-clouds, whence probably the 
origin of these lightnings, when you poke into 
him ! He leads a lonesome self-secluded life ; 
" interrogating nature" through mere star- 
glasses, and Abbe-Raynal philosophies — who 
in that way will yield no very exuberant re- 
sponse. Mere law-papers, advocate fees, civic 
officialities, renowns, nnd the wonder of As- 
sumpcion Guachos ; — not so much as a pair 
of Andalusian eyes that can lasso him, except 
in a temporary way : this man seems to have 
got but a lean lease of nature, and may end in 
-a rather shrunk condition ! A century ago, 
■with this attrabiliar earnestness of his, and 
such a reverberatory furnace of passions, in- 
quiries, unspeakabilities burning in him, deep 
under cover, he might have made an excel- 
lent monk of St. Dominic, fit almost for canoni- 
zation ; nay, an excellent Superior of the 
Jesuits, Grand Inquisitor, or the like, had you 
developed him in that way. But, for all this, 
he is now a day too late. Monks of St. 
Dominic that might have been, do now, instead 
of devotional raptures and miraculous suspen- 
sions in prayer, produce — brown accidental 
female infants, to sell flowers, in an indigent 
state, on the streets of Assumpcion ! It is 
grown really a most barren time; and this 
Francia with his grim unspeakabilities, with 
his fiery splenetic humours, kept close under 
lock and key, what has he to look for in it 1 A 
post on the bench, in the municipal Cabildo, — 
nay, he has already a post in the Cabildo; he 
has already been Alcalde, Lord-Mayor of As- 
sumpcion, and ridden in such gilt coach as 
they had. He can look for little, one would 
say, but barren mone3-s, barren Guacho world- 
celebrities ; Abbe-Raynal philosophisms also 
very barren ; wholly a barren life-voyage of 
it, ending — in zero, thinks the Abbe-Raynal? 

But no ; the world wags not that way in 
those days. Far over the waters there have 
been federations of the Champ de Mars ; guil- 
lotines, portable-guillotines, and a French 
people risen against tyrants; there has been a 
Sansndoltism, speaking at last in canon-volleys 
and the crash of towns and nations over half 
the world. Sleek Fatpauncho Usandwonto, 
sleek aristocratic Donothingism, sunk as in 
death-sleep in its well-stuffed easy chair, or 
staggering in somnambulism on the house- 
tops, "Jeerned to itself to hear a voice say, 
Sleep no more, Donothingism ; Donothingism 
doth murder sleep ! It was indeed a terrible 
explosion, that of Sansculottism ; commin- 
gling very Tartarus with the old-established 
stars; — fit, such a tumult was it, to awaken all 
but the dead. And out of it there' had come 
Napoleonisms, Tamerlanisms ; and then as a 



branch of these, conventions of Aranjuez, sooa 
followed by Spanish Juntas, Spanish Cortes; 
and, on the whole, a smiling broad awake of 
poor old Spain itself, much to its amazement. 
-A.nd naturally of New Spain next, — tts double 
amazement, seeing itself awake ! And so, ia 
the v.ew hemisphere too, arise wild projects, 
angry arguings; arise armed gatherings in 
Santa Marguerita Island with B ilivars and In- 
vasions of Cumana; revolts of La Plata, re- 
volts of this and then of that; the sii.btfrranean 
electric element, shock on shock, shaking and 
exploding, in the new hemisphere too, from 
sea to sea. Very astonishing to witness, from 
the year 1810 and onwards. Had Dr. Rodriguez 
Francia three ears, he would hear; as many eyes 
as Argus, he would gaze ! He is all eye, he 
is all ear. A new, entirely different figure of 
existence is cut out for Dr. Rodriguez. 

The Paraguay people as a body, lying far 
inland, with little speculation in their heads, 
were in no haste to adopt the new republican 
gospel ; but looked first how it would succeed 
in shaping itself into facts. Buenos Ayres, 
Tucuman,most of the La Plata provinces, had 
made their revolutions, brought in the reign 
of liberty, and unluckily driven out the reign 
of law and regularity ; before the Paraguenos 
could resolve on such an enterprise. Perhaps 
they are afraid ? General Belgrano, with a 
force of a thousand men, missioned by Buenos 
Ayres, came up the river to countenance them, 
in the end of 1810; but was met on their fron- 
tier in array of war; was attacked, or at least 
was terrified, in the night watches, so that his 
men all fled ; — and on the morrow, poor Gene- 
ral Belgrano found himself not a countenancer, 
but one needing countenance ; and was in a 
polite way sent down the river again !* Not 
till a year after did the Paraguenos, by spon- 
taneous movement, resolve on acareer of free- 
dom; — resolve on getting some kind of Con- 
gress assembled, and the old government sent 
its ways. Francia, it is presumable, was active 
at once in exciting and restraining them : the 
fruit was now drop-ripe, we may say, and fell 
by a shake. Our old royal governor went 
aside, worthy man, with some slight grimace, 
when ordered to do so; National Congress in- 
troduced itself: secretaries read papers, com- 
piled chiefly out of Rollin's Ancient History; 
and we became a Republic : with Don Ful- 
gencio Yegros, one of the richest Guachos and 
best horsemen of the province, for President, 
and two assessors with him, called also Vocales, 
or Vowels, whose names escape us ; Francia, 
as Scn-elary, being naturally the Consonant, or 
motive soul of the combination. This, as we 
grope out the date, was in 1811. The Para- 
guay Congress, having completed this consti- 
tution, went home again to its field-labours, 
hoping a good issue. 

Feebler light hardlv ever dawned for the 
historical mind, than this which is shed for us 
by Rengger, Robertsons, and Company, on the 
birth, cradling, baptismal processes, and early 
fortunes of the new Paraguay Republic. 
Through long vague, and, indeed, intrinsically 

* Rengger. 



DR. FRANCIA. 



559* 



vacant pages of their books, it lies gray, unde- 
cipherable, without form and void. Francia 
was secretary, and a republic did take place ; 
this, as one small clear-burning fact, shedding 
far a comfortable visibility, conceivability over 
the universal darkness, and making it into con- 
ceivable dusk with one rushlight fact in the 
centre of it, — this we do know; and, cheerfully 
yielding to necessity, decide that this shall 
suffice us to know. What more is there 1 
Absurd somnolent persons, struck broad awake 
by the subterranean concussion of civil and 
religious liberty all over the world, meeting 
together to establish a republican career of 
freedom, and compile official papers out of 
Rollin, — are not a subject on which the histori- 
cal mind can be enlighiened. The historical 
mind, thank Heaven, forgets such persons and 
their papers, as fast as you repeat them. Be- 
sides, these Guacho populations are greedy, 
superstitious, vain ; and, as Miers said in his 
haste, mendacious every soul of them ! Within 
the confines of Paraguay, we know for certain 
but of one man who would do himself an in- 
jury to do a just or true thing under the sun ; 
one man who understands in his heart that 
this Universe is an eternal Fact, — and not 
some huge temporary Pumpkin, saccharine, 
absinthian ; the rest of its significance chime- 
rical merely! Such men cannot have a his- 
tory, though a Thucydides came to write it. — 
Enough for us to understand that Don This 
was a vapouring blockhead, who followed his 
pleasures, his peculations, and Don That an- 
other of the same ; that there occurred fatui- 
ties, mismanagements innumerable ; then dis- 
contents, open grumblings, and, as a running 
accompaniment, intriguings, caballings, out- 
ings, innings; till theGovernment House, fouler 
than when the Jesuits had it, became a bottom- 
less, pestilent inanity, insupportable to any 
articulate-speaking soul; till Secretary Francia 
should feel that he, for one, could not be Conso- 
nant to such a set of Vowels ; till Secretary 
Francia, one day, flinging down his papers, 
rising to his feet, should jerk out with oratori- 
cal vivacity his lean right hand, and say, with 
knit brows, in a low swift tone, " Adieu, Sen- 
hores; God preserve you many years !" 

Francia withdrew to his rhucra, a pleasant 
country-house in the woods of Ytapua not far 
off; there to interrogate Nature, and live in a 
private manner. Parish Robertson, much 
about this date, which we grope and guess to 
have been perhaps in 1812, was boarded with 
a certain ancient Donna Juanna, in that same 
region; had <er/t(/ias of unimaginable brillian- 
cy ; and often went shooting of an evening. 
On one of those — but he shall himself report: 

" On one of those lovely evenings in Para- 
guay, after the south-west wind has both clear- 
ed and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my pur- 
suit of game, into a peaceful valley, not far 
from Donna Juanna's. and remarkable for its 
combination of all the striking features of the 
scener}' of the country. Suddenly I came upon 
a neat and unpretending cottage. Up rose a 
partridge; I fired, and the bird came to the 
grouixi A voice from behind called out, ' Buen 
dm' ' a good shot.' I turned round, and be- 
held a gentleman of about fifty years of age, 



dressed in a suit of black, with a large scarlet' 
(■(ipotc, or cloak, thrown over his shoulders. 
He had a mate-cw^ in one hand, a cigar in the 
other; and a little urchin of a negro, with his 
arms crossed, was in attendance by the gentle- 
man's side. This gentleman's countenance 
was dark, and his black eyes were very pene- 
trating, while his jet hair, combed back from 
a bold forehead, and hanging in natural ring- 
lets over his shoulders, gave him a dignified 
and striking air. He wore on his shoes large 
golden buckles, and at the knees of his breeches 
the same." 

"In exercise of the primitive and simple 
hospitality common in the country, I was in- 
vited to sit down under the corridor, and to 
lake a cigar and mule (cup of Paraguay tea.) 
A celestial globe, a large telescope, and a theo- 
dolite were under the little portico; and I im- 
mediately inferred that the personage before 
me was no other than Doctor Francia." 

Yes, here for the first time in authentic his- 
tory, a reinarkable hearsay becomes a remarka- 
ble visuality; through a pair of clear human 
eyes, you look face to face on the very figure 
of the man. Is not this verily the exact record 
of those clear Robertsonian eyes, and seven 
senses; entered accurately, then and not after- 
wards, on the ledger of the memory ? We will 
hope so ; who can but hope sol The figure 
of the man will, at all events, be exact. Here 
too is the figure of his library; — the conversa- 
tion, if any, was of the last degree of insig- 
nificance, and maybe left out, or supplied arf 
libitum : 

" He introduced me to his library, in a con- 
fined room, with a very small M'indow, and 
that so shaded by the roof of the corridor, as- 
to admit the least portion of light necessary 
for study. The library was arranged on three 
rows of shelves, extending across the room,, 
and might have consisted of three hundred 
volumes. There were many ponderous books - 
on law ; a few on the inductive sciences ; some,- 
in French and some in Latin upon subjects of 
general literature, with Euclid's Elements, and - 
some school-boy treatises on algebra. On a 
large table were heaps of law-papers and pro- 
cesses. Several folios bound in vellum were 
outspi-ead upon it; a lighted candle (though 
placed there solely with a view to light cigars) 
lent its feeble aid to illumine the room ; while 
a mate-cup and inkstand, both of silver, stood 
on another part of the table. There was 
neither carpet nor mat on the brick floor ; and 
the chairs were of such ancient fashion, size, 
and weight, that it required a considerable ef- 
fort to move them from one spot to another." 

Peculation, malversation, the various forms 
of imbecility and voracious dishonesty, went 
their due course in the government offices of 
Assumpcion, unrestrained by Francia, and 
unrestrainable : — till, as we may say, it reach- 
ed a height; and, like other suppurations and 
diseased concretions in the living system, had. 
to burst, and take itself away. To the eyes 
of Paraguay in general, it had become clear 
that such a reign of liberty was unendurable;, 
that some new revolution, or change of minis- 
try, was indispensable. 

Rengger says that Fraucia withdre'^' •' moic 



660 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



than once" to his chacrn, disgusted with his 
colleagues ; who always, by unlimited promises 
and protestations, had to flatter him back- 
again: and then anew disgusted him. Francia 
is the Consonant of these absurd "Vowels;" 
no business can go on without Francia ! And 
the finances are deranged, insolvent ; and the 
military, unpaid, ineffective, cannot so much 
as keep out the Indians ; and there comes 
trouble and rumour of warfrom Buenos Ayres ; 
. — alas, from what quarter of the great conti- 
nent come there other than troubles and ru- 
mours of war ] Patriot generals become trai- 
tor generals ; get themselves "shot in market- 
places :" revolution folloAvs revolution. Arti- 
gas, close on our borders, has begun harrying 
the Banda Oriental with fire and sword ; " dic- 
tating despatches from cow-skulls." Like 
clouds of vvolves, — only feller, being mounted 
on horseback, with pikes, — the Indians dart in 
on us; carrying conflagration and djsmay. 
Paraguay must get itself governed, or it will 
he worse for Paraguay ! The eyes of Para- 
guay, we can well fancy, turn to the one man 
of talent they have, the one man of veracity 
they have. 

In 1813 a second Congress is got together: 
Ave fancy it was Francia's last advice to the 
Government suppuration, when it flattered him 
back for the last time, to ask his advice. That 
such suppuration do now dissolve itself, and a 
new Congress be summoned ! In the new Con- 
gress, the Vncalcs are voted out ; Francia and 
Fulgencioare named joint Consuls: with Fran- 
cia for Consul, and Don Fulgencio Yegros for 
Consitrs-cloak, it may be better. Don Fulgen- 
cio rides about in gorgeous sash and epaulettes, 
a rich man and horse-subduer; good as a Con- 
sul's cloak; — but why should the real Consul 
have a cloak? Next year in the third Congress, 
Francia, "by insidious manoeuvring," by "fa- 
vour of the military," and, indeed, also in some 
sort, we may say, by law of Nature, — gets him- 
self declared Dictator: "three years," or for 
life, may in these circumstances mean much 
the same. This was in 1814. Francia never 
assembled any Congress more; having stolen 
the constitutional palladiums, and insidiously 
got his wicked will ! Of a Congress that com- 
piled constitutions out of Rollin, who would 
not lament such destiny 1 This Congress 
should have met again ! It was indeed, say 
Rengger and the Robertsons themselves, such 
a Oongress as never met before in the world ; 
a Congress which knew not its right hand 
from its left ; which drank infinite rum in the 
taverns; and had one wish, that of geiting on 
horseback, home to its field-husbandry and 
partridge-shooting. The military mostly fa- 
voured Francia; being gained over by him, — 
the thief of constitutional palladiums. 

With Francia's entrance on the government 
as Consul, still more as Dictator, a great im- 
provement, it is granted even by Rengger, did 
in all quarters forthwith show itself. The fi- 
nances were husbanded, were accurately ga- 
thered ; every official person in Paraguay had 
t«< bethink him, and begin doing his work, in- 
stead of merely seeming to do it. The soldiers 
y vaucia took care to see paid and drilled ; to 



see march, with real death-shot and service, 
when the Indians or other enemies showed 
themselves. Guurdias, guardhouses, at short 
distances, were established along the river's 
bank and all round the dangerous fiontiers ; 
wherever the Indian cenlaur-lroop showed 
face, an alarm-cannon went off, and soldiers, 
quickly assembling, with actual death-shot and 
service, were upon them. These wolf-hordes 
had to vanish into the heart of their deserts 
again. The land had peace. Neither Artigas, 
nor any of the fire-brands and war-plagues 
which were distracting South America from 
side to side, could get across the border. All 
negotiation or intercommuning with Buenos 
Ayres, or with any of these war-distracted 
countries, was peremptorily waived. To no 
Congress of Lima, General Congress of Pana- 
ma, or other general or particular congress 
would Francia, by deputy or message, offer 
the smallest recognition. All South America 
raging and ravening like one huge dog-kennel 
gone rabid, we here in Paraguay have peace, 
and cultivate our tea-trees: why should we 
not let well alone 1 By degrees, one thing act- 
ing on another, and this ring of frontier "guard- 
houses" being already erected there, a rigorous 
sanitary line, impregnable as brass, was drawn 
round all Paraguay; no communication, im- 
port or export trade allowed, except by the 
Dictator's license, — given on payment of the 
due moneys, when the political horizon seemed 
innocuous ; refused when otherwise. The 
Dictator's trade-licenses were a considerable 
branch of his revenues; his entrance dues, 
somewhat onerous to the foreign merchant, 
(think the Messrs. Robertson,) were another. 
Paraguay stoi>d isolated ; the rabid dog-kennel 
raging round it, wide as South America, but 
kept out as by lock and key. 

These were vigorous measures, gradually 
coming on the somnolent Guacho population ! 
It seems, meanwhile, that, even after the per- 
petual dictatorship, and onwards to the fifth or 
the sixth year of Francia's government, there 
was, though the constitutional palladiums 
were stolen, nothing very special to complain 
of. Paraguay had peace ; sat under its tea- 
tree, the rabid dog-kennel, Indians, Artigue- 
no and other war-firebrands, all shut out from 
it. But in that year 1819, the second year of 
the perpetual dictatorship, there arose, not for 
the first time, dim indications of "plots," even 
dangerous plots ! In that 3'ear ihe firebrand 
Artigas was finally quenched; obliged to beg 
a lodging even of Fiancia, his enemy; — and 
got it, hospitably though contemptuously. And 
now straightway there advanced, from Arti- 
gas's lost, wasted country, a certain General 
Ramirez, his rival and victor, and fellow-ban- 
dit and firebrand. This General Ramirez ad- 
vanced up to our very frontier; first, with of- 
fers of alliance : failing that, with offers of 
war; on which latter offer he was closed with, 
was cut to pieces ; and — a letter was found 
about him, addressed to Don Fulgencio Yegros, 
the rich Guacho horseman and E.v-(3onsul; 
which arrested all the faculties of Dr. Fran- 
cia's most intense intelligence, there and then ! 
A conspiracy, with Don Fulgencio at the head 
of it; conspiracy which seems the wid»' 



DR. FRANCIA. 



561 



spread the farther one investigates it ; which 
has been brewing itself these " two years," 
and now "on Good-Friday next" is to be 
burst out; starting with the massacre of Dr. 
Francia and others, whatever it may close 
with .'* Francia was not a man to be trifled 
with in plots ! He looked, watched, investigated, 
till he got the exact extent, position, nature, and 
structure of this plot fully in his eye ; and 
then — why, then he pounced on it like a glede- 
falcon, like a fierce condor, suddenly from the 
invisible blue ; struck beak and claws into the 
very heart of it, tore it into small fragments, 
and consumed it on the spot. It is Francia's 
way ! This was the last plot, though not the 
first plot, Francia ever heard of during his 
perpetual dictatorship. 

It is, as we find, over these three or these 
two years, while the Fuigencio plot is getting 
itself pounced upon and torn in pieces, that 
the "reign of terror," properly so called, ex- 
tends. Over these three or these two years 
only, — though the "running shriek" of it con- 
fuses all things to the end of the chapter. It 
was in this stern period that Francia executed 
above forty persons. Not entirely inexplica- 
ble ! " Par Dios, ye shall not conspire against 
me; I will not allow it. The career of free- 
dom, be it known to all men, and Guachos, is 
not yet begun in this country; I am still only 
casting out the Seven Devils. My lease of 
Paraguay, a harder one than your stupidities 
suppose, is for life; the contract is, Thou 
must die if thy lease be taken from thee. Aim 
not at my life, ye constitutional Guachos, — or 
let it be a diviner man than Don Fuigencio, 
the horse-subduer, that does .t. By heaven, if 
you aim at my life, I will bid you have a care 
of your own!" He executed upwards of forty 
persons. How many he arrested, flogged, 
cross-questioned — for he is an inexorable man ! 
If you are guilty, or suspected of guilt, it will 
go ill with you here. Francia's arrest, carried 
by a grenadier, arrives; you are in strait 
prison ; you are in Francia's bodily presence; 
those sharp St. Dominic eyes, that diabolic 
intellect, prying into you, probing, cross- 
questioning you, till the secret cannot be hid: 
till the "three ball cartridges" are handed to a 
sentry; — and your doom is Rhadamanthine ! 

But the plots, as we say, having ceased by 
this rough surgery, it would appear that there 
was, for the next twenty years, little or no 
more of it, little or no use for more. The 
" reign of terror," one begins to find, was 
properly a reign of rigour; which would be- 
come " terrible" enough if you infringed the 
rules of it, but which was peaceable other- 
wise, regular otherwise. Let this, amid the 
"running shriek," which will and should run 
its full length in such circumstances, be well 
kept in mind. 

It happened too, as Rengger tells us, in the 
same year, (1820, as we grope and gather,) 
that a visitation of locusts, as sometimes oc- 
curs, destroyed all the crops of Paraguay ; and 
there was no prospect but of universal dearth 
or famine. The crops are done; eaten by 
locusts ; the summer at an end ! We have no 



* Rengger. 
71 



foreign trade, or next to none, and never had 
almost any ; what will become of Paraguay 
and its Guachos? In Guachos is no hope, no 
help: but in a Dionysius of the Guachos 1 
Dictator Francia, led by occult French sciences 
and natural sagacity, nay, driven by necessity 
itself, peremptorily commands the farmers 
throughout all Paraguay to sow a certain 
portion of their lands anew; with or without 
hope, under penalties! The result was a 
moderately good harvest still: the result was a 
discovery that two harvests were, every year, 
possible in Paraguay; that agriculture, a rigor- 
ous Dictator presiding over it, could be in- 
finitely improved there.* As Paraguay has 
about 100,000 square miles of territory mostly 
fertile, and only some two souls planted on 
each square mile thereof, it seemed to the 
Dictator that this, and not foreign trade, might 
be a good course for his Paraguenos. This 
accordingly, and not foreign trade, in the pre- 
sent stale of the political horizon, was the 
course resolved on ; the course peisisted in, 
" with evident advantages," says Rengger. 
Thus, one thing acting on another, — domestic 
plot, hanging on Artigas's country from with- 
out; and locust swarms with improvement of 
husbandry in the interior; and those guard- 
houses all already there, along the frontier, — 
Paraguay came more and more to be hermeti- 
cally closed; and Francia reigned over it, for 
the rest of his life, as a rigorous Dionysius 
of Paraguay, without foreign intercourse, or 
with such only as seemed good to Francia. 

How the Dictator, now secure in possession, 
did manage this huge Paraguay, which, by 
strange " insidious" and other means, had fallen 
in life-lease to him, and was his to do the best 
he could with, it were interesting to know. 
What the meaning of him, the result of him 
actually was 1 One desiderates some Biogra- 
phy of Francia by a native ! — Meanwhile, in 
the " JEslbetisdie Briefwcrhsel" of Herr Professor 
Sanerteig, a work not yet knoxn in England, 
nor treating specially of this subject, we find, 
scattered at distant intervals, a remark or two 
which may be worth translating. Professor 
Sanerteig, an open soul, looking with clear eye 
and large recognizing heart over all accessible 
quarters of the world, has cast a sharp sun- 
glance here and there into Dr. Francia too. 
These few philosophical remarks of his, and 
then a few anecdotes gleaned elsewhere, such 
as the barren ground yields, must comprise 
what more we have to say of Francia. 

"Pity," exclaims Sanerteig once, "that a 
nation cannot reform itself, as the English are 
now trying to do, by what their newspapers 
call 'tremendous cheers!' Alas, it cannot be 
done. Reform is not joyous but grievous: no 
single man can reform himself M'ithout stern 
sulTering and stern working; how much less 
can a nation of men 1 The serpent sheds not 
his old skm without rusty disconsolateness : he 
is not happy but miserable! In the Walcr-cure 
itself, do you not sit steeped for months; 
washed to the heart in elemental drenchings; 
and like Job, are made to curse your dayl 

* Rengger, C7, &.c. 



562 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



Reforming of a nation is a terrible business ! 
Thus, loo, Medea, when she made men young 
again, was wont (du Himmel!) to hew them in 
pieces, with meat-axes ; cast them into caldrons, 
and boil them for a length of time. How 
much handier could they but have done it by 
' tremendous cheers' alone !" 

" Like a drop of surgical antiseptic liquid, 
poured (by the benign Powers, as I fancy!) 
into boundless brutal corruptions; very sharp, 
very caustic, corrosive enough, this tawny 
tyrannous Dr. Francia, in the interior of the 
South American continent, — he, too, is one of 
the elements of the grand phenomenon there. 
A monstrous moulting process taking place; 
— monstrous gluttonous boa-constrictor (he is of 
length from Panama to Patagonia) shedding 
hi« old skin; whole continent getting itself 
chopped to pieces, and boiled in the Medea 
caldron, to become young again, — unable to 
manage it by ' tremendous cheers' alone!" 

"What they say about 'love of power' 
amounts to little. Power 1 Love of 'power' 
merely to make flunkies come and go for you 
is a 'love,' I should think, which enters only 
into the minds of persons in a very infantine 
state! A grown man, like this Dr. Francia, 
■who wants nothing, as I am assured, but three 
cigars daily, a cup of male, and four ounces of 
butchers' meat with brown bread; the whole 
world and its united flunkies, taking constant 
thought of the matter, can do nothing for him 
but that only. That he alread}^ has, and has 
had always ; why should he, not being a minor, 
love flunkey ' power 1' He loves to see yoic 
about him, with your flunkey promptitudes, 
with your grimaces, adulations, and sham- 
loyalty. You are so beautiful, a daily and 
hourly feast to the eye and soul ? Ye unfortu- 
n^ites, from his heart rises one prayer, That 
the last created flunkey had vanished from 
this universe, never to appear more ! 

"And yet truly a man does tend, and must 
under frightful penalties perpetually tend, to 
be king of his world; to stand in his world as 
what he is, a centre of light and order, not of 
darkness and confusion. A man loves power: 
yes, if he sees disorder his eternal enemy 
rampant about him, he does love to see said 
enemy in the way of being conquered; he can 
have no rest till that come to pass ! Your 
Mohammed can bear a rent cloak, but clouts it 
with his own hands, hov/ much more a rent 
country, a rent world. He has to imprint the 
image of his own veracity upon the world, and 
shall, and must, and will do it, more or less: 
it is at his peril if he neglect any great or any 
small possibility he may have of this. Fran- 
cia's inner flame is but a meager, blue-burning 
one: let him irradiate midnight Paraguay with 
it, such as it is." 

"Nay, on the whole, how cunning is Nature 
in getting her farms leased ! Is it not a blessing 
this Paraguay can get the one veracious man 
it has, to take lease of it, in these sad circum- 
stances 1 His farm profits, and whole wages, 
it would seem, amount only to what is called 
! Nothing and find yourself!' Spartan food 



and lodging, solitude, two cigars, and a cup of 
nuile daily, he already had." 

Truly, it would seem, as Sauerteig remarks, 
Dictator Francia had not a very joyous exist- 
ence of it, in this his life-lease of Paraguay ! 
Casting out of Seven Devils from a Guacho 
population is not joyous at all ; both exorcist 
and exorcised find it sorrowful ! Meanwhile, 
it does appear, there was some improvement 
made; no veritable labour, not even a Dr. 
Francia's, is in vain. 

Of Francia's improvements there might as 
much be said of his cruelties or rigours ; for 
indeed, at bottom, the one was in proportion 
to the other. He improved agriculture: — not 
two ears of corn where only one grew, bat 
two harvests of corn, as we have seen ! He 
introduced schools, "boarding-schools," "ele- 
mentary schools," and others, on which Reng- 
ger has a chapter; everywhere he promoted 
education, as he could; repressed superstition 
as he could. Strict justice between man was 
enforced in his law-courts: he himself would 
accept no gift, not even a trifle, in any case 
whatever. Rengger, on packing up for de- 
parture, had left in his hands, not from forget- 
fulness, a Print of Napoleon ; worth some 
shillings in Europe, but invaluable in Para- 
guay, where Francia, who admired this hero 
much, had hitherto seen no likeness of him 
but a Niirnberg caricature. Francia sent an 
express after Rengger, to ask what the value 
of the Print was. No value ; M. Rengger 
could not sell Prints; it was much at his 
Excellency's service. His Excellency straight- 
way returned it. An exact, decisive man! 
Peculation, idleness, ineffectuality, had to cease 
in all the public oflices of Paraguay. So far 
as lay in Francia, no public and private man 
in Paraguay was allowed to slur his work; all 
public and all private men, so far as lay in 
Francia, were forced to do their work or die ! 
We might define him as the born enemy of 
quacks; one who has from Nature a heart- 
hatred of MMveracity in man or in thing, where- 
soever he sees it. Of persons who do not 
speak the truth, and do not act the truth, he 
has a kind of diabolic-divine impatience; they 
had better disappear out of his neighbourhood. 
Poor Francia: his light was but a very sul- 
phurous, meager, blue-burning one; but he 
irradiated Paraguay with it (as our Professor 
says) the best he could. 

That he had to maintain himself alive all the 
while, and would suffer no man to glance con- 
tradiction at him, but instantaneously repressed 
all such : this too we need no ghost to tell us; 
this lay in the very nature of the case. His 
lease of Paraguay was a lifeAease. He had 
his " three ball cartridges" ready for whatever 
man he found aiming at his life. He had fright- 
ful prisons. He had Tevcgo far up among the 
wastes, a kind of Paraguay Siberia, to which 
unruly persons, not yet got the length of shoot- 
ing, were relegated. The main exiles, Reng- 
ger says, were drunken mulattoes and the class^ 
called unfortunate-females. They lived mise- 
rably there; became a sadder, and perhaps a 
wiser, body of mulattoes and unfortunate- 
females. 

But let us listen for a moment to the Reve- 



DR. FRANCIA. 



563 



rend Manuel Perez as he preaches, " in the 
Church of the Incarnation at Assumpcion, on 
the 20th October, 1840," in a tone somewhat 
nasal, yet trustworthy withal. His Funeral 
Discourse, translated into a kind of English, 
presents itself still audible in the " Argentine 
News" of Buenos Ayres, No. 813. We select 
some passages; studying to abate the nasal 
tone a little ; to reduce, if possible, the Argen- 
tine English under the law of grammar. It is 
the worst translation in the world, and does 
poor Manuel Perez one knows not what in- 
justice. This Funeral Discourse has "much 
surprised" the Able Editor, it seems ; — has led 
him perhaps to ask, or be readier for asking, 
Whether all that confused loud litanying about 
" reign of terror," and so forth, was not possi- 
bly of a rather long-eared nature 1 

"Amid the convulsions of revolution," says 
the Reverend Manuel, "The Lord, looking 
down with pity on Paragua)^, raised up Don 
Jose Gaspar Francia for its deliverance. Jlnd 
when, in the words of my text, the children of 
Israel cried unto the Lord, the Lord raised vp a de- 
liverer to the children of Israel, ivho delivered 
them" 

"What measures did not his Excellency de- 
vise, what labours undergo, to preserve peace 
in the Republic at home, and place it in an 
attitude to command respect from abroad ! His 
first care was directed to obtain supplies of 
arms, and to discipline soldiers. To all that 
would import arms he held out the induce- 
ment of exemption from duty, and the permis- 
sion to export in return whatever produce they 
preferred. An abundant supply of excellent 
arms was, by these means, obtained. I am 
lost in wonder to think how this great man 
could attend to such a multiplicity of things! 
He applied himself to study of the military art ; 
and, in a short time, taught the exercise, and 
directed military evolutions like the skilfullest 
veteran. Often have I seen his Excellency go 
up to a recruit, and show him by example how 
to take aim at the target. Could any Para- 
gueno think it other than honourable to carry 
a musket, when his Dictator taught him how 
to manage it? The cavalry-exercise too, 
though it seems to require a man at once robust 
and experienced in horsemanship, his Excel- 
lency as you know did himself superintend: 
at the head of his squadrons he charged and 
manoeuvred, as if bred to it : and directed them 
with an energy and vigour which infused his 
own martial spirit into these troops." 

"What evils do not the people suffer from 
highwaymen !" exclaims his Reverence, a little 
farther on; "violence, plunder, murder, are 
crimes familiar to these malefactors. The in- 
accessible mountains and wide deserts in this 
Republic seemed to offer impunity to such 
men. Our Dictator succeeded in striking such 
a terror into them that they entirely disap- 
peared, seeking safety in a change of life. His 
Excellency saw that the manner of inflicting 
the punishment was more efficacious than 
even the punishment itself; and on this prin- 
ciple he acted. Whenever a robber could be 
seized, he was led to the nearest guardhouse 
{Guardia) ; a summary trial took place; and, 
straightway, so soon as he had made confes- 



sion, he was shot. These means proved efTec- 
tual. Ere long the Republic was in such 
security, that, we may say, a child might have 
travelled from the Uruguay to the Parana 
without other protection than the dread which 
the Supreme Dictator inspired." — This is say- 
ing something, your Reverence ! 

"But what is all this compared to the demon 
of anarchy. Oh !" exclaims his simple Reve- 
rence, "Oh, my friends, would I had the talent 
to paint to you the miseries of a people that 
fall into anarchy] And was not our Republic 
on the very eve of this 1 Yes, brethren." — " It 
behoved his Excellency to be prompt; to 
smother the enemy in his cradle! He did so. 
He seized the leaders; brought to summary 
trial, they were convicted of high treason 
against the country. What a struggle now, 
for his Excellency, between the law of duty 
and the voice of feeling" — if feeling to any ex- 
lent there were! "I," exclaimed his Reve- 
rence, "am confident that had the doom of im- 
prisonment on those persons seemed sufficient 
for the state's peace, his Excellency never 
would have ordered their execution." It was 
unavoidable ; nor was it avoided ; it was done ! 
"Brethren, should not I hesitate, lest it be a 
profanation of the sacred place I now occupy, 
if I seem to approve sanguinary measures in 
opposition to th.e mildness of the Gospel 1 Bre- 
thren, no. God himself approved the conduct 
of Solomon in putting .Joab and Adonijah to 
death." Life is sacred, thinks his Reverence, 
but there is something more sacred still: wo 
to him who does not know that withal ! 

Alas, your Reverence, Paraguay has not yet 
succeeded in abolishing capital punishment, 
then? But indeed neither has Nature, any-, 
where that I hear of, yet succeeded in abolish- 
ing it. Act with the due degree of perversity, 
you are sure enough of being violently put to 
death, in hospital or highway — by dyspepsia, 
delirium tremens, or stuck through by the 
kindled rage of your fellow-men ! What can 
the friend of humanity do ? Twaddle in Exeter- 
hall or elsewhere, " till he become a bore to us," 
and perhaps worse! An advocate in Arras 
once gave up a good judicial appointment, and 
retired into frugality and privacy, rather than 
doom one culprit to die by law. The name of 
this advocate, let us mark it well, was Maxi- 
milien Robespierre. There are sweet kinds of 
twaddle that have a deadly virulence of poison 
concealed in them ; like the sweetness of sugar 
of lead. Were it not better to makeji/sf laws, 
think you, and then execute them strictly, — as 
the gods still do ? 

"His Excellency next directed his attention 
to purging the state from another class of ene- 
mies," says Perez in the Incarnation Church; 
"the peculatinff tax-gatherers, namely. Vigi- 
lantly detecting their frauds, he made them re- 
fund for what was past, and took precautions 
against the like in future: all their accounts 
were to be handed in, for his examination, once 
every year." 

"The habit of his Excellency when he deli- 
vered out articles for the supply of the public; 
that prolix and minute counting of things ap- 
parently unworthy of his attention — had its 
origin in the same motive. I believe that he 



£64 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



did so, less from a want of confidence in the 
indiv^iduals lately appointed for this purpose, 
than from a desire to show them with what 
delicacy they should proceed. Hence likewise 
his ways, in scrupulously examining every 
piece of artisans' workmanship." 

" Republic of Paraguay, how art thou in- 
debted to llie toils, the vigils and cares of our 
Perpetual Dictator ! It seemed as if this ex- 
traordinary man were endowed with ubiquitj^ 
to attend to all thy wants and exigences. 
Whilst in his closet, he was traversing thy 
frontiers to place thee in an attitude of security. 
What devastation did not those inroads of In- 
dians from the Chaco occasion to the inhabi- 
tants of Rio-Abajo ! Ever and anon there 
reached Assumpcion, tidings of the terror and 
alfliction caused by their incursions. Which 
of us hoped that evils so wide-spread, ravages 
so appalling, could be counteracted! Our 
Dictator, nevertheless, did devise effectual 
■ways of securing that part of the Republic. 

" Four respectable fortresses with competent 
garrisons have been the impregnable barrier 
which has restrained the irruptions of those 
ferocious Savages. Inhabitants of Rio-Abajo ! 
rest tranquil in your homes : you are a por- 
tion of the people whom the Lord confided to 
the care of our Dictator; you are safe." 

"The precautions and wise measures he 
adopted to repel force, and drive back the Sa- 
vages to the north of the Republic; the for- 
tresses of Climpo, of San Carlos de Apa, placed 
on the best footing for defence ; the orders and 
instructions furnished to the Villa de la Con- 
cepcion, — secured that quarter of the republic 
under attack from all. 

" The great wall, ditch, and fortress on the 
opposite bank of the river Parana; the force 
and judicious arrangement of the troops dis- 
tributed over the interior in the south of our 
Republic, have commanded the respect of its 
enemies in that quarter." 

" The beauty, the symmetry and good taste 
displayed in the building of cities convey an 
advantageous idea of their inhabitants," con- 
tinues Perez : " Thus thought Caractacus, King 
of the Angles," — thus think most persons! 
" His Excellenc}^ glancing at the condition of 
the capital of the republic, saw a city in dis- 
order and without police; streets without re- 
gularity, houses built according to the caprice 
of their owners." 

But enough, O Perez; for it becomes too 
nasal ! Perez, with a confident face, asks, in 
fine, Whether all these things do not clearly 
prove to men and Guachos of sense, that Dic- 
tator Francia ims " the deliverer whom the Lord 
raised up to deliver Paraguay from its ene- 
mies 1" — Truly, O Perez, the benefits of him 
seem to have been considerable. Undoubtedly 
a man "sent by Heaven," — as all of us are! 
Nay, it may be, the benefit of him is not even 
yet exhausted, even yet entirely become visi- 
ble. Who knows but, in unborn centuries, 
Paragueno men will look back to their lean 
iron Francia, as men do, in such cases, to the 
one veracious person, and institute considera- 
tions ! Oliver Cromwell, dead two hundred 
years, does yet speak; nay, perhaps, now first 
legins to speak. The meaning and meanings 



of the one true man, never so lean and limited, 
starling up direct from Nature's heat, in this 
bewildered Guacho world, gone far away from 
Nature, are endless ! 

The Messrs. Robertson are very merry on 
this attempt of Francia's to rebuild on a bet- 
ter plan the City of Assumpcion. The City of 
Assumpcion, full of tropical vegetation and 
"permanent hedges, the deposits of nuisance 
and vermin,"* has no pavement, no straight- 
ness of streets; the sandy thoroughfare, in 
some quarters, is torn by the rain into gullies, 
impassable with convenience to any animal 
but a kangaroo. Francia, after meditation, de- 
cides on having it remodelled, paved, straight- 
ened — irradiated with the image of the one 
regular man. Robertson laughs to see a Dic- 
tator, sovereign ruler, straddling about, " taking 
observations with his theodolite," and so forth: 
O Robertson, if there was no other man that 
fow/f/ observe with a theodolite 1 Nay, it seems 
further, the improvement of Assumpcion was 
attended, once more, with the dreadfullest 
tyrannies: peaceable citizens dreaming no 
harm, no active harm to anj' soul, but mere 
peaceable passive dirt and irregularity to all 
souls, were ordered to pull down their houses 
which happened to stand in the middle of 
streets; forced (under rustle of the gallows) 
to draw their purses, and rebuild them else- 
where ! It is horrible. Nay, they said Fran- 
cia's true aim in these improvements, in this 
cutting down of the luxuriant "cross hedges" 
and architectural monstrosities, was merely to 
save himself from being shot, from under co- 
ver, as he rode through the place. It may be 
so: but Assumpcion is now an improved, 
paved city, much squarer in the corners (and 
with the planned capacity, it seems, of grow- 
ing ever squarer;*) passable with convenience, 
not to kangaroos only, but to wooden bullock- 
carts and all vehicles and animals. 

Indeed our Messrs. Robertson find some- 
thing comic as well as tragic in Dictator 
Francia; and enliven their running shriek, all 
through this " Reign of Terror," with a plea- 
sant vein of conventional satire. One even- 
ing, for example, a Robertson being about to 
leave Paraguay for England, and having wait- 
ed upon Francia to make the parting compli- 
ments, Francia, to the Robertson's extreme 
astonishment, orders in a large bale of goods, 
orders them to be opened on the table there : 
Tobacco, poncho-cloth, and other produce of 
the country, all of first-rate quality, and with 
the prices ticketed. These goods this asto- 
nished Robertson is to carry to the "Bar of the 
House of Commons," and there to say, in such 
fashion and phraseology as a native may 
know to be suitable : " Mr. Speaker — Dr. Fran- 
cia is Dictator of Paraguay, a country of tro- 
pical fertility, and 100,000 square miles in ex- 
tent, producing these commodities at these 
prices. With nearly all foreign nations he 
declines altogether to trade; but with the Eng- 
lish, such is his notion of them, he is willing 
and desirous to trade. These are his commo- 
dities, in endless quantity; of this quality, at 
these prices. He wants arms for his part. 



DR. FRANCIA. 



565 



What say you, Mr. Speaker 1" — Sure enough, 
our Robertson, arriving at the "Bar of the 
House of Commons" with such a message, 
wotild have cut an original figure ! Not to the 
"House of Commons," was this message pro- 
perly addressed; but to the English Nation; 
which Francia, idiot-like, supposed to be 
somehow represented, and made accessible 
and addressable in the House of Commons. 
It was a strange imbecility in any Dictator! — 
The Robertson, we find accordingly, did not 
take this bale of goods to the bar of the House 
of Commons ; nay, what was far worse, he did 
not, owing to accidents, go to England at all, 
or bring any arms back to Francia at all : 
hence, indeed, Francia's unreasonable detesta- 
tion of him, hardly to be restrained within the 
bounds of common politeness ! A man who 
said he would do, and then did not do, was at 
no time a kind of man admirable to Francia. 
Large sections of this " Reign of Terror" are 
a sort of unmusical sonata, or free duet with 
variations, to this text : " How unadmirable a 
hide-merchant that does not keep his word !" — 
"How censurable, not to say ridiculous and 
imbecile, the want of common politeness in a 
Dictator !" 

Francia was a man that liked performance : 
and sham-performance, in Paraguay as else- 
where, was a thing too universal. What a 
time of it had this strict man with tmreal per- 
formers, imaginary workmen, public and pri- 
vate, cleric and laic ! Ye Guachos, — it is no 
child's play, casting out those Seven Devils 
from you ! 

Monastic or other entirely slumberous 
church-establishments could expect no great 
favour from Francia. Such of them as seem- 
ed incurable, entirely slumberous, he some- 
what roughly shook awake, somewhat sternly 
ordered to begone. Debout canaille faiiieanic, 
as his prophet Raynal says; Debout: aux 
champs, aux ateliers! Can I have you sit here, 
droning old metre through your nose ; your 
heart asleep in mere gluttony, the while ; and 
all Paraguay a wilderness or nearly so, — the 
Heaven's blessed sunshine growing mere 
tangles, lianas, yellow-fevers, rattlesnakes, and 
jaguars on it] Up, swift, to work, — or mark 
this governmental horsewhip, what the crack 
of it is, what the cut of it is like to be ! — In- 
curable, for one class, seemed archbishops, 
bishops, and such like ; given mere!}' to a 
sham-warfare against extinct devils. At the 
crack of Francia's terrible whip they went, 
dreading what the cut of it might be. A cheap 
■worship in Paraguay, according to the humour 
of the people, Francia left ; on condition that 
it did no mischief. Wooden saints and the 
like ware, he also left sitting in their niches : 
no new ones, even on solicitation, would he 
give a doit to buy. Being petitioned to pro- 
vide anew patron saintfor one of his newforti- 
fications once, he made this answer: "O peo- 
ple of Paraguay, how long will you continue 
idiots ? While I was a Catholic I thought as 
you do ; but I now see there are no saints but 
good cannons that will guard our frontiers !"* 
This also is noteworthy. He inquired of the 



* Rengger. 



I two Swiss surgeons, wnar then religion was; 
[and then added, "Be of what religion you 
j like, here: Christians, Jews, Mussulmans, — 
1 but don't be Atheists." 

Equal trouble had Francia with his laic 
workers, and indeed with all manner of work- 
ers ; for it is in Paraguay as elsewhere, like 
priest like people. Francia had extensive 
barrack-buildings, nay citv-buildings, (as we 
have seen,) arm-furnishings ; immensities of 
work going on, and his workmen had in gene- 
ral a tendency to be imaginary. He could get 
no W'Ork out of them; only a more or less de- 
ceptive similitude of work ! Masons, so- 
called, builders of houses did not build, but 
merely seemed to build; their walls would not 
bear weather; stand on their bases in high 
winds. Hodge-razors, in all conceivable kinds, 
were openly marketed, "which were never 
meant to shave, but only to be sold!" For a 
length of time Francia's righteous soul strug- 
gled sore, yet unexplosively, with the propen- 
sities of these unfortunate men. By rebuke, 
by remonstrance, encouragement, offers of re- 
ward, and every vigilance and effort, he strove 
to convince them that it was unfortunate for a 
Son of Adam to be an imaginary workman; 
that every Son of Adam had better make razors 
which zcere meant to shave. In vain, all iir 
vain ! At length Francia lost patience with 
them. " Thou wretched Fraction, wilt thou be 
the ninth part even of a tailor? Does it be- 
seem thee to weave cloth of devil's dust in- 
stead of true wool; and cut and sew it as if 
thou wert not a tailor, but the fraction of 
a very tailor! I cannot endure every thing !" 
Francia, in despair, erected his " Workman's 
Gallows." Yes, that institution of the country 
did actually exist in Paraguay ; men and work- 
men saw it with eyes. A most remarkable, 
and on the whole, not unbeneficial institution 
of society there. Robertson gives us the fol- 
lowing scene with the Belt-maker of Assump- 
cion; which, be it literal, or in part poetic, 
does, no doubt of it, hold the mirror up to Na- 
ture in an altogether true, and surely in a sur- 
prising manner: 

"In came, one afternoon, a poor shoemaker, 
with a couple of grenadiers' belts, neither ac- 
cording to the fancy of the Dictator. 'Senti- 
nel,' — said he, — and in came the Sentinel ; 
when the following conversation ensued: 

"Dictator: — 'Take this bribonazo (a very 
favourite word of the Dictator's, and which 
being interpreted, means 'most impertinent 
scoundrel') — ' take this bribonazo to the gibbet 
over the way; walk him under it half-a-dozea 
times: and now,' said he, turning to the trem- 
bling shoemaker, 'bring me such another pair 
of belts, and instead of walking under the gal- 
lows, we shall try how you can swing upon it.' 

"Shoemaker: — 'Please your excellency I 
have done my best.' 

"Dictator: — 'Well, bribon, if this be your 
best, I shall do my best to see that you never 
again mar a bit of the state's leather. The 
belts are of no use to me ; but they will do 
very well to hang you upon the little frame- 
work which the grenadier will show you.' 

" Shoemaker : — ' God bless your excellency, 
the Lord forbid ! I am your vassal, your 
3B 



666 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



slave : day and night have I served, and will 
serve ray lord; only give me two days more to 
prepare the belts ; y por el alma de un triste za- 
patero, (by the soul of a poor shoemaker,) I 
will make them to your excellency's liking.' 

" Dictator : — ' Off with him, sentinel !' 

"Seiiiinel: — ^ Venga, bribon: come along, 
you rascal.' 

" Shoemaker: — ' Senor Excelentisimo : This 
very night I will make the belts according to 
your excellency's pattern.' 

"Dictator: — 'Well, you shall have till the 
morning; but still you must pass under the 
gibbet: it is a salutary process, and may at 
once quicken the work and improve the work- 
manship.' 

"Sentinel: — ' Vamonos, bribon ; the supreme 
commands it.' 

"Off was the shoemaker marched: he was, 
according to orders, passed and repassed un- 
der the gibbet, and then allowed to retire to 
his stall." 

He worked there with such an alacrity and 
sibylline enthusiasm, all night, that his belts 
on the morrow were without parallel in South 
America ; and he is now, if still in this life, 
Belt-maker general to Paraguay, a prosperous 
man; grateful to Francia and the gallows, we 
may hope, for casting certain of the seven 
devils out of him ! 

Such an institution of society would evi- 
dently not be introducable, under that simple 
form, in our old-constituted European coun- 
tries. Yet it may be asked of constitutional 
persons in these times. By what succedaneum 
they mean to supply the want of it, then 1 In 
a community of imaginary workmen, how 
can you pretend to have any government, or 
social thing whatever, that were real ] Cer- 
tain ten-pound franchisers, with their "tre- 
mendous cheers," are invited to reflect on 
this. With a community of quack workmen, 
it is by the law of Nature impossible that 
other than a quack government can be got to 
exist. Constitutional or other, with ballot- 
boxes or with none, your society in all its 
phases, administration, legislation, teaching, 
preaching, praying, and writing periodicals 
per sheet, will be a quack society; terrible to 
live in, disastrous to look upon. Such an in- 
stitution of society, adapted to our European 
ways, seems pressingly desirable. Guachos, 
South-American and European, what a busi- 
ness is it, casting out your seven devils ! — 

But perhaps the reader would like to take a 
view of Dr. Francia in the concrete, there as 
he looks and lives; managing that thousand- 
sided business for his Paraguenos, in the time 
of Surgeon Rengger 1 It is our last extract, or 
last view of the Dictator, who must hang no 
longer on our horizon here: 

" I have already said that Doctor Francia, so 
soon as he found himself at the head of affairs 
took up his residence in the habitation of the 
former Governors of Paraguay. This edifice, 
which is one of the largest in Assumpcion, 
was erected by the Jesuits, a short time before 
their expulsion, as a house of retreat for laymen, 
who devoted themselves to certain spiritual 
exercises instituted by Saint Ignatius. This 
structure the Dictator repaired and embel- 



lished ; he has detached it from the other 
houses in the city, by interposing wide streets. 
Here he lives, with four slaves, a little negro, 
one male and two female raulattoes, whom he 
treats with great mildness. The two males 
perform the functions of valet-de-chambre and 
groom. One of the two mulatto women is his 
cook, and the other takes care of his wardrobe. 
He leads a A'ery regular life. The first rays of 
the sun very rarely find him in bed. So soon 
as he rises, the negro brings a chafing-dish, a 
kettle, and a pitcher of water; the water is 
made to boil there. The Dictator then prepares, 
with the greatest possible care, his mate, or 
Paraguay tea. Having taken this, he walks 
under the interior colonnade that looks upon 
the court, and smokes a cigar, which he first 
takes care to unroll, in order to ascertain that 
there is nothing dangerous in it, though it is 
his own sister who makes up his cigars for 
him. At six o'clock comes the barber, an ill- 
washed, ill-clad mulatto, given to drink too; 
but the only member of the faculty whom he 
trusts in. If the Dictator is in good humour, 
he chats with the barber; and often in this 
manner makes use of him to prepare the pub- 
lic for his projects; this barber may be said to 
be his Official Gazette. He then steps out, in 
his dressing-gown of printed calico, to the 
outer colonnade, an open space with pillars, 
which ranges all round the building: here he 
walks about, receiving at the same time such 
persons as are admitted to an audience. To- 
wards seven, he withdraws to his room, where 
he remains till nine; the oflicers and other 
functionaries then come to make their reports, 
and receive his orders. At eleven o'clock, the 
fiel del ferho (principal secretary) brings the 
papers which are to be inspected by him, and 
writes from his dictation till noon. At noon 
all the othcers retire, and Dr. Francia sits down 
to table. His dinner, which is extremely 
frugal, he always himself orders. When the 
cook returns from market, she deposits her 
provisions at the door of her master's room; 
the Doctor then comes out, and selects what he 
wishes for himself. After dinner he takes his 
sicsln. On awakening, he drinks his mate, and 
smokes a cigar, with the same precautions as 
in the morning. From this till four or five, he 
occupies himself with business, when the 
escort to attend him on his promenade arrives. 
The barber then enters and dresses his hair, 
while his horse is getting ready. During his 
ride, the Doctor inspects the public works, and 
the barracks, particularly those of the cavalry, 
where he has had a set of apartments prepared 
for his own use. While riding, though sur- 
rounded by his escort, he is armed with a sabre, 
and a pair of double-barrelled pocket-pistols. 
He returns home about nightfall, and sits down 
to study till nine; then he goes to supper, 
which consists of a roast pigeon and a glass 
of wine. If the weather be fine, he again 
walks in the outer colonnade, where he often 
remains till a very late hour. At ten o'clock 
he gives the watchword. On returning into 
the house, he fastens all the doors himself." 

Francia's brother was already mad. Francia 
banished this sister by-and-by, because she had 
employed one of bis grenadiers, one of the 



DR. FRANCIA. 



567 



public government's soldiers, on some errand 
of her own.* Thou lonelj^ Francia ! 

Francia's escort of cavalry used to " strike 
men with the flat of their swords," much more 
assault them with angry epithets, if they 
neglected to salute the Dictator as he rode out. 
Both he and they, moreover, kept a sharp eye 
for assassins ; but never found any, thanks 
perhaps to their watchfulness. Had Francia 
been in Paris ! — At one time, also, there arose 
annoyance in the Dictatorial mind from idle 
crowds gazing about his Government House, 
and his proceedings there. Orders were given 
that all people were to move on, about their 
affairs, straight across this government espla- 
nade ; instructions to the sentry, that if any per- 
son paused to gaze, he was to be peremptorily 
bidden. Move on ! — and if he still did not move, 
to be shot with ball-cartridge. All Paraguay men 
moved on, looking to the ground, swift as pos- 
sible, straight as possible, through those pre- 
carious spaces ; and the affluence of crovi'ds 
thinned itself almost to the verge of solitude. 
One day, after many weeks or months, a human 
figure did loiter, did gaze in the forbidden 
ground : " Move on !" cried the sentry, sharply ; 
— no effect : " Move on !" and again none. 
Alas, the unfortunate human figure was an In- 
dian, did not understand human speech, stood 
merel}'^ gaping interrogatively, — whereupon a 
shot belches forth at him, the whev/ing of 
winged lead; which luckily only whewed, and 
did not hit ! The astonishment of the Indian 
must have been great, his retreat-pace rapid. 
As for Francia he summoned the sentry with 
hardly suppressed rage, " What news, Amigo :'" 
The sentry quoted " your Excellency's order;" 
Francia cannot recollect such an order; com- 
mands now, that at all events such order 
cease. 

It remains still that we say a word, not in 
excuse, which might be difficult, but in ex- 
planation, which is possible enough, of Fran- 
cia's unforgivable insult to human science in the 
person of M. Aime Bonpland. M. Aime Bon- 
pland, friend ofHumboldt, after much botanical 
wandering, did, as all men know, settle himself 
in Entre Rios, an Indian or Jesuit country close 
on Francia, now burnt to ashes by Artigas ; and 
there set up a considerable establishment for 
the improved culture of Paraguay tea. Botany ? 
Why, yes, — and perhaps commerce still more. 
"Botany!" exclaims Francia: "It is shop- 
keeping agriculture, and tends to prove fatal to 
my shop. Who is this extraneous individual? 
Artigas could not give him right to Entre Rios ; 
Entre Rios is at least as much mine as Arti- 
gas's ! Bring him to me !" Next night, or 
next, Paraguay soldiers surround M. Bon- 
pland's tea establishment; gallop M. Bonpland 
over the frontiers, to his appointed village in 
the interior; root out his tea-plants; scatter 
his four hundred Indians, and — we know the 
rest! Hard-hearted Monopoly refusing to 
listen to the channings of Public Opinion or 
Royal-Society presidents, charm they never so 
wisely! M. Bonpland, at full liberty some 
time since, resides still in South America, — 
and is expected by the Robertsons, not alto- 

♦ Rengger. i 



I gether by this Editor, to publish his Narrative, 
i with a due running shriek. 

Francia's treatment of Artigas, his old enemy, 
the bandit and firebrand, reduced now to beg 
shelter of him, was good; humane, even dig- 
nified. Francia refused to see or treat with 
such a person, as he had ever done ; but 
readily granted him a place of residence in the 
interior, and " thirty piastres a month till he 
died." The bandit cultivated fields, did chari- 
table deeds, and passed a life of penitence, for 
his few remaining years. His bandit followers, 
who took to plundering again, says M. Rengger, 
" were instantly seized and shot." 

On the other hand, that anecdote of Francia's 
dying father — requires to be confirmed! It 
seems, the old man, who, as we saw, had long 
since quarrelled with his son, was dying, and 
wished to be reconciled. Francia " was busy ; 
— what was in it 1 — could not come." A second 
still more pressing message arrives: "The 
old father dare not die unless he sees his son; 
fears he shall never enter heaven, if they be not 

reconciled." — " Then let him enter !" said 

Francia; "I will not come!"* If this anec- 
dote be true, it is certainly, of all that are in 
circulation about Dr. Francia, by far the worst. 
If Francia, in that death-hour, could not for- 
give his poor old father, whatsoever he had, or 
could in the murkiest, sultriest imagination be 
conceived to have done against him, then let 
no man forgive Dr. Francia ! But the accuracy 
of public rumour, in regard to a Dictator who 
has executed forty persons, is also a thing that 
can be guessed at. To whom was it, by name 
and surname, that Francia delivered this extra- 
ordinary response? Did the man make, or 
can he now be got to make, affidavit of it, to 
credible articulate-speaking persons resident 
on this earth? If so, let him do it — for the 
sake of the psychological sciences. 

One last fact more. Our lonesome Dictator, 
living among Guachos, had the greatest plea- 
sure, it would seem, in rational conversation, 
— with Robertson, with Rengger, with any 
kind of intelligent human creature, when such 
could be fallen in with, which was rarely. He 
would question you with eagerness about the 
ways of men in foreign places, the properties 
of things unknown to him ; all human interest 
and insight was interesting to him. Only per- 
sons of no understanding being near him for 
most part, he had to content himself with 
silence, a meditative cigar and cup of mate. 
O Francia, though thou hadst to execute forty 
persons, I am not without some pity for thee! 

In this manner, all being yet dark and void 
for European eyes, have we to imagine that 
the man Rodriguez Francia passed, in a re- 
mole, but highly remarkable, not unquestion- 
able or inquestioned manner, across the 
confused theatre of this world. For some 
thirty years, he was all the government his 
native Paraguay could be said to have. For 
some six-and-twenty years he was express 
Sovereign of it; for some three, or some two 
years, a Sovereign with bared sword, stern as 
Rhadamanthus: through all his years, and 

♦Kobprtson. 



CARLYLE'S MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS. 



568 

through all his days, since the beginning of 
him, a Man or Sovereign of iron epergy and 
industry, of great and severe labour. So 
Uved Dictator Francia, and had no rest- and 
only in Eternity any prospect of rest. A li e 
of terrible labour ;-but for the last twenty 
years, V^ Fulgencio plot being o^ce.torn in 
pieces and all now quiet under him, it was a 
Lre equable labour: severe but equable a^ 
that of a hardy draught-steed fitted m his har- 
ness; no longer plunging and champing; but 
pulling steadily,-till he do all his rough miles, 
and get to his still home. 

So dark were the Messrs. Robertson concern- 
ing Francia, they had not been able to learn 



in the least whether, when their book came 
out, he was living or dead. He was hving 
then he is dead now. He is dead, this re- 
markable Francia ; there is po doubt about it : 
have not we and our readers heard pieces of 
his Funeral Sermon 1 He died on the 20th of 
September, 1840, as the Rev. Perez informs 
us • the People crowding round his Govern- 
ment House with much emotion^ nay, "with 
tears " as Perez will have it. Three Excel- 
lencies succeeded him, as some "Directorate, 
-Junta Guhernativar or whatever the name 
of it is, before whom this reverend Perez 
preaches. God preserve them many years. 



THE END. 



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